WORKING with other police forces can bring enormous benefits, such as increased resilience and economies of scale. Hertfordshire Constabulary is developing opportunities to collaborate effectively with Bedfordshire and other forces and has already seen some successes.

Hertfordshire's Chief Constable, Frank Whiteley, commented: "The overarching priority is to ensure that opportunities to further improve the service we provide to our communities in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire are seized.

"Both forces have an excellent track record of developing good practice and work is underway to set in place policing arrangements across a range of operational issues that will serve us for the next five to 10 years."

A dedicated joint programme team has been established with the remit of exploring opportunities for further collaborative work between Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and building on recent successes. The team comprises officers and staff from both forces.

Stuart Nagler, Chair of Hertfordshire Police Authority, added: "Not all services are suitable for collaboration, for example neighbourhood policing must retain its very local focus. However, we are taking forward a number of opportunities to collaborate on a range of services, such as scientific support, firearms, counter terrorism and legal specialisms."

A new joint Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit was set up in November 2007 - the first combined unit in the UK. This unit now deals with all major crime across the two counties, providing the necessary resilience and increasing the breadth of knowledge and skills within the unit.

Joint working is not new to Hertfordshire; the Chiltern Air Support Consortium was set up a number of years ago with Thames Valley and Bedfordshire Police. However, with the tight financial constraints that exist now and the need to invest more resources in services, such as serious and organised crime and protecting vulnerable people, the collaboration work has gained momentum in the past 12 months.

Please click here to see the Eastern Region Collaboration Strategy (PDF)