regional collaboration update - West Midlands Police and Crime ...

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Agenda
Item
10
Finance and Resources Committee
26 April 2012
REGIONAL COLLABORATION UPDATE
Report of the Chief Constable
PURPOSE OF REPORT
1. The purpose of this report is to update members on progress between West Midlands
Police and Staffordshire Police in relation to collaborative approaches which have now
been established and future opportunities currently being explored.
BACKGROUND
2. West Midlands Police and Staffordshire Police have been seeking opportunities for
collaborative approaches to specific elements of police services since 2010. Both
forces recognise that collaborating over some services can provide cost and efficiency
savings and an opportunity to provide a higher quality of service to the people in the
force areas which they serve.
COLLABORATION ACHIEVEMENTS
3. Both forces have successfully collaborated on Legal Services which is now a single
department shared between the 2 forces with a main office in Birmingham City Centre
and a hub office in Staffordshire. This approach is expected to result in cost savings of
£50,000 after the first full year of operation in comparison to the cost of both forces
providing these functions independently. Furthermore, the collaborative arrangement
will provide a greater resilience in terms of specialist staff availability and a more
effective service to the courts in Staffordshire and the West Midlands area.
4. West Midlands Police and Staffordshire are also collaborating in the sharing of ICT
senior management. An arrangement has been in place for 1 year where the forces
are sharing senior management staff in ICT.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLOBORATION
5. Both forces are now seeking opportunities to collaborate in other areas including
Uniformed Operations and Criminal Justice.
6. Within Uniformed Operations both forces have broken down their services and
modelling of combined services has taken place with options for future service delivery
produced. Threat and risk assessments have taken place and baseline costings have
been produced. Colleagues in both locations have been consulted on the options for
future service delivery. Options have been evaluated and a preferred option chosen
within each area of business. A full business case will be produced for consideration
by the Joint Committee for West Midlands and Staffordshire Police Authorities on 2 nd
May.
7. The areas which are being reviewed to identify opportunities for collaboratively
providing services within Uniformed Operations include Firearms operations, Firearms
licensing, Dogs, Collision Investigation, Operational Support Units and the vehicle
recovery scheme.

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8. Within Criminal Justice both forces have broken down their services to ensure
that ‘criminal justice’ services are comparable for each force. The modeling of
combined services has taken place to identify a series of options for future
service delivery. These options are currently being evaluated and a preferred
option identified. A full business case detailing the preferred option will be
produced for presentation to the Joint Committee on 2 nd May.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
9. It has been agreed that business cases will be based on savings that can be
achieved by both forces collaborating rather than an individual force on its own.
Business cases will need to include set up and implementation costs, which may
include redundancy where relevant. Each force will meet its own redundancy
costs.
10. The issue of cost sharing is complex given the different relative sizes of the two
forces. This is compounded because each force has been undertaking cost
reduction work separately and therefore has a different starting position in terms
of the cost base and service provided.
11. There is an attraction in having an agreed formula for cost or benefit sharing that
is simple, equitable and able to be applied across a number of collaborative
projects. An outline scheme has been developed based on sharing savings
arising from collaboration in line with each force’s ‘shareholding’ ratio. This is
calculated using the net cost of services and works out at 77% West Midlands,
23% Staffordshire.
12. However, the merits of using a formulaic approach to benefit sharing need to be
considered against a more pragmatic approach where the potential benefits
profile does not easily lend itself to a formula distribution. For example, a saving
resulting from a small number of management posts removed from a structure
would be difficult to allocate on a formula basis, and it may be more sensible to
allow cash savings to ‘lie where they fall’ and focus on the service delivery
benefits instead. Alternatively, if larger cash savings were possible then both
forces would want an equitable distribution and a formula would work well in that
case.
13. Any savings that arise from collaboration arrangements will assist with balancing
the budget in the remaining CSR period.
LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
14. The legal implications within any collaborative approaches under consideration
will be included in the business case produced for each area of business.
EQUALITIES IMPLICATIONS
15. The equalities implications within any collaborative approaches under
consideration will be included in the business case produced for each area of
business.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
16. That the Authority note the content of this report.
Chris Sims
Chief Constable
CONTACT OFFICER
Name: Keith Trivett
Title: Senior Accountant
Tel: (0121) 626 5015 Lloyd House Ext: 7800 2656
Email: k,trivett@west-midlands.pnn.police.uk
BACKGROUND CONTACT DOCUMENTS