Three police forces in the Midlands have today announced their intention to push forward with a strategic alliance to improve value for money and increase efficiency and effectiveness for the public. 

As part of the discussions on how to achieve a better service for the public, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire police forces had considered a feasibility study which looked at partnering with G4S to manage force control rooms.  

While the forces have thanked G4S for the report and contribution to the debate, they have decided not to partner with the private sector at this early stage of their alliance.  

As part of our proposals for Northamptonshire, G4S looked at current performance of the force control room which showed that 14 per cent of 999 calls are unanswered for 10 seconds or more and over 54 per cent of non-emergency calls are unanswered within 30 seconds.

Responding to today's decision, managing director for G4S public services, John Shaw, said:

“Today’s announcement shows that despite the recent funding settlement announcement, which protected police from spending cuts, the pressures on force finances remain and police leaders continue to look at new structures and ways of working to improve performance and efficiency.
 
“Last month, we were asked by the police and crime commissioner for Northamptonshire to develop proposals which would improve their force control room performance and save taxpayers’ money.  Our experience in Lincolnshire shows that this can be done at the same time as improving callers’ satisfaction with the service and so of course we are disappointed not to be taking forward our proposals with Northamptonshire and the other two forces in the strategic alliance.  
 
“There are hard choices ahead for everyone in policing but the debate should be much more nuanced than a simple choice between cops or cuts.  In a world of shrinking budgets where the vast majority of budget is rightly spent on people, we firmly believe that we can help police forces to unlock resources in their support functions to release more money for frontline policing.  We will continue to work with police forces around the country to bring our experience and innovation to bear in helping them meet their funding challenges and delivering an improved service to the public.”

The feasibility study, which was sent to Northamptonshire Police and Crime Commissioner in late November has been published on the G4S website alongside an addendum which was provided in response to additional questions in early December 2015.