In the East Midlands , the five police forces – Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire – are collaborating on tackling major crime and serious and organised criminality. This will make it the largest collaboration of its kind in the country, potentially saving the police forces in excess of £26m over a four-year period*.
The creation of a joint Major Crime facility will investigate murder, manslaughter, kidnap with demands and extortion across the East Midlands region and take on other investigations through a central tasking process. It will provide access to a multi-million pound shared asset that will further professionalise the police response to these complex and high profile investigations, will even out the demand for staff across the five counties and more effectively manage threat, risk and harm in each of the five forces.
The facility will be centrally led and co-ordinated but continue to be locally delivered, providing greater capability, enhancing resilience and flexibility for forces to be assisted by their collaborative partners.
The East Midlands Special Operations Unit – Major Crime (EMSOU-MC), as it will be known, will be headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Hough, supported by Detective Superintendent Craig Moore from Leicestershire, who will manage the South Command of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire; Detective Superintendent Stuart Morrison from Lincolnshire, who will manage the East Command of Lincolnshire and Detective Superintendent Paul Cottee from Nottinghamshire, who will manage the North Command of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
At the same time the region will establish a new regionally co-ordinated approach to serious and organised crime. The East Midlands Special Operations Unit – Serious Organised Crime unit (EMSOU-SOC) will be managed by Detective Chief Superintendent Ken Kelly, who is head of the current EMSOU. Again the five forces are collaborating to improve the policing response to tackle the many organised crime groups who are involved in offences such as drugs importation and distribution, armed robbery, money laundering and people trafficking. The new approach will provide a greater response to tackling organised crime that crosses force boundaries and the teams will work closely with partners such as the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Borders Agency.
Bringing force specialist covert investigation teams in line with existing ones at EMSOU will see an improved service across the region. Prior to this, EMSOU targeted organised crime groups who travelled across county boundaries while forces concentrated mainly on the groups operating in or impacting on their area. This move will greatly improve forces ability to tackle this type of criminality at a significantly reduced cost.
Both projects represent an ambitious and significant change and demonstrate the commitment of the five forces to protect communities from the most serious criminal activity. Both the major crime and serious and organised crime elements will be phased in gradually over coming months.
Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon, who holds the crime portfolio for the region, says:
“These collaborative ventures will enhance our ability to tackle the highest level of criminality operating in or impacting on the region. It will allow us to target, disrupt and remove the people who cause most harm in our communities and disregard the law
“The staff and officers who form the new regional functions for both major crime and serious and organised crime will be drawn from existing units in force. This means that staff and officers will already be trained to national standards, as well as bringing local knowledge and sharing experience across all five forces.”
“The fact we are working together in this way demonstrates our commitment to tackle the most serious type of crime. This is not a move to force amalgamations and the five forces will remain to deliver policing for local communities”
Chair of Northamptonshire Police Authority Deirdre Newham, and spokesperson for the East Midlands Police Authorities’ Joint Committee (EMPAJC) says:
"When major and serious and organised crime knows no geographical boundaries it is essential to provide an integrated response throughout the region. Financial savings and the avoidance of duplication of effort can then be coupled with greater efficiencies of co-operative working. Thus, all five Police Authorities regard the creation of these functions as an important step in the continuing aim to provide better and more responsive policing within the East Midland Regionand welcome this significant step forward.”
Detective Chief Inspector Nigel Storey, a Lincolnshire Police officer working as part of the East Midlands Police Collaboration Team says:
“This is a real opportunity for Lincolnshire to benefit from the expertise and resilience of regional resources. It means we can target serious and organised crime across the five Counties and more effectively deal with Major Crime without impacting on front line policing within our County. It’s an efficient and effective pooling of effort, strengthening our response to crime at the highest level whilst safeguarding our capacity to deal with the crimes that really matter to our local communities like anti-social behaviour.”
The collaboration has been managed by the East Midlands Police Collaboration Programme, which oversees a number of projects that are planned to save the five forces £60 million pounds over the next five years. The projects aim to provide better value for money, increase capacity and capability, create greater efficiency and resilience whilst protecting front line services.
* * £26,482,280 in cashable and non-cashable savings over a four-year period (EMSOU-MC/EMSOU-SOC).
**£395,746 in cashable and non-cashable savings over a five-year period (RRU)
