All-Wales police plan is unveiled

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The four Welsh police forces have come together to publish a plan covering the whole of the nation for the first time.

The 45-page document sets out how the individual forces can work together to cut costs, and improve policing across the country.

It comes two years after a plan by the Home Office to merge the forces was abandoned.

The forces' police chiefs say closer working has already saved the services about £6m.

Dyfed-Powys chief constable Ian Arundale said: "What we're all convinced of is if we continue to follow initiatives such as that, we should be able to plough fairly large amounts of money into policing.

"Clearly, it is just good common sense."

The four forces already work together on issues such as terrorism, with the Wales Extremism and Counter-Terrorism Branch set up in direct response to the 2005 bombings in London.

The new plan commits the forces to strengthening the role of the branch, as it gathers and shares intelligence across Wales.

The policing plan also sets out how the forces can work to tackle major crime incidents.

At present, the forces accept that large scale investigations into murders and serious incidents can see resources shifted from frontline day-to-day policing duties.

The plan pledges to set up agreements on what they describe as "mutual aid", with training secondments for staff across force borders, and setting up standard conditions of work for all the Welsh major investigation teams.

Equipment

However, the biggest areas of collaborations look set to be in the so-called "back-office" operations, in buying equipment, vehicles and computer systems.

Mr Arundale told BBC Radio Wales: "Wherever we can see a need to purchase for business processes we will all speak together first, and we will try to achieve economies of scale.

"There's a Wales central team - we've got one group of people who are full-time working on collaborative issues.

"So the business of looking at anything that can help us in terms of collaboration just happens on a day-to-day basis."

The plan will also mean closer working on issues such as speed camera partnerships, community safety, and public protection measures.

"What we are going to do, is do everything within our power to make sure the money we get is all spent wisely," added Mr Arundale.

"Really, the test of that is to get the maximum number of people out there - visible in our communities."