Police chief fears smaller forces could be ‘absorbed’ under UK reforms

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

Chief constables of smaller forces will be worried about a takeover by larger neighbours under the UK Government’s proposed police reforms, a Welsh police chief has said. 

However Chief Constable Mark Hobrough has vowed to do his best to retain the service provided to residents and said he is “passionate” about keeping the identity of Gwent Police and its “strong link” with local communities. 

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, in January, announced the government’s intention to overhaul policing in England and Wales by creating a new National Police Service to fight the most complex crimes and “dramatically reducing” the existing 43 local forces. 

Gwent is the smallest force by geographical area in Wales, and with just 1,549 constables one of the smallest by number of officers among the 43. The chief constable, who was appointed in December 2024, admitted it and other similar forces could be vulnerable when the review begins this summer. 

“I think all chief constables of smaller forces will have shared concerns, like I have, of not being absorbed into greater areas because one of my big priorities is to retain that local link with our communities,” Mr Hobrough said in reply to whether he feared Gwent could be seen as too small. 

“For my term of office, for sure, I’ll be making sure that we do our very best to ensure that service that we give to our Gwent communities is retained. There are obviously concerns people will have, both in the community and within our own workforce, and part of my messaging, is ‘please concentrate on providing that best service we can for the communities of Gwent’.” 

The government has cited changing demands on police as a reason to shake up forces, established in 1964, and Mr Hobrough said as well as back office savings a new model could help better respond to the changing nature of crime, including online, and demands on policing such as public order. 

As the national lead for public order policing Mr Hobrough has seen first-hand that increased demand, including due to protests around hotels housing asylum seekers, that has led to the government proposing a national co-ordinator role for public order policing should sit within the National Police Service.   

From June to October last year there were 3,300 protests across Britain with Mr Hobrough responsible for liaising with forces on “mutual aid” arrangements where officers are sent to support colleagues in other force areas. 

“I was the national lead on immigration and asylum, in the public order role, so there were many protests going on where I had to have the ability to require chief constables to provide officers to deploy elsewhere in the UK.” 

Gwent Police sent officers to London, Essex and the north west of England in response and Mr Hobrough was involved in making sure the demand didn’t fall on the same forces all the time. 

“This is a formalisation of that structure because we’ve seen that now in 2025 for immigration and asylum, we’ve seen in 2024 with the dreadful disorder that followed the tragic incident in Southport, we can reasonably predict, with community cohesion tension right now, that there is the need to facilitate lawful protest always but to do that whereby there is no risks to the public. 

“I think it’s fair to say we can reasonably predict that mobilisation is something that we’re going to have to do on an ongoing basis.” 

All of that comes while also managing demand and calls on Gwent Police’s resources, and Mr Hobrough doesn’t want what he sees as the existing strengths of Gwent Police to be lost as forces face reorganisation. 

“Some of the challenges the biggest, I would say of all, which I feel passionately about, is retaining the identity of Gwent Police and retaining that strong link between a police force that understands and listens to its community, that its community trusts and speaks to about their concerns.” 

He stopped short of saying retaining Gwent Police’s identity equals keeping the force as it currently is: “This is early days and it will be scoped out over time as to what the proposals mean by larger, strategic forces. I think, personally, that the identity of Gwent is essential. Now what that actually looks like, longer term in 10, 20 years I couldn’t tell you.” 

Neither does Mr Harborough believe a larger force will be trialled or piloted in Wales, partly due to the ongoing debate around the devolution of policing despite that having been dismissed by the Home Secretary. 

“There’s been an aspiration that’s been given out by the Home Secretary to have a pathfinder region. It will be interesting to see what that looks like, what region is selected, I’m very confident that won’t be Wales, especially with the Welsh Assembly vote in May. 

“I think, having spoken to the other Welsh chiefs, we’re all keen to look at what we can strategically align, and have strong alliances and relationships with, we’re open minded to what that could look like to benefit our own communities but we all feel passionately about making sure that our people still feel that we’re their police force and we’re there to meet their needs.  

“There will always be, whatever the structure looks like in the future, even if it were to be directed to be, one Wales police force, if it was that, there will always be a need to have local differences.”