History
The force was created on 1 April 1974, because of the Local Government Act 1972 which created the new West Midlands metropolitan county. It was formed by merging the Birmingham City Police, the earlier West Midlands Constabulary, and parts of Staffordshire County and Stoke-on-Trent Constabulary, Warwickshire and Coventry Constabulary and West Mercia Constabulary.
Under proposals announced by the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, on 6 February 2006, West Midlands Police would have merged with Staffordshire Police, West Mercia Constabulary and Warwickshire Constabulary to form a single strategic force for the West Midlands region. This, along with a number of other mergers which would have cut the number of forces in England and Wales from 43 to 24, were abandoned in July 2006 after widespread opposition from police and the public.
Because of the prisons' overcrowding crisis in Birmingham in October 2006 three dozen police cells are to be made available to house inmates in Birmingham to help ease congestion. (By contrast, one contemporary account reported, in 1833, that for days the city gaol had been entirely empty.) Despite a dip in the number of prisoners that month, prisons in the region are close to capacity or already full. Between 32 and 44 cells were set aside at Steelhouse Lane police station, in Birmingham City Centre, in case of emergency. West Midlands Police has an established agreement with HM Prison Service to provide cells in the event they are needed.
In October 2008, the Chief Constable Sir Paul Scott-Lee announced he would not be renewing his contract in May 2009, after seven years in the post. His replacement is Chris Sims.
On taking office, the new Chief Constable announced that the force would be realigned to exist alongside council boundaries, abolishing the operational command units (OCUs) and reforming as Local Policing Units (LPUs). In April 2010, the force reorganised from 21 OCUs into ten new LPUs.
There were also changes to the HQ departments, including the new Local Policing Department, the new Public Protection Department and Central CID (formerly Crime Support).
The aim is to move certain functions from local areas into the central departments - such as dealing with complex or serious crimes, along with finance, IT and administration tasks, so that the local policing units can concentrate on local policing issues.
These changes are also hoped to save around £50m, in order to cope with future pressures in funding.
There is also the long-term aim of reducing the number of Contact Management Centres from 10 (1 each for each LPU) to 1, covering the whole of the force.
Read more about this topic: West Midlands Police
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