The politician who oversees Warwickshire Police has acknowledged that the force is a prime candidate for government-planned mergers. 

Warwickshire's Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) Philip Seccombe revealed he, his counterparts and chief constables from other areas had met with Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe – who is leading a review into the structure of police forces in England and Wales – at Warwickshire Police's Leek Wootton headquarters on Thursday. 

It was announced last month that Lord Hogan-Howe has been tasked with finding the best way to create "fewer, larger forces" and through a review that will see him recommend an optimum number.

It is proposed that regional forces will carry out complex investigations such as homicide, drugs and county lines with local policing areas "focused exclusively on the issues that matter most to residents and businesses", including shop theft, drug dealing, phone theft and anti-social behaviour.

In an update to Warwickshire's Police & Crime Panel – a collection of county, district and borough councillors and non-elected co-optees who oversee the work of the PCC – Mr Seccombe said: "I don't think that I learned a lot this morning other than his remit is to reduce the number of police forces.

"I think he listened to everything we all had to say and will think about it but the political instructions from the home secretary are to reduce the number of forces.

"Plainly, being the 43rd largest in a 43-force structure, I think Warwickshire is definitely in scope for doing something, changing our status. We will wait to hear what comes out of that."

Mr Seccombe said he anticipates Lord Hogan-Howe's report coming forward by the summer or autumn of this year with a "seven-to-eight year timeframe" for any potential mergers.

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"That's a long time and a lot can change, particularly politically, so who knows," he added.

"The best thing we can do as Warwickshire Police is to be as professional and efficient as we can be and prepare for all eventualities. That will be my advice."

Chair Sue Gill, one of two non-elected members of the panel, asked whether the reasons for the review were "purely financial" with Mr Seccombe, a long-standing advocate of retaining a stand-alone police force in Warwickshire, laying out a number of concerns. 

"We discussed that this morning," he said.

"Personally, I don't think it is going to save any money. It is probably going to cost money."

Anticipating that "around 80 per cent" of the cost of most forces relates to staff, he added: "If we are going to save big money then there would have to be lots of redundancies and that costs a lot of money, and the payback period isn't always very quick.

"There are also some problems with doing it quickly. For example, a lot of us are on different IT systems, there are different procedures to deal with things.

"Compared with our neighbours, perhaps West Midlands, we have a completely different profile of crime to other areas. It is going to need a lot of thought as to whether it will be beneficial.

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"It is the people who live in your villages and your towns, we have to look after their interests to improve policing, not talking about deckchairs at the top."