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If we are going to investigate how effective local government has been and the extra pressures to which it has been subjected, we must examine the best-value programme as well. We need to get back some of the figures and reports on that, so that we can compare performances across the different areas of local government.
I agree totally that your second suggestion is the best way forward. Reviews such as the national cultural strategy and the McCrone inquiry have been carried out or commissioned by the Government and we might want to comment on the recommendations of those reviews before they are implemented, or have some input into them.
We are involving all the parties, and the guiding principle is that we are committed to the best policing. That will be the guiding criterion and not whether there are two, three, four, five, six, seven or eight forces.
What remains to be done is to make a judgment about what limit best achieves the correct balance between satisfying public accountability and having a sensible system.