Hertfordshire Constabulary is set to merge more of its back-office functions with neighbouring forces as part of a cost-cutting drive.

Police commissioners and constables from Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which will pave the way for more services to be shared.

Among the departments the forces are looking to share are finance, fleet, estates and facilities, legal services, human resources, professional standards, training, ICT, firearms licensing, custody and crime recording.

The agreement comes a week after Hertfordshire’s police commissioner Cllr David Lloyd said the force has to save £30 million from its budget over the next five years.

Following the agreement, the Conservative said: "Today’s agreement will play a big part in meeting the financial challenges we all face.

"As I outlined in my open letter, published last week, we need to find ways of making some of our centralised operations more efficient so that we can keep putting resources into frontline neighbourhood policing in each of the county’s ten boroughs and districts.

"Working more closely with Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire on ‘back-office’ and other shared functions is one of the ways we can do this and I am delighted to be able to announce progress in this area."

The three forces already share merged units for armed response officers, scientific services unit and a major crime unit responsible for investigating murders, manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnap and extortion.

Despite the new plans for increased co-operation, Mr Lloyd assured residents that functions such as police response and neighbour policing would continue to be done by forces on an individual basis.

Hertfordshire’s Chief Constable, Andy Bliss, also welcomed the new agreement between the forces.

He said: "This agreement will help us in our endeavours to make Hertfordshire an even safer county.

"We have a track record of successful collaboration with Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire and this will help us protect front line policing in the future as much as possible."