Dorset Police say the costs of working on the abandoned merger with Devon and Cornwall was closer to £250,000 than the £500,000 told to councillors at a meeting in Dorchester.

In response to a question about merger costs, Police and Crime Commissioner Mr Underhill gave the initial figure at a meeting of the Dorset County Council Safeguarding, Overview and Scrutiny committee on Monday.

But he said the real cost of the failed merger had been the loss of more than 100 new front line police officers in Dorset and combined savings of more than £70 million over a ten-year period.

Yesterday, the PCC’s office say the merger cost was £250,000 with the cost split on a 70/30 basis with Devon and Cornwall.

Mr Underhill had said support for the merger was higher in Dorset than in Devon and Cornwall where there was also opposition from councillors.

But he said that despite the decision to stop the merger around 25 per cent of police activity across the three counties was still being shared and much of the co-operation which had started, would continue.

“It was never about money...money was a bonus: It was about improving operational ability and increased resilience,” said Mr Underhill.

A statement from the PCC’s office says “the possibility of a merger of the two forces uniting Devon and Cornwall Police and Dorset Police into a new police force was fully explored between September 2017 and October 2018. A small team coordinated the merger programme, bringing together work from across both forces to produce a Full Business Case (FBC) for the merger.

“It was agreed that, due to the relative sizes of the two police forces, Devon & Cornwall Police would fund 70% of the merger programme and 30% would be funded by Dorset Police.

“The allocated (indicative) budget for the merger programme in 2018/19 was £200,000. The forecast expenditure for the same period is £233,725.

“The strategic alliance was awarded £50,000 Government funding through the Police Transformation Fund for the financial year 2017-2018. This grant was used to fund the outline business case for the proposed merger, and this resulted in a net spend of £12,059 in 2017/18.”

“We would like to state that, although the decision is not to progress with the merger at this time, the work carried out so far has produced a robust Full Business Case (FBC) which sets out the case for the merger and could be used in future discussions. Information within the FBC will now be used to inform and strengthen our existing Alliance arrangements as we look to continue to develop the collaborative work between our two forces.

“The Full Business Case can also be used to inform wider national learning on police collaboration and merger proposals in the future.”