GOVERNMENT funding has been allocated to North Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner to begin collaboration between police and fire services.

Julia Mulligan has secured £20,000 worth of central government funding following a bid to the Home Office’s Police Innovation Fund.

The fund is designed as an incentive for more collaboration and to encourage police and crime commissioners to make policing more efficient.

In December, Mrs Mulligan and the chairman of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority (NYFRA), John Fort, signed a statement of intent, announcing their plans to collaborate more closely and share support functions.

They said it would make the services more efficient, protect frontline services and support the local economy.

It came after a pilot to provide combined safety services to vulnerable older people across the Dales, which involved joint fire safety and crime prevention visits and joint safety campaigns.

Mrs Mulligan said pooling resources with local fire services as opposed to neighbouring police forces would help support the local economy.

“As other forces across the country are looking at pooling resources with other police forces, we have taken a different approach," she said.

“Centralising policing into ever larger units might save money within the police service, but it completely ignores the opportunities to collaborate more widely and deeply with partners in our own backyards, and to support our local economies.”