Our predecessor Committee highlighted the issues arising from a lack of standardisation and cooperation between the 43 police forces in England and Wales. In the 2013 report on Police Procurement, it noted that despite some efforts by police forces to collaborate with each other, there remained an unacceptable variation in police forces’ approaches to procurement. We recommended that: “The Department should determine where the greatest benefits can be achieved through either standardisation or national procurement approaches and set a clear timeframe for forces to come to agreement on these. Where forces fail to reach an agreement, the Department should be prepared to enforce standard specifications”.33 In response, the Department accepted our recommendation and committed to identifying and engaging with forces on areas where a national procurement approach or standard specifications could be appropriate and help it achieve savings.34