THREE police forces which have lost a combined £12.3m from their budgets for the coming year have announced plans to work together in key areas, such as major crime.

The North Yorkshire, Cleveland and Durham forces said while they aimed to make savings by working together across organisational boundaries, the main reason for the move was to improve services and their ability to respond to incidents.

Durham Constabulary’s Deputy Chief Constable, Michael Banks, said the Evolve programme would also explore how the forces could maintain some services in the face of a "budgetary challenge".

In the first phase of project, the forces, which have a total budget of £256m for 2015-2016 year, will integrate services in the areas of major crime, response to civil emergencies and disaster victim identification.

Local policing will not be included in the programme.

In the first year, the North Yorkshire force is aiming to save £2m and the Cleveland force £500,000, and both said further savings were possible as the programme develops.

A Durham Constabulary spokesman said its potential savings figures were unavailable.

It remains unclear if the collaboration could lead to job losses in the coming years, which will see an increasing degree of collaboration across other specialist areas of the forces.

A North Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said: "With a general election approaching and a lack of clarity around the future funding position, the forces are not making any decisions around potential reductions in jobs at this point in time.

"The savings will come through efficiencies by working more collaboratively and sharing resources, and there is more opportunity for North Yorkshire Police to take advantage of economies of scale."

Acting Chief Constable for Cleveland Police, Iain Spittal, said the scheme was "a common sense approach to policing in 2015 and beyond".

He added: “The appetite from the three chief constables and police and crime commissioners is such that we have hit the ground running, it’s an exciting and innovative piece of work, but there is still a great deal of work to do."

Julia Mulligan, the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire, said the partnership would be one of a number the force would seek to forge.

She said: “I want the people of North Yorkshire to have the best possible police service, with the best possible value for tax-payers.”