Hertfordshire’s police and crime commissioner has not ruled out privatising some of the county’s services in the future.

David Lloyd considered using security firm G4S to take on some of the force's back-office roles such as human resources, finance, ICT, procurement and corporate communications back in 2012.

The outsourcing scheme was heavily criticised after G4S failed to provide enough security staff for the London Olympics.

Last month, police commissioners and constables from Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire signed a deal that would pave the way for police services to be shared across the three counties.

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.

Mr Lloyd said: "We’ve been looking at all sorts of areas - HR, ICT, legal, call centres - and we’re looking at all of those things just to see if we can be more efficient because it might turn out to be cheaper to do these things across all three counties."

Many of these services were the same as those Mr Lloyd was considering putting out to tender to G4S.

Yet the county’s crime commissioner has not dismissed outsourcing some of Hertfordshire Constabulary’s back-office jobs in the future.

Mr Lloyd added: "As for other services, now, whether or not we then decide that the best way of providing efficiency is by putting them out to market or we decide we can run them more efficiently in-house, I’m not a dogmatic politician.

"I’m not saying that everything has got to be privatised, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about finding what’s most efficient.

"I want to make sure that the taxpayers’ pound is well spent and if that’s in-house then that’s fine, as long as that the best way we can do it, but I always want to check what it would cost doing it outside because, if it would cost half as much outside, and give us exactly the same service, then that means I can use the money to ensure the people of Hertfordshire are even safer."