EXCLUSIVE By Lucy Adams

Scotland's chief constables have come together to create a new centralised unit dealing with homicides and other major crimes in an attempt to avoid moves to merge the country's forces.

The unit, which is expected to cost more than £200,000 a year and will be based near Edinburgh, will pull together a detailed national database of specialist expertise in areas such as complex homicides, natural disaster and public order.

Although the centre will only have three or four staff, it will be able to put senior investigators in touch with relevant officers across Scotland as and when they are required.

The aim will be to ensure that all eight forces have access to a pool of highly skilled officers to cope with a range of difficult cases or major events, such as the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The idea for the unit came from a review of the eight forces' capacity and capability following discussions in England and Wales about amalgamating forces that had fewer than 4000 officers.

The review, which was conducted by Ian Latimer, chief constable of Northern, looked at the eight forces' ability to deal with a range of issues.

In addition to the new unit, which will be overseen by Lothian and Borders police on a day-to-day basis, The Herald understands that forces including Tayside, Fife and Central are making arrangements to share specialist resources such as mobile firearms response units.

Peter Wilson, chief constable of Fife and spokesman for the crime committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said: "It is about making sure we use our resources to the best possible advantage without duplicating unnecessarily.

"We recognise that we could better co-ordinate the number of people who have certain skills.

"The outcome intended is that the collaborative working of all eight forces will be able to rely on others and to ensure that at any time we have enough specialists trained in Scotland if we need to work across force boundaries."

Chief constables north of the Border have been fighting moves to merge all Scotland's forces into one or amalgamate services.

Paddy Tomkins, Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, has made it clear he would prefer to see one force and the creation of the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) last year led to increasing disquiet about unspoken plans to centralise the forces.

Mr Wilson said: "We believe this will also provide cost savings as it will mean certain forces will not have to train up officers in certain areas. We will still look for expertise from further afield.

"This is not about us becoming parochial. Currently, for example, the expert on prostitute murders would come from Suffolk, but it is about having a way of recording that centrally rather than relying on people's memories.

"This is not just about homicides and is not about smaller forces getting help from bigger forces. It is much broader than that and I think it will evolve in line with usage."

Force heads have become increasingly concerned in recent months about so-called "land-grabbing" by the SPSA, the body set up by the previous administration to offer centralised support services.

Although plans to amalgamate forces in England and Wales were rejected, the idea is still mooted in Scotland from time to time.

Unsolved murders

Scotland has 49 unsolved murders.

Strathclyde police has 31 unsolved homicides which took place a year ago or more.

The most infamous case remains that of Bible John whose three victims - Patricia Docker, Mima McDonald and Helen Puttock - were all from Glasgow.

There are four unsolved murders in Grampian, the oldest being the case of Brenda Page who was killed in Aberdeen in July 1978.

Lothian and Borders has nine unsolved cases. The killings of David McMenigall in 1966 and Helen Kane in 1970 also remain unresolved.

Fife and Tayside constabularies have one outstanding homicide each.