Public safety will be at risk unless radical measures are taken to deal with funding cuts, Britain's most senior policeman has warned.
Met Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said forces were facing "years of more austerity and shrinking budgets", whoever is in power.
He said police forces in England and Wales should merge and share resources with other emergency services.
Writing in the Guardian, he also said some services should be outsourced.
He said unless police and other public services across England and Wales "act fast" and with "courage" to implement far-reaching reforms, the cuts would endanger public safety.
The Scotland Yard commissioner said local authorities, criminal justice agencies and the police should share support services, and all but core policing functions should be opened up to competition.
He said in urban areas like London police should link more closely with ambulance, fire and other services.
'No respect'Sir Bernard also revisited the idea of police force mergers as a way to save money and develop a "common mission" against cyber crime.
"In England and Wales there are 43 forces. The smallest has 600 officers, the largest, the Met, 32,000. They are based on 1974 local government boundaries and in many cases emergency services are now the only county-wide services," he said.
"Do criminals respect these county boundaries? No, they don't. They seek markets with high population densities to sell drugs and steal property. They pass local and national borders with ease.
"We need to be as flexible and aggressive as they are. We do not need the boundaries that currently mark out the territory of chief constables or police and crime commissioners."
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the idea of merging forces had been abandoned eight years ago.
"Mergers are supported by a number of other senior officers, as well as the Stevens report on policing, which was set up by Labour, but Home Secretary Theresa May is against the move," our correspondent said.
"She believes it'll undermine the police's local identity and accountability."
Last week, the chief constable of Lincolnshire Police said his force could be "unviable" in three years if it had to make further cuts.
Chief Constable Neil Rhodes outlined his concerns in a letter to the home secretary. He said cuts to officer numbers, in response to a reported £10.4m budget shortfall, would mean the force would be unable to police effectively.
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