North Yorkshire's top cop claimed today her force is on course to become the leading force in England and Wales - at the same time as the police authority chairman explained how it could be merged with neighbouring forces.

Chief Constable Della Cannings was speaking after the release of the latest report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, organised by the Home Office, showed improvements and good work in many area's of her force's work.

But the chairman of North Yorkshire Police Authority, Jane Kenyon, said that despite the surge of success, the "likelihood" was that the force would be forced to merge with a neighbouring force.

Coun Kenyon said that, despite dealing with the flooding disaster of 2000, the Hobson murders and the Great Heck rail crash, the force was not considered big enough to deal with major incidents.

She revealed that the force had identified three options for change.

These are:

A full regional force incorporating North, South and West Yorkshire and Humberside

A merger with West Yorkshire

A merger with South Yorkshire and Humberside.

She said: 'The likelihood is that we will be asked by the Home Secretary to amalgamate with one or more forces in the Yorkshire and Humber region to create a force large enough to tackle these issues.

"If this happens, the public can be assured that we will do all in our power to ensure that the service improvements we have secured will continue to be delivered."

The performance report found the force has improved in 14 categories, including customer service and accessibility, reassurance and volume crime reduction.

It was also graded as "good" in 14 categories, including leadership, performance management and reducing antisocial behaviour and promoting public safety. This compared to only four last year.

As reported in later editions of yesterday's Evening Press, the Police Performance Assessment for 2005, also published yesterday, revealed the force has improved in six of seven categories under scrutiny.

They included reducing crime, promoting safety, providing assistance, citizen focus, resource use and local policing. In the final category, investigating crime, performance was stable.

Ms Cannings said: "The reports confirm the progress North Yorkshire Police(NYP) is making through the efforts of all our staff.

"The baseline assessment report also acknowledges those areas where NYP is working to improve to ensure we become ever closer to being the leading police service. We will build on the success of Operation Delivery with Operation Delivery+ to ensure we continue to improve our performance".

Updated: 10:06 Friday, October 28, 2005