The United Kingdom government has announced plans to establish a new National Police Service (NPS), informally dubbed a ‘‘British FBI,’’ aimed at centralising responsibility for complex and cross-border criminal investigations while allowing local forces to focus on everyday policing.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the reform will bring together existing national functions — including counter-terrorism policing, regional organised crime units, the National Crime Agency, national roads policing and the National Police Air Service — under a single, unified body.

The new service will be headed by a National Police Commissioner, the most senior police figure in the country, and is intended to deploy ‘‘world-class talent’’ and ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ technology to pursue serious offences such as terrorism, organised crime, large-scale fraud, online child abuse and other sophisticated threats that transcend local boundaries.

Mahmood argued that the current policing model, with 43 separate forces in England and Wales, is ‘‘built for a different century’’ and leaves many local forces overstretched when tackling modern criminal networks.

Under the proposals, local police will be relieved of national investigative duties and instead focus on community concerns such as shoplifting, drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood safety.

The NPS will also set national standards and training requirements for officers, coordinate shared technology procurement — including the nationwide rollout of facial recognition systems — and consolidate intelligence across jurisdictions.

Mahood said centralisation will boost efficiency, reduce duplication and ensure that specialist operations benefit from consistent resources and expertise.

The reforms, to be detailed in an upcoming White Paper to Parliament, also include measures to review the number of local forces and consider organisational changes to recruitment and management.

Support for the initiative has been expressed by senior policing figures, including the Metropolitan Police and National Police Chiefs’ Council, who say that adapting to evolving criminal threats requires a modernised national structure.

However, critics have raised concerns about potential centralisation of power, the risk of disconnecting from local communities, and the need to safeguard civil liberties as new capabilities are deployed.

The creation of the NPS marks one of the most significant proposed overhauls of the UK’s policing landscape in decades, seeking to balance local accountability with the demands of addressing increasingly sophisticated national and international crime.

As legislative details are prepared, debate is expected to unfold in Parliament on the structure, oversight and implementation of the ambitious plan.