Speaking at the Association of Chief Police Officers conference, May named Police ICT as a crucial area where collective police decision making is needed.
The police currently spend £1.2bn on ICT per year, it was announced.
Good ICT systems and services were named as vital for modern policing, as ICT supports the police on the front line, through items like portable radios and PDAs.
Also, ICT supports the middle office through things like criminal records databases, intelligence and crime mapping, as well as supporting the back office, through HR, finance, accounting and payroll systems.
Across the police service there are around 5,000 staff, working on over 2,000 ICT systems, across 100 data centres.
May explains that the current approach of each force procuring their services individually pushes up costs for all and means that ICT suppliers have to bid for individual contracts across 43 forces, pushing their bidding costs up.
The new police-led service will free chief constables from having to spend so much time on ICT matters while giving them better systems and better value for their ICT money.
The company is intended to be formed and constituted by spring 2012. Government adviser on policing and criminal justice, Gordon Wasserman, has been asked to lead the work of setting up the new company.
May said: "So the police need to be at the heart of defining what systems and services they need. They must have a fundamental and a controlling interest in the new police ICT company."
"Second – and equally – the company needs to be staffed by ICT professionals. The police are experts at fighting crime and in using ICT to fight crime, but they are not ICT professionals."
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