In their evidence to the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales, the Police Federation stated, “we had concluded to The Silk Commission on Devolution in Wales that ‘policing could be devolved’, the question of whether or not it “should be devolved” is of course a political issue and decision”.:
They reiterated their “neutral” and evidence-led stance in their briefing for this debate.
In their evidence to the Thomas Commission, the Police Superintendents’ Association stated:
“The Home Office currently support the Police in a wide-ranging capacity; examples of which are leadership, development, transformation, vulnerability, collaboration, intervention, prevention, security, counter terrorism and pay, pensions and conditions.
“Any new arrangement will need to ensure that the Governmental support for policing is not diminished or eroded with a devolved policing structure” – adding “devolution of policing in Wales will be a significant change and it is vital that such a question is considered with a stringent benefits analysis and equally importantly involves the public and all stakeholders in any future redesign options”.
In this context Gwent’s Former Deputy Chief Constable, Mick Giannasi, has written that a change in the nature of Welsh Government’s relationship with the Police service “may ultimately prove to be less productive”.
AND my contacts in both North Wales Police and the region’s Police Federation have repeatedly told me that they have a closer affiliation with north-west England than the rest of Wales, and that there is a lack of competence in Welsh Government to handle the devolution of policing.
With Crime and Justice operating on an East-West axis, North Wales Police share services including regional organised crime, firearms, intelligence, custody, property and forensics with their sister Forces in North West England.
They also expressed concern about any desire in Welsh Government to merge the police forces in Wales.
As they stated, “the geography and current calibrations’ with various English forces makes the concept of an all Wales Police Force very difficult”, adding “to force such a move to satisfy the egos of certain Politicians should be carefully monitored”.
When the Assembly’s Social Justice and Regeneration Committee reviewed the structure of policing in 2005, our report noted that criminal activity does not recognise national or regional boundaries, and that cross-border partnerships must reflect operational reality.
The work of the Assembly sub committee considering the then proposed Welsh Police Merger, of which I was a member, led to Police mergers being aborted across England and Wales. As I said in the February 2006 debate on this, “the police authorities told us that the additional all-Wales annual cost of reorganisation would be up to £57 million, with the Chief Constables saying that it would be even more”.
Comparison is made with Scotland and Northern Ireland, where Policing is a devolved matter but for reasons of geography and history, the situation in Wales is entirely different.
Successive UK Governments retained a commitment to re- devolve policing in Northern Ireland after Direct Rule ended.
48% of people in Wales live within 25 miles of the border with England, and 90% within 50 miles.
In contrast, only 5% of the combined population of Scotland and England lives within 50 miles of the border between those countries.
Despite this, the Thomas report makes only one reference to the key issue of Cross Border Criminality, “in the context of ‘County Lines’? - And the only solution it proposes is ‘joint working across the four Welsh forces in collaboration with other agencies’, without any reference to established joint working with neighbouring partners across the invisible crime and justice border with England.
As I learned when I visited TITAN’, the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit, a collaboration of North Wales Police and 5 North West England Forces:
- all North Wales emergency planning is done with North West England
- 95% or more of crime in North Wales is local or operates on a cross-border East/West basis
- North Wales Police have no significant operations working on an all-Wales basis
- AND that evidence given to the Thomas Commission by the Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners in Wales was largely ignored in the Commission’s Report.
As I said here last month “devolution of Policing would therefore be operational insanity and financial lunacy”.
The call for devolution of policing would deliver the opposite of real devolution – threatening to take more powers from the Welsh regions and to centralise these in Cardiff, giving the Welsh Government power to hire and fire Chief Constables.
Given Labour’s record of creeping and often intimidatory politicisation of devolved public services, this is a chilling proposition.