Shadow Social Justice Minister and North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has welcomed the Welsh Government’s announced commitment to fund additional Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), emphasising that this is something Welsh Conservatives have long been pushing for.
Responding to today’s Statement by the Minister for Social Justice, ‘Delivery of the Programme for Government commitment to fund additional PCSOs’, Mr Isherwood said “This is an issue with which we are in agreement”, highlighting the support for PCSOs outlined in the 2016 and 2021 Welsh Conservative Manifestos.
He said:
“As our Welsh Conservative Manifesto stated in 2016, we would ‘Support the role of Police Community Support Officers, and work to realise their potential in tackling crime’.
“And as our 2021 Manifesto stated, we would ‘increase funding for Police Community Support Officers each year, and expand the Safer Streets Fund’.
“Will you therefore now acknowledge that the claim made here by the First Minister on the 16th March 2021 that a Welsh Conservative Government would scrap funding for Police Community Support Officers was at best ill-informed, and at worst deliberating misleading?”
In his response, Mr Isherwood also questioned the Minister over support for the UK Government funded ‘Safer Streets’ project.
He said:
“In regard to the Safer Streets fund, in January Sarah Atherton MP welcomed the news that the 'Safer Streets' project in Wrexham was well underway, following the UK Government's awarding of £339,000 to North Wales Police for the project. The 'Safer Streets' Fund is a UK Government initiative that seeks to tackle crime and the most recent round of funding had a specific focus on tackling violence and crime against women and girls.
“Last month, the UK Government announced that £150 million funding will be made available in the fourth round of the Safer Streets Fund, run over the next three financial years for Police and Crime Commissioners and Local Authorities across Wales and England, as well as certain civil society organisations. This is on top of the £70 million already committed by the UK Government to the Safer Streets Fund.
“Given that the Safer Streets Fund is clearly central to the work of PCSOs, how will you encourage and support bids for this from Wales, and ensure that PCSOs are involved in these and in delivery of the programmes that will hopefully result across our communities? And how will you ensure that this reflects cross-border reality, where, for example, the North-West Regional Organized Crime Unit told me that 95% or more of crime in North Wales is local or operates on a cross-border East/West basis?”
Mr Isherwood stated that the Safer Streets Fund builds on the existing measures from the UK Government to keep our streets safe, including: more than 11,000 police officers recruited across England and Wales, as part of the UK Government’s drive to get 20,000 more police officers on the street by 2023.
He added:
“This meant that by last October, 147 Police Officers had been recruited in North Wales since September 2019, bringing the total number of officers up to 1,654 – virtually on a par with the highest headcount on record, not 10 years previously, but 16 years previously - and to 139,908 across Wales and England.
“More than four in 10 of the new Police Officer recruits since April 2020 are female. How, therefore, will you ensure that the PCSOs recruited are representative of the communities they serve, and what discussions have you had with Police Forces in Wales about how the PCSOs are assigned and tasked to complement the work of warranted Police Officers in tackling crime and keeping communities safe?
“Finally, why do you state that you have funded Police Community Support Officers ‘despite not having responsibility for policing’, when the Welsh Government has clear devolved responsibility for community safety, defined as ‘people feeling safe in their local area’, and PCSOs act ‘as a key liaison point between local communities and policing'?”