POLICING WALES?

One of the options within the recently published Stevens report into Policing was the suggestion of a single unified police service for all of Wales as has happened recently in Scotland (in April 2013). There are some merits to this idea, including various economies of scale, potential cost savings and the possibilities of concentrating resources to develop all Wales approaches to drugs, car crime, human trafficking, amongst other things. That said I think that we have however, passed the point where Westminster can simply make and implement decisions about the structure and organisation of policing in Wales let alone decide what our policing priorities are. However, our police services are organised on a fundamental level local accountability of Policing are paramount especially if we are to uphold the public’s confidence in the police service. Welsh police forces are working their way through some significant budget cuts, some of which could have some long term consequences for the way our communities are policed. One consequence of policing and policing priorities being decided by the Ministry of Justice is that of policing resources being pulled from one area of Wales to another resulting in some parts of our country ending up with pretty minimal Police coverage, something that is unacceptable. Whatever the merits or perhaps not, of a single all Wales Police service to one side we need a Policing structure that is fully accountable to our communities needs rather than those of the Ministry of Justice. The old local authority policing committee structures failed to deliver proper accountability. At a very basic level Policing needs to be accountable to the people of Wales, both locally and nationally, so before any future decisions on the shape of Policing in our country are made, control of Policing and Criminal Justice needs to be devolved to Wales.