7. 5. Statement: Working Together for Safer Communities

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:16 pm on 7 February 2017.

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Photo of Carl Sargeant Carl Sargeant Labour 4:16, 7 February 2017

I thank the Member for her comments. Wales is absolutely leading the way in the way we deal with youth justice. As I said to Mark Isherwood earlier on, the Charlie Taylor review is not helpful in terms of positioning a different opportunity for the UK to take forward, and I think, actually—. The Minister said to me in London, ‘Actually, we could learn something from Wales here’, which was very encouraging. I do hope that he’ll be visiting us soon to see the work that goes on about that multi-agency approach for delivery. We’re seeing the real detail of reducing offending in many of the actions that we are able to deliver on.

We are the only part of the UK with an anti-slavery co-ordinator, appointed two Governments back. He’s done an incredible amount of work in terms of tackling this hidden slavery agenda. We have visits from countries all over the world coming to Wales to look at the work that we are undertaking here, so we are an exemplar in the way that we are dealing with this. I would encourage the other parts of the UK to consider bringing a group of people—anti-slavery co-ordinators in their own jurisdiction—together in order to tackle this as an island. We need to manage this much better, but we are absolutely dealing with this here in Wales.

The community support officers are a very popular pledge that we delivered. There are 500 across Wales, including—British Transport Police have some of the CSOs. All of you could tell me a story about how they are very close to the community and deliver so much good work in our communities. I’ve been out with some of the CSOs on the beat, which is always entertaining. They’re very well connected and long may that continue. It is our policy to continue with this longer term and I know that the finance Secretary is keen to make sure we have the finances to support them too.