We move on to the final debate this afternoon, which is a debate on the police settlement for 2017-18, and I call on Jane Hutt to move the motion—Jane.

Motion NDM6235 Jane Hutt

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Under Section 84H of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, approves the Local Government Finance Report (No. 2) 2017-18 (Final Settlement—Police and Crime Commissioners), which was laid in the Table Office on 1 February 2017.

Motion moved.

Deputy Presiding Officer, on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, I’m today presenting the Assembly for its approval details of the Welsh Government’s contribution to the core revenue funding for four police and crime commissioners—the PCCs in Wales—for 2017-18. Members will be aware that the core funding for the police in Wales is delivered through a three-way arrangement, involving the Home Office, the Welsh Government and council tax. As policing policy and operational matters are non-devolved, the overall funding picture is determined and driven by the Home Office. The established approach to setting and distributing the Welsh Government component has therefore been based on a principle of ensuring consistency and fairness across England and Wales. As outlined in the final police settlement announcement on 1 February, the total unhypothecated revenue support for the police service in Wales for 2017-18 amounts to £350 million. The Welsh Government’s contribution to this amount, through the revenue support grant and redistributed non-domestic rates, is £139 million and it is this funding that you’re being asked to approve today.

As in previous years, the Home Office has decided to overlay its needs-based formula with a floor mechanism. This means that for 2017-18, police and crime commissioners across England and Wales will all receive the same percentage reduction of 1.4 per cent in their core revenue funding, when compared with 2016-17. The Home Office will also provide a top-up grant, totalling £5.9 million, to ensure that both Dyfed-Powys and North Wales police meet the floor level.

Members may recall that, as part of the 2015 spending review, the UK Government committed to provide for the duration of the spending review period cash-backed funding overall for each PCC, compared to 2015-16. The settlement for 2017-18 maintains the planned level of funding, but assumes that PCCs increase their council tax precept by 2 per cent in 2016-17 and would do so again in 2017-18.

Council tax is a devolved matter and it’s the responsibly of PCCs to set their precepts. Police and crime commissioners in Wales have the freedom to make their own decisions about council tax increases and are not subject to the limits that apply in England. Inserting their element of council tax, the Welsh Government expects each PCC to act in a reasonable manner and to take account of the pressures on hard-pressed households.

We appreciate that difficult decisions are necessary in developing plans for the coming years. The Welsh Government is committed to working with PCCs and chief constables to ensure funding reductions are managed in ways that minimise the impact on community safety in Wales. As part of this, the Welsh Government has made provision for a further year of funding for 500 additional community support officers, recruited under the previous programme for government commitment. A sum of £16.8 million is earmarked in the budget for next year for the continued delivery of this commitment. The full complement of officers has been deployed since October 2013 and they’re making a positive contribution to public safety across Wales. A vital part of their role is actively engaging with partners and community organisations to address antisocial behaviour and related criminal activity, but they make a most important contribution to preventative spend, working in partnership with communities and local authorities. The Welsh Government, working in partnership with the four Welsh police forces and British Transport Police, have also introduced this additional resource and are helping to make a real difference to the lives of people in Wales.

Looking ahead to future funding arrangements, the Home Office has recently restarted a review of the police funding formula, following its suspension in 2015, after the discovery of statistical errors in the consultation material. The Welsh Government is engaged in this process and is working closely with Welsh PCCs to ensure that the review takes full account of the perspectives of the Welsh Government and the arrangements of funding policy and policing in Wales.

Deputy Presiding Officer, returning to the purpose of today’s debate, the motion is to agree the local government finance report for police and crime commissioners, which has been laid before the Assembly. If approved, this will allow the commissioners to confirm their budgets for the next financial year. I therefore ask Assembly Members to support this motion today.

The reduction of funding in the police settlement 2017-18 by 1.4 per cent across all forces in Wales and England comes after year upon year of cuts since 2010. We’ve seen real-term reductions of 26 per cent in funding for police forces in Wales. Police forces in Wales have shrunk. In my area, Gwent Police’s workforce has dropped by 14 per cent since 2010. The fractional devolution of policing in which the Welsh Government is responsible for contributing a small proportion of funding to forces in Wales, but does not have the power to set priorities or strategy, is an unsatisfactory compromise. Westminster continues to hold the main levers that determine policy. And it’s disappointing that we’ve seen yet another Wales Bill come and go without the full devolution of powers over policing to this country—still the last country in these islands not to have control over policing. Not only would this finally give Welsh Government the ability to design policy that is responsive to the unique needs of Welsh communities, and also to co-ordinate among other devolved functions, it would also enable better collaboration across sectors.

The devolution of policing would also leave Welsh police forces better off. The UK Government delayed the introduction of a new funding formula for police after a statistical error was discovered that would have left Wales £32 million worse off. A new formula that better reflected Welsh population trends would result in an additional £25 million for Welsh forces. So, the devolution of policing is not just a point of principle or policy pragmatism, but also of financial pragmatism too. That devolution of policing would also protect Welsh police forces from a continuing programme of Westminster cuts, and give Welsh Government the power to set policing priorities that are tailor-made for the needs of Wales.

With the Home Office continuing to overlay its needs-based formula with a floor mechanism, we heard that all police forces in Wales and England will receive the same 1.4 per cent reduction in 2017-18. We note that the three-way police funding settlement in Wales, involving the Home Office, Welsh Government and council tax, follows consultation with the four Welsh police forces, with £349.9 million being allocated to police and crime commissioners in Wales. With the South Wales Police Federation stating last year that the council tax precept gap with the other Welsh forces had now been closed, this will deliver increases in the amount paid towards police services by council taxpayers of 3.79 per cent in North Wales, 3.99 per cent in Gwent, 4 per cent in South Wales, but 6.9 per cent in Dyfed-Powys.

It is reported that this latter figure reflects the preceding funding freeze in Dyfed-Powys, where the outgoing police and crime commissioner stated that he had delivered more officers on rural beats for more time, for less money. Both the Dyfed-Powys Police and Carmarthenshire County Council websites note that the level of crime in Dyfed-Powys is low compared to other force areas, which makes it the safest place in England and Wales. However, the council do add, ‘We must not become complacent’. Although we therefore recognise concern at the size of their precept increase, we therefore also recognise the need to protect the level of services.

Under Labour, our police were bogged down in paperwork. This UK Government has cut red tape and given police just one simple target—to cut crime. As I said last year, crime had fallen by more than 30 per cent since 2010 according to the independent crime survey for England and Wales. Although total police-recorded crime across Wales, excluding fraud, was up 6 per cent in the year ending September 2016, an assessment by the UK Statistics Authority found that police-recorded crime data did not meet the required standard, and are not currently considered a reliable measure. In contrast, it was confirmed in December 2016 that data from the crime survey for England and Wales had retained its national statistics badge. These data showed an estimated 6.2 million incidences of crime in the year ending September 2016, a 6 per cent reduction on the previous year.

In north Wales, 17 extra police officers and an additional six members of staff will be recruited. At a North Wales Police briefing last month, we heard that although they had to deliver further planned savings of £7.3 million up to 2020, the implementation of their efficiency review recommendations would deliver evidence-based resource allocations, improve quality of service and invest £1.2 million in growth pressures. They also highlighted crime survey findings of reduced risk of personal and household crime in the region and increased numbers of special constables, police special volunteers and volunteer police cadets.

The Home Office is reviewing the police funding formula after revised proposals in 2015 were suspended. These would have seen the share of the amount distributed by the formula to the four Welsh police forces falling by 9 per cent, with north Wales receiving 0.88 per cent of the amount distributed to the 43 forces across England and Wales. They now receive 1.03 per cent, with the amount received per head ranked twenty-third out of 43 when the council tax legacy grant is taken into account.

Thanks to Welsh Government policy, over £0.5 billion pounds in council tax legacy grants being provided to police forces in England in 2017-18 will not be available for forces in Wales. I have written to the Home Office emphasising that the police funding formula is too reliant on a small number of measures to reflect the relative needs of the 43 forces and that rural deprivation and adversity must not be ignored.

Although North Wales Police have told us that forces in Wales, as in England, should be able to access the apprenticeship levy through its new digital account, which can then contribute to the College of Policing, the Welsh Government has refused this. The north Wales police and crime commissioner told me this month that this would cost Welsh forces over £2 million annually.

When I challenged the skills Minister over this in committee last week, we were told that the Welsh Government would instead strike up a grant or contract arrangement, but that the commissioners don’t probably know the exact detail of it. That is not good government. North Wales Police also detailed their collaboration with the Merseyside and Cheshire forces, recognising operational reality and reinforcing why police devolution would be bad for Wales.

Thanks, Minister, for the proposed settlement that you’ve brought to the Chamber today. In general, we in UKIP share the general public’s desire to maintain police officer numbers, particularly officers on the beat. This is because we acknowledge that public perception of crime and crime prevention is an important factor in keeping public trust and retaining cohesive communities. So, we welcome visible officer numbers and welcome the commitment to keep an additional 500 PCSOs on the street in Wales. What we need to try to achieve, as far as we can, is to release officers from administration and allow them to be involved in crime prevention and detection.

In the Gwent Police area, there has been a welcome development recently with the creation of a single emergency services station, housing police, fire and ambulance services together in Abertillery. This centre serves the whole of the Blaenau Gwent area. We have discussed co-location in the health service and this may be a good example of co-location in the emergency services. So, in general, we want less spent on administration and more on front-line services. I appreciate that policing is not a devolved matter, so we are limited in how far we can influence these things, as Steffan Lewis outlined earlier, but I do feel that the debate on the devolved policing issue is for another day. In the meantime, we do support today’s police settlement.

Thank you very much and I call on Jane Hutt to reply to the debate. Jane.

Thank you very much. As we’ve outlined in our ‘Taking Wales Forward’ programme for government, community safety is a top priority for this Government. Yes, the settlement is another challenging one for the police and a tougher one than PCCs were expecting. We’re committed to working with PCCs and chief constables to ensure that those reductions are managed in ways that limit the impact on community safety and front-line policing in Wales.

I thank Steffan Lewis for his comments. As police funding isn’t wholly devolved, the overall spending plans for the police in England and Wales are determined and driven by the Home Office. We’ve made clear our support for policing to be devolved and it’s important to put that on record today, because policing is the only emergency service that’s not devolved. If we remedied this, it would enable stronger joint working with the other emergency services in Wales. Gareth Bennett mentioned—[Interruption.]

Could you confirm if that’s the Labour Party’s policy in London as well—the devolution of policing?

What I was going to go on to say is that it was also a recommendation of the Silk commission, which included the Welsh Conservatives as well as all the other parties. But I think it’s important that we do see this from a practical perspective in terms of collaboration. Devolution, of course, of policing would also enable further future legislation affecting police and community safety to be properly tailored to Welsh circumstances, which is the point that Steffan Lewis was making.

I recognise that both Steffan Lewis and Mark Isherwood referred to the funding formula review, and it’s vitally important that the Welsh Government is engaged in this. The Home Office is responsible for the police core grant distribution formula and the implication for distribution that that formula might have and what might arise from that. So, Welsh Government is now represented in the process. In fact, the Cabinet Secretary wrote to the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service to underline the importance, because of the restarting or review of that formula, and so we’re liaising closely on this.

Mark Isherwood also drew attention to the existing funding arrangements in terms of the flexibility that police and crime commissioners have had and that is given in terms of their role and function. But if you look at the situation in Dyfed-Powys, which you drew attention to, the proposed increase in Dyfed-Powys for 2017 follows a reduction and a freeze in the previous two years. So, the new Police and Crime Commissioner for Dyfed-Powys, who was elected last May, is now able to deliver the services for which he is responsible.

I think I would like to thank Gareth Bennett for welcoming the fact that we continue to deploy successfully—and I think, probably, this must be agreed across this Chamber—500 community support officers in Wales, as a result of us, again, as a Welsh Labour Government, deciding that this is a priority, listening to the people on the ground who work with those community support officers, and recognising the part that they play. Back to partnership, again—working together at a local level. And on that basis, and in terms of the role and the power that we have got, limited though it may be, I am glad to commend this settlement to the Assembly.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Object? Okay, thank you. We will defer that item until voting time. Voting time is now at the end of the session, and unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to the vote. Okay, thank you very much.

Voting deferred until voting time.