Item 4 on the agenda is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services on working together for safer communities, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Alun Davies, to make the statement.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Next year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 that puts statutory partnership working at the heart of efforts to address community safety issues.

Although the partnership principle of the original Act still holds, today’s social, political, economic and environmental conditions in Wales are clearly very different to those in which community safety partnerships were established in the 1990s. Today’s challenges include a range of new types of crime, including modern slavery and hate crime, the escalating threat from international terrorism, the influence of new psychoactive substances and the effects of cyber-enabled offending.

Public service structures in Wales have evolved since 1998 as a result of devolution, and there have been numerous changes to the primary legislation itself. The Auditor General for Wales's critical report 'Community safety in Wales', published in October 2016, suggested that Welsh community safety partnerships were not as effective as they should be. It highlighted important issues including the complex and confusing policy landscape in which partners now operate, and concerns about leadership and accountability in the delivery of community safety priorities. However, the report doesn’t fully reflect our work to create more sustainable partnership approaches to public services delivery. The recommendations are also unlikely to address the challenges and issues that the auditor general himself identifies.

Building on previous work, we have now undertaken a comprehensive and wide-ranging review of community safety partnership working in Wales. I am confident this will help us further develop the many successes of the Welsh Government’s approach. In partnership with the Youth Justice Board Cymru, we have achieved significant and sustained reductions in the number of first-time entrants to the youth justice system. We have halved the number of fire casualties and fires, including grass fires set deliberately. Welsh police forces have recruited an additional 500 community support officers, paid for by the Welsh Government, while many areas in England are losing these valuable community assets. We have introduced groundbreaking legislation to address violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence and are leading the way with our pioneering work to address modern slavery.

Announcing the nature and scope of the review in March, the former Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, Carl Sargeant, said he wanted the review to be ambitious in its thinking and that the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 gave us an unprecedented opportunity to establish a sustainable approach to safer communities. I am pleased to say that the review has lived up to his hopes, placing the sustainable development principle at the heart of its approach. It has involved the widest possible range of stakeholders, aided by an oversight group with representation from local government, fire and rescue services, police and crime commissioners, the Youth Justice Board Cymru, police chiefs, probation and prison services, the third sector and UK Government departments.

As the review report is being published today, I do not propose to rehearse its conclusions here this afternoon. I will, however, say that I’m very encouraged by the overriding conclusion that, despite the issues and challenges identified by the auditor general, we have much to be proud of and to build upon in establishing a new and shared vision for working together for safer communities. This vision will be achieved through collaborative and integrated multi-agency activity that is evidence based and intelligence led, is supported by appropriate skills and knowledge, is sustainably resourced and matches local needs, engages and involves citizens, takes a preventative approach and intervenes as early as possible, and focuses on long-term improvements and benefits. This is a vision that is underpinned by our Welsh Government ambition to create prosperity for all.

The Welsh Government is therefore committed to a long-term safer communities programme of work in partnership with our devolved and non-devolved partners and stakeholders. The safer communities programme of work will: work with the justice commission for Wales to consider how we can do things differently in Wales and identify options for the development of a distinct Welsh justice system; develop a different relationship and strategic approach with non-devolved community safety partners, which establishes a more effective community safety leadership role for Welsh Government; establish a community safety partnership policy and practice leadership function within the Welsh Government; and, finally, develop new Wales-specific guidance that builds upon the sustainable development principle and the hallmarks of effective partnership. We will consider how to establish a new and inclusive national community safety network for Wales to support future Welsh community safety policy and practice development, and to help to build the appropriate skills and knowledge required. We will explore opportunities for piloting joint thematic inspection arrangements for partnership working around the reducing reoffending theme, and we will consider how to improve community safety funding programmes to secure longer term and more flexible outcomes-focused funding.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I look forward to working with our many partners and stakeholders, both devolved and non-devolved, in leading this programme to help us achieve our ambitions and sustainable vision for safer communities and prosperity for all across Wales. 

Thanks for that statement and you indicate or refer to the auditor general's critical report, 'Community safety in Wales', published last October. When the communities and children Secretary, Carl Sargeant, announced his review of community safety, actually on 7 February, he said he was establishing an oversight group to review the current arrangements, and said it would help to develop a shared vision for safer communities in Wales and also take account of the auditor general's recommendations, and he wanted the review to develop a clear vision for community safety that is for the long term. You do use the words 'long term' in your statement. But how do you respond to the auditor general's recommendation that we needed to improve strategic planning by replacing the existing planning framework with a national strategy supported by regional and local plans; his statement said that we needed to formally create effective community safety boards to replace existing community safety structures; and his statement that we needed to ensure the effective management of the performance of community safety by setting appropriate measures at each level, ensuring performance information covers the work of all relevant agencies and establishing measures to judge inputs, outputs and impact to be able to understand the effects of investment decisions and support oversight and scrutiny?

Previously, I've repeatedly raised concerns—not with you directly, but with other members of the Welsh Government—expressed by the four chief constables and police and crime commissioners in Wales over their inability to access the £2 million they've paid for the apprenticeship levy and their statement that it will result in fewer police officers and in recruits choosing to sign up across the border in English forces instead. When I raised this with the First Minister, he said,

'We have received a share of that and we will use that money to pay for apprenticeships, but we cannot...pay towards...schemes that sit in non-devolved areas.' 

Yet, the Welsh Government received £128 million, which was actually a £8 million extra sum above the reductions in other areas. The office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales told me two weeks ago the situation had been delayed as it was Carl Sargeant who was going to bring together the Westminster and Cardiff Governments' stakeholders. He said that due to the very sad and sensitive events in recent weeks this had not been taken forward and he said it's now for the new Cabinet Secretary to decide whether to continue with the commitment of the previous Cabinet Secretary on this issue. Can you indicate, alongside the welcome work with PCSOs, that the Welsh Government, that you will take up, or are taking up, the work that Carl was taking forward on this area? Whatever the reasons, whatever the whys and wherefores, this must be resolved if we're not going to have a negative impact. 

You refer many times to partnership in different contexts and you refer to the third sector being one of those that has worked in the review group. But how or will you recognise the key role that third sector partners will play in the delivery of community safety as we go forward? A key, direct front-line role is played by drug and alcohol charities in Wales: organisations like the British Red Cross welfare service—I went out with them in Wrexham a few weeks ago; street pastors; organisations like the Wallich dealing with homelessness issues, and so on, without whom the statutory bodies could not deliver alone. 

Finally, in the north Wales context, you'll be aware of many references to the situation in Wrexham town centre, largely driven by synthetic drugs like black mamba and spice. A year ago, here in a debate on substance misuse, I quoted the chair of the north Wales safer communities board who said that too much is being spent on firefighting and not enough on intervention and prevention. He is now the deputy leader and lead member for people, communities, partnership, public protection and community safety in Wrexham, and he says that having learned from their experiences, that council is bringing together a body of professionals working in a way that is now seen as an exemplar. So, what engagement will you have or are you, perhaps, already having with that exemplar to see how you can learn together about ways that might benefit all in the future?

I'm grateful to the Conservative spokesperson for his remarks. I will say at the outset that this is the first opportunity that I've had as Cabinet Secretary to outline my approach and the Government's approach to this area since the statements were made and those commitments undertaken. So, I will, with your patience, Deputy Presiding Officer, seek to outline the approach that I would like to take in delivering on the commitments made by our friend Carl Sargeant. 

I felt at the time, and I do now, that Carl's foresight in establishing a group to look at those long-term issues is now beginning to bear fruit. I think the work of the oversight group over the last year has been demonstrated in the production of a report today, but also in the way that it is taken forward. The criticisms made in the auditor general's report, but also the wider analysis that underpinned those criticisms, I recognise and I welcome the report of the auditor general in shining a light, if you like, on these issues and the way in which he argued for a significant change in the way that we deliver community safety in Wales. I hope that the work of the oversight group and the work that's been undertaken will continue to be undertaken over the coming months in delivering on the vision outlined in the report, which is one that will deliver on both the strategic planning but also on the delivery of those longer term visions. 

And I will answer directly the question he asked me on third sector bodies. We do certainly see and appreciate the value of the third sector, both in delivering the strategy, but also managing and reviewing that strategy as well. We want the third sector to be fully a part of both the development, management and delivery of the overall programme.

In terms of some of the wider issues that the Conservative spokesperson raises, I will say to him that whilst we would probably disagree on some aspects of these different policy imperatives, I hope that we would agree that this is one area where the devolution settlement is most broken. I don't for a moment disagree with the challenges that he's placed upon the record this afternoon, and his challenge to me as a Minister, but I will say to him that many of the issues that we face in terms of community safety and the wider aspects of justice policy are made more difficult, and are more difficult in Wales than in any other part of the United Kingdom, because we do not have the tools available to bring together devolved and non-devolved areas and functions to deliver a holistic and comprehensive response to those challenges. And it is a matter for the United Kingdom Government to demonstrate that their vision for a devolution settlement, which is not supported by the majority in this Chamber or, I believe, a majority in this country, is one that is sustainable, robust and coherent. It is my concern that the current settlement is neither coherent, sustainable nor robust, and it is at this point of policy that it is at its most broken. It would therefore be, I think, an imperative for all of us to demonstrate that we will work within the settlement to deliver at present, but he must recognise as well that it is the failure of the United Kingdom Government to resource the police and also to provide for a constitutional settlement for this country that enables a holistic a broad-ranging and wide-ranging response to the challenges he rightly outlines in his contribution that lies at the heart of many of the issues we're seeking to resolve.

Thank you for this statement and initially, I think, what it shows is the complexity of the arrangements in Wales and that the lines of accountability are clearly divergent. As has been mentioned previously, I think the devolution settlement in this regard is highly convoluted. We see a situation where the police, the police commissioners, the Welsh Government, the health boards, all, in some way, have responsibility or play their part. It's holding them to account when there are those different devolutionary processes that makes it more complex to deliver and for us to scrutinise those services. So, it's always going to be more difficult when we look at the picture as it stands. That's why you would not be surprised to hear us say, as a party, that we need to have a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction and devolution of justice to Wales so that we can come to grips with some of these issues. I hope that's what the Cabinet Secretary means by a 'distinct Welsh justice system', because without all the tools in the box it's very difficult for us to come to sound conclusions. 

What I would say with regard to this particular statement is it should be called an understatement, as it clearly understates the issues that have been raised in both the auditor general's review and the Welsh Government review. I'm struggling to see the solutions to those conclusions that you didn't want to rehearse. Your statement is very fond of using words such as 'develop', 'consider', 'explore' when listing the programmes of work resulting from this review. So, if I may, can I ask for some more meat on the bones about what you are considering?

My first question relates to the review's conclusion that, and I quote:

'There is evidence of structural and resourcing conflicts and confusion posed by an array of both regional and local operational and strategic partnership "footprints" at play within the community safety agenda'.

Can I ask how the programme of work will be clarifying and streamlining these partnerships to tackle these conflicts?

Secondly, the review states, and I quote:

'We also found a confusion of community safety funding streams from multiple governmental sources, with many of grants tied to quite prescriptive and inflexible terms and conditions and requiring significant levels of administrative effort, monitoring and reporting for what are usually comparatively small and short-term sums of money.'

How are you going to tackle this directly, Cabinet Secretary?

Moving on to the third issue that I've got here today, and I quote:

'There is limited evidence of any significant shift in partnership investment toward "invest-to-save" principles, supporting more prevention and early intervention services, with the majority of community safety resources appearing to be directed toward crisis management and "treatment".'

Clearly, in line with other Government priorities, we want to be seeing proactive investment as opposed to this crisis management only. So, do you think that this is an inherent limitation of austerity or do you think it's to do with the fact that we don't have power over all services? I'd like to hear your view.

My final view, I think, on this is I remember speaking to Carl Sargeant about the fact that he was quite passionate about how we integrated services in Swansea. He gave an example of how ambulance services were providing places for people who were intoxicated on a night out to go to get treatment. This was then funded by the police commissioner. He was very keen to see how those services could be better integrated so that the cost could be divvied out and not one service within the Welsh Government would take all the hit from that. That was something that I heard quite clearly from him and I was wondering if that's something you are going to progress too.

I'll start by thanking the Plaid Cymru spokesman for her very warm words at the beginning of her statement. I must say, I think there's probably a fair degree of agreement across the Chamber on these matters.

I will start by answering your final question first, if you don't mind. I certainly do endorse and give a reply that reinforces my commitment to the points that were made by Carl Sargeant. It certainly is my intention to take forward the work and the objectives that he set at that time in the way that he outlined to you. I think the conversation that you repeated between yourself and Carl reflects very well his commitment to many of these issues and that's certainly a commitment that I would seek to undertake and to repeat this afternoon.

In terms of the wider remarks and the questions that you asked on this statement, you began your response, of course, by describing some of the complexities in the current structures that we have available to us. That is a complexity that I sought to outline myself in my answer to Mark Isherwood. And much of that complexity is imposed upon us rather than of our own creation. What I seek to do in this statement this afternoon is to seek to find a way through that complexity by bringing people together, agreeing on what our objectives are and then setting out a very clear work programme that will achieve those objectives.

In answering the Petitions Committee debate on the prison in Baglan last week, I sought there to outline my approach to this area of policy. And, in many ways, you have—. I'm being tempted again, Deputy Presiding Officer, into going perhaps further than my thinking has allowed me to do in the few short weeks I've had this responsibility. But let me say this: I think the work that's been done by the oversight group over the last year, over the last nine months, has been excellent. It's used the auditor general's report as a foundation, but it hasn't been restricted by the auditor general's reports, his findings or his recommendations. It's gone further and sometimes in a different direction to that outlined by the auditor general, and I'm grateful for that tension, if you like, which has delivered what I hope is a reasonable and a well-thought-out policy approach. 

I want to meet the oversight group in the new year in order to understand their thinking along different lines and to understand how we can take forward this work. It is my view that the work that has been undertaken has been groundbreaking in the way it sought to bring together these different areas and different policy fields but also that we need to be able to set some very clear targets for what we want to achieve over the coming years, and it is my intention to do that.

It is also my intention to take forward the work that has begun with the police commissioners. You referred to the work of different police commissioners, and so did Mark Isherwood. They were represented, of course, on the oversight group, and I've been able to meet some police commissioners since my appointment last month. It's my intention to take forward conversations with the police commissioners to ensure that we do have the wider holistic view of policy.

In terms of the overall approach, let me conclude by saying this: I hope that I was clear in answer to a question from Jenny Rathbone last week that I regard youth and female offending as a priority, one where a holistic approach would take the place of previous approaches and one where I would seek to bring together all the devolved services, together with non-devolved services and the Ministry of Justice, in trying to pioneer a different way of working. I believe that is a fundamental tenet of how we approach this area of policy. It is overly complex—I agree with your analysis and your criticism—but for us it isn't sufficient simply to criticise structures. For us, we have to create new structures, new objectives, a clear vision and a means of achieving those ambitions.

Thank you. Gareth Bennett.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thanks to the Minister for today's statement. Community safety is an interesting subject. A generation ago, when I was growing up, there were a lot more children playing in the streets and, in the summertime, in public parks, completely unsupervised by adults. I was probably doing this myself from an early age. I observed a few years later that parents were becoming more and more averse to allowing children to play on the streets due to fears of too much traffic and the impracticalities of too many parked cars, and also in public parks, which was largely due to fear of strangers. The odd thing is that children have increasingly become confined to their homes, and we now discover a few years later that they can also be unsafe in their home environment due to people interacting with them on the internet through social media.

The only solution to this might be to encourage parents to spend more time organising park outings in groups so that there is a safe environment for children to interact with each other in outdoor play. So, I wondered, Minister, when you consider the replacement schemes for Communities First, whether there is room for this kind of scheme enabling safer community play.

Another problem touching on this is that of substance misuse, because drug addicts don't always shoot up in back bedrooms; they sometimes do it in semi-public places, and there have been concerns over needles being left in public places. We've had newspaper reports about this fairly recently in Cardiff's Butetown area and residents in Valleys towns have also complained about this issue. There is a danger of children picking up the needles and inadvertently harming themselves. There have also been calls in some quarters for special areas where drug addicts can safely shoot up, called safe injecting zones. So, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this subject, Minister. Would the safe injecting zones lead to a safer community, in your view, or is this kind of liberal provision only likely to encourage further drug abuse?

This is a pertinent issue, since several of the western states of the USA are now moving towards more liberal drug laws in general. But these moves have divided opinion among policymakers. There is a certain amount of statistical evidence already indicating that, where you do liberalise the drug laws, what you end up with, within a few short years, is simply more drug abusers, meaning more people having to be treated by health professionals, so they do become more of a drain on society.

Now, we're having a debate here in the new year about the medicinal use of cannabis. People taking cannabis for medicinal use is not the same as heroin addicts shooting up with needles, I fully understand that, but the liberalisation of drug policy has to start somewhere, so I suppose people who want to legalise hard drugs may have a good starting point in advocating the medicinal use of cannabis. So, I wondered what are your views on this subject and what are the views of the Welsh Government.

We've had a couple of debates here recently concerning the so-called superprison that you mentioned in your last remarks. I was intrigued to listen to some of the contributions in last week's debate, and to note that most of the people opposing the prison were doing so partly on the grounds that they didn't agree with the concept of superprisons. I thought this was interesting since I wasn't aware that we had legal competence over this aspect of the criminal justice system here in the Assembly. But, of course, some of the people who oppose superprisons may also want us to have legal competence over aspects of the criminal justice system. Bethan, I take it that that is yours and Plaid's position and I also take it, from your remarks, Minister, that that may well be your position. You spoke about the current devolution settlement not being coherent. What is your vision of how things would work if you had all the legal competence over the justice system that you wanted to have?

Thank you. Cabinet Secretary.

I'm not sure where I'm going to start, Deputy Presiding Officer, but let me start with his final question, again—I seem to have fallen into a habit of doing so. My vision is very, very clear: I think that policing should be devolved to the National Assembly, alongside justice policy, within a distinct Welsh legal jurisdiction, which will provide us with the clarity and the ability to both deliver holistic policy approaches and to do so within the structures of a clear devolution settlement where we have clarity of accountability—for this place to be responsible for all of those different policy imperatives and approaches. And let me tell you why: in terms of where we are today, this isn't simply a dry constitutional debate to take place amongst lawyers late at night; this is about how we deliver policy for some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

The UKIP representative spent some time talking about substance misuse and other potentially criminal activity. You do not address those issues with a policing response alone. The one lesson we have learnt, time and time again—and forgotten all too often—is that if we are to address offending at its most basic level then we need to take a far more comprehensive and holistic approach involving social and other services, as well as policing and other enforcement agencies. It is not possible—and I think most people recognise this; whether UKIP do or not, I don't know—to address these issues around community safety and around offending simply using a policing and a prison or a penal policy approach. That certainly is not the view of this Government in the way that we address these issues. So, we do want to see a more holistic approach to a more comprehensive way of delivering safer communities within a justice policy that has rehabilitation at its heart.

I will say this in terms of the original points of the introduction that was made by the UKIP spokesperson this afternoon. One of the passions, if you like, of Carl Sargeant in office was that of creating an environment where children didn't simply grow up, but were nurtured—were nurtured in warm, loving families in communities where they were able to go out and play and grow up feeling safe and secure.

He brought the whole question of ACEs—adverse childhood experiences—into the heart of Government, and I sat round many tables talking with him, as he drove home the importance of childhood and ensuring a safe and happy childhood for children across the whole of this country. At its heart, what we're seeking to do in developing policy on safer communities is to enable all of us to live safe lives where we feel safe in our homes, safe on our streets and where we're able to grow up and to grow old in a community that cares for everyone.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement? I want to take this opportunity to reflect on a couple of my recent experiences in my area, which I think reinforce a number of the points that you've raised in your statement. Can I start by saying—? I'd just like to take a moment, really, to stress that Merthyr Tydfil is not the town that was portrayed in the tv series Valley Cops. I just think anybody that's been in the area for the last few days and seen the community's response to the poor weather conditions—it has shown yet again that this is a town with a big heart that's always ready to go the extra mile for its neighbours when adversity strikes. I think our response to the need for ever safer communities needs to reflect that spirit.

At the core of that work has got to be policing with consent from the community, and a co-operative and responsive partnership approach. As you've already identified, Cabinet Secretary, the co-operation has to be between the community, the police and other partners. And in that spirit of co-operation, each has responsibility and each has a part to play. The community has to take responsibility for reporting crime and disorder, as that is the only way that the police gather evidence for their work, but, in return, communities require effective responses from the police to the intelligence that's shared with them, and that does include a visible presence of police and PCSOs that builds community confidence. But, as you alluded to in your response to Mark Isherwood, even though the Welsh Government has increased the number of PCSOs—unlike England, where they've been cut—a visible presence of police officers is not easy when their numbers have been and continue to be cut, and PCSOs can really only offer limited support.

However, I will give one example of community safety partnership work in my area. I was recently very pleased to see the Gwent police and crime commissioner, Jeff Cuthbert, respond positively to concerns around anti-social behaviour raised by residents in the upper Rumney valley. He called partners together to discuss these issues, and we are now following up with actions based around those concerns. Some of those actions and responses are coming from partners other than police, because working together for safety in communities is clearly a team game, and we're all part of that team. And we need that response from other partners. Some of these issues, for example substance abuse, require intervention and support that are not police focused. Similarly, with mental health, a crime-based response will not be the best solution, but other partners can help. So, I'm interested to know, Cabinet Secretary, how you think we can focus our efforts more effectively to ensure that the local partnership models that we need can deliver safer communities against the backdrop of the many obstacles that your statement acknowledges.

Myself and the Member for Merthyr Tydfil represent very similar communities in the Heads of the Valleys, and I saw her response to the Valley Cops tv programme. I shared many of your frustrations. Sometimes, programme makers' desire to create drama on our screens means that they don't always represent the reality of life in our communities, wherever they happen to be. I think that's certainly a case in point.

Can I say this? I've met with both the police commissioners from South Wales Police and from Gwent Police. I met them last week to discuss this report, but also how we take these matters forward over the coming months and years. I found it very refreshing to hear both police commissioners talking about how they wanted to work alongside their colleagues in Dyfed-Powys and in north Wales, and also seeing themselves as a part of our communities, wanting to work with, across and through some of the barriers that have been created by statute, which affect us all. I felt that it was a very positive example of how police commissioners can actually help act as catalysts themselves to bring together different community groups to deliver community safety within and across all of our communities whereby some of the issues that have been raised by the Member for Merthyr are clearly affecting the lives of too many people at present.

So, I hope that we will be able to continue with the Welsh Government providing a catalyst and leadership, bringing together devolved and non-devolved agencies and organisations to ensure that we have very clear shared vision of how we intend to deliver for our communities, and then to establish—and this is absolutely key, Deputy Presiding Officer, to what I'd like to say this afternoon—is that we need to establish a very clear plan of action so that we will be able to create a tempo whereby we can move forward with pace and with some speed in order to deliver some very real community benefits. I think we've already seen some of that: the groundbreaking work of this Government and the previous Assembly in the violence against women Act has brought together services that couldn't have been done before and without the leadership of the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales. I hope that that has established a template for how we can move forward in the future to deliver a holistic approach to some of the deepest rooted problems we have in our communities, and I'm absolutely convinced that that holistic approach is one that will deliver real benefits for people in Merthyr and elsewhere in the country.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.