Item 6 this afternoon is a statement by the Minister for Social Justice on the delivery of the programme for government commitment to fund additional police community support officers, and I call on the Minister, Jane Hutt.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm pleased to be able to update the Senedd on the delivery of the programme for government commitment to fund 600 police community support officers throughout Wales.

On 24 August 2021, I announced an additional £3.7 million of funding for the extra 100 PCSOs across Wales, and this brought the 2021-22 Welsh Government commitment to over £22 million and met our programme for government commitment.

In a launch event for these additional 100 PCSOs, the First Minister and I visited Neath town centre, along with police and crime commissioner Alun Michael. We met a number of PCSOs and spoke about how they engaged with local people in their communities. It provided an opportunity to understand first-hand what it means to be a PCSO and the important part they play within their communities. And as many of you will know, we've funded PCSOs in Wales for over a decade. It originated as part of the programme for government 2011-16, showing our commitment to supporting safe and strong communities in Wales during a period of austerity. We took the decision to address the massive impact austerity had on policing budgets and to ensure additional officers were in place as quickly as possible. We maintained this commitment through our 2016-21 Government programme, continuing with our support for community safety across Wales.

We do this, of course, despite not having responsibility for policing. That means we have to find the funds for this from within budgets not designed for these purposes. It is, though, a sign of our priorities and how things would be different if policing were devolved, as recommended not just by the Thomas commission, but the Silk commission before it. This is a conversation I'm sure we will return to following our planned publication on the future of justice in the coming weeks. You will recall we held a Senedd debate on the devolution of policing on 9 March, and the Senedd voted in support of this motion.

The success of our funding for PCSOs, and the positive impact they make within their communities, illustrates the value of investing in local policing. It also supported our decision to increase their number by 100 within the current programme for government. PCSOs are crucial to a huge variety of work, protecting people and communities across the length and breadth of Wales. They are at the heart of our neighbourhood policing teams, acting as the link between communities and the police services that protect them. They take a problem-solving approach, developing long-term solutions that minimise adverse impacts on local communities. They are additional ears and eyes on the streets, building relationships and strengthening local intelligence.

As well as tackling issues that arise on the ground, PCSOs are a visible presence in communities, providing confidence and pride in our local areas. They often work with the most vulnerable, providing advice and support to the general public about a wide variety of community safety issues, including protection of property and how to recognise and deal with scams. PCSOs across Wales maintain relationships with the community through various initiatives. 'Cuppa with a Copper' engagements are held on a regular basis, capturing the views of local residents and allowing them to meet with officers in a less formal environment. Other successful initiatives include mental health drop-in sessions, old age pensioner groups, community leader meetings and crime prevention seminars with hospitals and care homes. 

PCSOs are also instrumental in engaging with and encouraging young people. Activities range from a diversionary boxing club scheme in Dyfed Powys to delivering the Wales police schools programme. These types of preventative initiatives are a fantastic and effective way to divert young people away from the criminal justice system.

I particularly want to highlight how important PCSOs have been in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last few years have been an unprecedented challenge, putting severe pressure on public services and impacting in fundamental ways on our daily lives. Whilst we've now moved to a predominantly self-regulation approach, at the start of the pandemic, strict public safety rules were brought into place. Finding a constructive way to communicate these rules and ensure they were followed was a challenge of vital importance. Our policing partners, including PCSOs, played an essential role in meeting this challenge and keeping people in Wales safe.

Throughout the pandemic, PCSOs were actively involved in engaging, explaining and encouraging people to comply with the public health rules we put into legislation, delivering vital messaging both on social media and in person. To give just one example, PCSOs held socially distanced meetings in Wrexham to listen to COVID-19 concerns from residents and to provide reassurance and practical safety advice. I'd like to thank our PCSOs for their flexible and pragmatic approach, which has helped to protect lives across Wales during this unprecedented period.   

Our commitment to funding PCSOs is just part of our broader approach to working in partnership with policing colleagues in Wales. We work side by side with our four police chiefs and four police and crime commissioners, recognising the key interface between policing and devolved services on matters such as tackling violence against women and girls, housing, mental health and substance misuse. Until such time as the policing and the criminal justice system is fully devolved to Wales, facilitating the delivery of improved outcomes for the people of this country, we will continue to work with the UK Government as effectively as we might under the current, somewhat less than ideal, arrangements.

But the significant investment made by Welsh Government in PCSOs has allowed forces to provide accessible and familiar faces in communities, helping to build trust, confidence and legitimacy with their local police. This is supported at all levels by our strong partnership arrangements. As a result of that strong partnership and our financial commitment, I am pleased to be able to tell you today that by the end of the 2021-22 financial year, the majority of the 100 PCSOs were in post, making an even bigger difference than before to our streets and communities. 

I would like to extend my thanks to policing partners for supporting this rapid and welcome bolstering of PCSO numbers. I would also like to thank every PCSO working in Wales for the work that they're doing and the impact that they're having on their communities. I'm sure that Senedd Members will wish to do the same.

Conservative spokesperson, Mark Isherwood.

Diolch. Well, this is another issue on which we are in agreement. 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 states, 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 16 March 2021 that a Welsh Conservative Government would scrap funding for police community support officers was at best ill-informed, and at worst deliberately misleading? 

In regard to the safer streets fund, in January, Sarah Atherton MP welcomed the news that the safer streets project in Wrexham was well under way, 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 has a specific focus on tackling violence and crime against women and girls. Last month, the UK Government announced that £150 million of funding will be made available in the fourth round of the safer streets fund, rolling 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. That's 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 would you encourage and support bids for this from Wales and ensure that PCSOs are involved in these bids and in the 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 Wales regional organised crime unit told me that 95 per cent or more of crime in north Wales is local or operates on a cross-border east-west basis?

The safer streets fund builds on 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 drive to get 20,000 more police officers on the streets by 2023, meaning that by last October 147 police officers had been recruited in north Wales since September 2019, bringing the total number up to 1,654, virtually on a par with the highest head count on record, not 10 years previously, but 16 years previously, in 2005, 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 in Wales are also 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 funded police and 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'?

Thank you very much, Mark Isherwood, and good to have your support for what was our pioneering commitment, I have to say, which takes us way back before your commitments, I have to say. It's good to have your support, Mark—I say that with all goodwill today—but it takes us back to 2011, when we, as a Welsh Government, particularly—. Remember 2011, the start of austerity, cuts to the police forces across the UK, and certainly the impact here in Wales? And we said, 'Yes, it isn't devolved, it's not our responsibility, but we are going to fund this new tranche of PCSOs', and to great effect. I'm sure you agree, from your experience and from my statement, that they have been a tremendous asset in terms of our safer communities, and also our will and our spirit to have that local policing engagement.

I do remember quite clearly, from our political debates, over a year ago now, from our election campaigns, that you had been very clear that you didn't want to fund non-devolved services in your budget. Well, we were very clear in our manifesto that we wanted not only to continue to fund PCSOs, but we were going to increase the numbers of PCSOs, and that is what being in government is about—it's actually delivering on a commitment. It's a priority. It's actually now over £22 million additional that we have been providing in order to make that extra commitment. It's important that we recognise that it is a priority that we have to make that choice in terms of the extra 100 PCSOs that we're supporting. So, this is over £22 million just in terms of this 2021-22 commitment for this financial year.

But I will say that the opportunities for partnership working are very clear, and I do support the safer streets fund. I think, particularly, of our close-working relationship. I chair, as you know, alongside the First Minister, the policing partnership board, and the chief constables are reporting on their developments and the work in their police forces, alongside the police and crime commissioners, and the safer streets fund has been particularly important to raise over the past year when we've been looking at the safety of women and girls in the street, and the ways in which that has influenced the kinds of decisions, the kinds of projects that have come forward. So, I'm really pleased, Mark, that you've referred to the safer streets fund, because although that's not our funding, obviously we can work very closely with our police forces and our local authorities. That's why the devolution of policing is so important, because it is actually about what the feedback from the community is, what the feedback from the local authorities is about safer streets and safer communities, and that we should be influencing those budgets and having control of those budgets as well, in terms of, ultimately, taking responsibility, which we want to do, in terms of policing.

I very much support your point about recruitment. Diversity is key to recruitment. And in terms of the responses that we're getting from police forces in the recruitment that they've been undertaking, I think it's proving to be very positive, and we are also seeing that this is very much reflected in terms of the outcomes in the police force on our streets, in terms of PCSOs and the officers that they're working alongside and with. And, of course, many PCSOs then progress into the police forces, and progress in such a way because of their experience at the heart of their communities.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you, Minister, for your statement this afternoon.

Policing is changing rapidly. In recent conversations with senior officers, it's clear that cyber crime, in all its forms, is preoccupying every constabulary throughout the country. New recruits now need to have the IT skills to tackle this growing menace. Having said that, there is still a place for the more traditional forms of policing; patrolling the streets and regular engagement with the community will continue to have a part to play in keeping our streets safe for years to come. This form of policing is particularly reassuring to our older members of our community who speak fondly of seeing bobbies on the beat in years gone by.

Efforts should be made to recruit the new PCSOs from a diverse background to better reflect the communities they operate in. It is a fact that ethnic minorities are under-represented in our police forces. I therefore would like to know more about how the Welsh Government is ensuring that new PCSOs are a microcosm of society at large.

We should not overlook the link between convictions and poverty. This is not to say that poor people commit more crimes, but youth and adult criminal justice systems often punish the poor. Some of our poorest and most vulnerable communities are often over-policed. We know poverty is only going to increase given the cost-of-living crisis, so I'm keen to hear about what poverty reduction initiatives are under consideration to tackle the root cause of why so many young people in deprived communities get into trouble with the police. It has been five years since the closure of Communities First was announced, and we are yet to see an anti-poverty scheme brought in to replace it.

It is a startling anomaly that Wales is still waiting for powers over policing—powers that are already enjoyed by other nations within the UK, and even by Manchester. Wales has had the highest incarceration rate in western Europe, which is compelling evidence that the penal system has failed this country. Behind that statistic many lives have been wrecked, and it has caused untold misery. As I've said previously in the Siambr, the devolution of policing does not just give us the ability to craft a more effective and compassionate justice system; it also has significant material benefits. Devolving justice and policing to Wales would see us receive an additional £25 million to spend on policing and justice—the equivalent of an extra 900 police officers. This would go some way to restoring policing capacity after the drastic cuts made by successive Tory Governments. With that in mind, what is the Government doing to invigorate the campaign to get Westminster to devolve the criminal justice system to Wales? Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch yn fawr, Peredur, and also, as you say, there are so many new skills that our police forces have got to encompass in terms of traditional and new crime, particular cyber crime, which you have highlighted, but also the response, as we've talked about, the local police in the community, community engagement, requires a more traditional on-the-street response and engagement in community groups in the ways that I've described. All over Wales there are such good examples, which they've been so keen to share with us in terms of the impact of the PCSOs as a real force for good—a force for public good and common good.

You make some very important points about the fact that we need more diversity and recognition in our police forces generally. I'm glad that, in our co-operation agreement between the Government and Plaid Cymru, we chose to and we agreed that we should include the criminal justice aspects of the anti-racist action plan. So, we're working on that and I'll be making a statement soon on the way forward with our anti-racist action plan, because there's a recognition that black, Asian and minority ethnic people have over-representation in our criminal justice system, but not enough diversity within the workforce. And I'm pleased that we're working together and looking at that, but very much building on the lived experience of people.

You mentioned, of course, the fact that some of the poorest people are often also at greatest risk, and I recognise that this is something that we need to look at, going back to community safety initiatives and engagement as very important points. But I think, finally, this is about a preventative approach. The PCSOs have developed this preventative, early intervention engagement, which is in terms of deterring offending, but also giving hope and opportunity to, particularly, young people. This is why it should be devolved, as you say, Peredur, because it's all linked to the youth service, it's linked to the schools programme, and it's linked to the ways in which our housing services operate. It all should come together and, when we publish very shortly our justice paper, you will see our commitments in terms of addressing these issues, particularly in terms of making the case very clearly that Lord Thomas made, for the devolution of policing, in that paper.

And finally, Jack Sargeant.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank the Minister for updating the Chamber today? Residents in Alyn and Deeside will be pleased that we will be delivering this commitment from the programme for government. It's very timely, because residents in Connah's Quay in particular are frustrated at the moment due to recent incidents of anti-social behaviour. This behaviour means that, sometimes, they don't feel safe in their own communities. Minister, you will be aware that I've spoken a number of times in this Senedd Chamber about the impact of Tory police cuts. I want to set out the reality and set the record straight here. Let's put this very simply, Minister: there are fewer police officers now than there were in 2010. Residents in Alyn and Deeside will be pleased that the Welsh Labour Government are delivering on their promises. The promise that the Tories made back in 2019 during the election campaign, when Boris Johnson came to Deeside, was for an additional 62 police officers specifically for Deeside; this has simply not happened, Minister. I welcome this statement today. I welcome the commitment from the Welsh Labour Government and their continued support of PCSOs, and the work Andy Dunbobbin is doing as north Wales police and crime commissioner. But can I ask you today, Minister, what assessment you have made and the Welsh Government have made of the impact of Tory police cuts on communities like Connah's Quay?

Thank you very much indeed, Jack Sargeant, and thank you for your long-standing commitment to PCSOs and for representing your constituents, who often are at the sharp end, for many of the reasons that Peredur also commented on in terms of inadequate support and the strong policing that we need to protect those communities. Our PCSOs are vitally important, because they are stepping in. It makes the case, doesn't it, for the devolution of policing, because they are there at the sharp end of intervention, prevention and engagement, and then ensuring that criminal justice is delivered to your constituents in your communities.

Yes, there are fewer police officers than there were in 2010, when austerity started. And yes, also, where are the extra 20,000 police officers in England and Wales? You will recall, and you've commented on it, Operation Uplift. That was the Home Office's scheme to employ those extra 20,000 police officers. I was just checking, and by 2023, police numbers will remain below pre-austerity levels. In 2010, there were 7,369 police officers in Wales; by 2019, it had fallen to 6,898. We lost 471 police officers, and yet still we've only got 302 recruited. What has happened to these extra 20,000 police officers in England and Wales? This is a truly important priority of this Welsh Labour Government. We will progress it with the support that we have here for the devolution of policing and making sure that policing does reach our communities that are at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis brought on by this Tory Government, ensuring that they get the support and safety that they need. 

I thank the Minister.