Welsh Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Police and Crime Commissioners in Wales, HC 100
Wednesday 8 November 2023
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 8 November 2023.
Members present: Stephen Crabb (Chair); Simon Baynes; Ben Lake; Mr Rob Roberts.
Questions 1 - 45
Witnesses
I: Dafydd Llywelyn, Police and Crime Commissioner for Dyfed-Powys; Eleri Thomas, Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent; Andy Dunbobbin, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales; Alun Michael, Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales
Witnesses: Dafydd Llywelyn, Eleri Thomas, Andy Dunbobbin and Alun Michael.
Q1 Chair: Good morning, bore da. Welcome to this session of the Welsh Affairs Committee. I am very pleased this morning to be joined by Police and Crime Commissioners from across Wales. We are joined by the right hon. Alun Michael, Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales, Dafydd Llywelyn, Police and Crime Commissioner for Dyfed-Powys, Eleri Thomas, Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent, who is standing in for the Police and Crime Commissioner, who is unwell—please pass on our very best to him—and Andy Dunbobbin, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales.
Perhaps I could start the discussion this morning by asking about your perspectives on what the Police and Crime Commissioner role brings to policing in Wales—the added value. I will start with Mr Michael. You have seen the business of policing from all angles. Of course, you were the former Policing Minister in the UK Government back in the late 1990s and you are now Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales. What do you think the role of a Police and Crime Commissioner brings that is different to your experience of how policing was being organised previously?
Alun Michael: Perhaps I can approach it from the perspective of what has happened since 2012, when the first elections took place. The reason that I resigned from Parliament to stand as Police and Crime Commissioner was because I was not sure how it was going to work out. I was one of those who was agnostic as far as the new role was concerned. There were those who were very enthusiastic, like the then Policing Minister, and there were those who were quite in opposition to the idea and defended the old police authority idea. The reason I stood was that I thought it was too important a role to be left to chance and I could not see somebody else coming up who had sufficient experience to try to form the role.
I think the role has developed and influenced the people who have gone into the role, whether from a Conservative background, a Labour background or an independent background. I think the biggest change is that it has moved from being purely, if you like, an organisation—the old police authority, which set the budget, appointed the Chief Constable and held the Chief Constable to account—to being a leader with a team who works on those things. Yes, you still have to set the precept and the budget and appoint the Chief Constable, but it has much more to do with what is the core responsibility of the police. According to Sir Robert Peel, the first responsibility of the police is to prevent crime. Preventing crime and going beyond that to preventing harm I think is the key element of what the Police and Crime Commissioner leads on, in the complementarity of the different roles of the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Chief Constable.
As for what we have seen in Wales, particularly from that first period where we did work together, we did arguably start to look at how we could work in partnership, on community safety, working with local authorities as well as working with Welsh Government and others, but we have also gone to the situation, incrementally over the last three election periods, of working together across Wales, with Police and Crime Commissioners providing leadership within the wider criminal justice setting, as well as the wider setting of intervening early and preventing crime. Prevention and early intervention, and being active in terms of getting things done, with others—there is very little that you can do just on your own, but doing things with others—I think is the way that the role has developed significantly, rather than being the definition in legislation. It is the opportunities that it creates to hold the ring, to invite people to join in and work together that have changed the role. It is completely different to the role I went into 11 years ago.
Chair: That is helpful, thank you—Dafydd.
Dafydd Llywelyn: Just to add to some of the context that Alun has provided and the breadth of experience that Alun has, I think we have benefited in Wales in terms of that wider understanding of the links across, but there are two specific aspects for me. I always describe the role of the Police and Crime Commissioner as a bridge between the community and the police service. The direct engagement with the public that I do as the Police and Crime Commissioner I think is very important. It allows victims and survivors to have a real voice and access into the police service and the wider criminal justice system, which I think wasn’t quite in existence as it is now in previous forms of governance for local policing.
In Wales in particular, where we have worked together, as Alun described, with our partner agencies in the wider criminal justice system, local authorities, the Welsh Local Government Association and the Welsh Government, I think that has afforded us more of a collegiate view, working towards activity that provides a voice for victims and survivors and that engagement with the public. There are only a few steps from the public to decision-makers, in terms of the fulfilling of guidance locally through your police force or those who are making decisions at a government level in Wales, but also here in Westminster.
Q2 Chair: Thank you. Eleri Thomas, you were previously the Deputy Children’s Commissioner for Wales. Having stepped into the role of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent, what is the added value that you feel that the office of commissioner brings to policing in Gwent?
Eleri Thomas: I would absolutely agree with the points made by both Alun and Dafydd. Certainly, I think that the leadership role—bringing the voice of people into policing—is absolutely critical. I think we are also very able to be flexible, to be agile and to work at speed and pace. That is what enthuses me in this role that perhaps I didn’t have as Deputy Children’s Commissioner, which was more about strategic influence. I think our roles are very balanced in terms of leadership, setting vision and being very clear on the direction the public and the profession of policing want police services to go. I think we have a huge role in sparking innovation and in enthusing how we can do things differently. From my context, the difference perhaps relates to working with a very strategic influence, trying to change laws, principles and practice in the Children’s Commissioner, whereas here we do have real opportunities to make a real difference in our communities. We all have community funds and we all put investment into strategic services, but piloting services, innovating and that ability to make real change in quick time is something we all bring to our police force areas and to our communities.
Q3 Chair: Thank you. Mr Dunbobbin, from a north Wales perspective, is there anything else you want to add to what your colleagues have already described in terms of the added value of Police and Crime Commissioners?
Andy Dunbobbin: Just to echo what they said, I am very supportive of that. As you know, I am the new kid on the block in terms of the length of time serving as the Police and Crime Commissioner. But I have found it is not only about the things that Dafydd, Eleri and Alun have said, but about that engagement, getting that local listening, those local voices and bringing them into the international arena. As we have said, those links within Wales are very strong. We pride ourselves on doing things differently in Wales and I think that shines through in the work we did when we set up Policing in Wales and the Criminal Justice Board for Wales—all these things that intrinsically link through devolution and use devolution to its absolute maximum to serve all our communities as well as we can.
Q4 Chair: How much contact do you have with the UK Government Policing Minister?
Andy Dunbobbin: It is quite frequent through the APCC, but only last Friday I was speaking to the Home Secretary as well about how things were going in north Wales and giving a bit of a flavour there.
Q5 Chair: Is it a regular call that you have with the Home Secretary?
Andy Dunbobbin: It is the first one I have had in my time as Police and Crime Commissioner, but I have frequent meetings with the Minister for Social Justice in the Welsh Government, Jane Hutt. That is very frequent, especially while I am—
Q6 Chair: What I am getting at is that as policing, as a function, is non-devolved, I am interested in exploring the line of accountability that runs from the police force on the ground through to yourselves, as Commissioners, back to the UK Government and how that is working in practice.
Andy Dunbobbin: Thank you, Chair. Like I said, I have had one meeting with the Home Secretary. A lot of things do go through the APCC as well, in fairness. Alun is vice-chair of that group.
Chair: That is the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners?
Andy Dunbobbin: The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. There is that link and that will be of particular benefit to us in Wales, with Alun sitting there.
Q7 Chair: Do you see yourselves as a kind of Welsh caucus of Commissioners lobbying for Welsh policing? Is that very much—
Alun Michael: Very much so. As the APCC, we have regular meetings with the Policing Minister. He has spoken regularly at APCC conferences, but he has also attended the Policing Partnership Board for Wales in person in Cardiff a few months ago and so has the Secretary of State for Wales. Although we pride ourselves on doing things differently in Wales, it is not that we have not made the most of contacts with Ministers in the UK Government. Contact is obviously much more regular with colleagues in Wales. That particularly came through during the period of covid because there was a health legislative element—it was Welsh law—and that meant that there was almost daily contact on practicalities for a long period. There is contact and we do make the most of opportunities to put the Welsh dimension to UK Government Ministers.
Q8 Chair: Mr Llywelyn, how would you describe the relationship with UK Ministers?
Dafydd Llywelyn: It is more distant than the access we are afforded to Welsh Government Ministers. That is how I would describe it.
Q9 Chair: Is that not odd, given that policing is a reserved function in the UK Government?
Dafydd Llywelyn: No, I don’t think it is odd. I think it is to be commended from a Welsh Government point of view that we have that access, which does not necessarily need to be afforded to us. I would see that as positive, as opposed to seeing it as a negative from a Westminster perspective. You have to be careful what you wish for in terms of the involvement of Ministers at Westminster, when you have, as I would describe it, the devolved mandate of people locally in the Dyfed-Powys area voting for me as the local Police and Crime Commissioner, albeit we take a steer from Ministers at the Home Office. The Policing Minister, as Alun outlined, is regularly in our meeting structures and providing input to our conferences. We have general meetings every quarter, for example, and very often there will be a ministerial input from various Ministers—not just from the Policing Minister and the Home Secretary herself, but from various Ministers, but it is more at that strategic level.
That is why I would describe it as more of a distant relationship than the one that we have with Welsh Government. That is not to pit both Governments against each other; it is just to make an observation that we are afforded the access to the Welsh Government, which, in my mind, is to be commended and linked to some of the activity that we are doing. A lot of the levers of power of activity that we are involved in—the commissioning of services—are linking into our health services, our local authorities and other partner agencies where Welsh Government have an active role.
Chair: We might come on to that a bit later to explore some of those in detail.
Eleri Thomas: I would take you back to your first question, because I think the role of the Police and Crime Commissioner is to help navigate those relationships with the UK Government and the Welsh Government. I think that is what our role and our function has been—to bring the Governments together. The establishment of the Policing Partnership Board for Wales, with a key role for the Welsh Government and the UK Government in supporting policing in Wales, is vital. I think that is the influence we bring—to say there has to be synergy between the two Governments in order to serve the people of Wales, both in terms of our responsibilities in policing being to the UK Government and working in the devolved context with our devolved partners.
Alun Michael: It is worth remembering that the Chief Constable has operational authority and independence. The Police and Crime Commissioner has electoral authority from the voters, and, of course, both Governments have their respective responsibilities and mandates. But as Eleri says and as Dafydd has indicated, you cannot do policing in isolation from local government and the health service—mental health is a big issue; substance misuse is a massive issue affecting policing—so there has to be the connectivity and it is part of the role to join up the dots.
Chair: I think, Rob, you have a brief question and then Ben Lake, please.
Q10 Mr Rob Roberts: Yes, very quickly, I will just pick up on something Alun said about that bridge, that direct engagement with the community, being the priority. With respect to the esteemed witnesses in the middle, Andy covers about 25% of the land mass of Wales and you cover at least 50% of the land mass of Wales. How difficult is it to get around all those members of the public? We will save the best until last. Andy, how difficult is it to get around the whole of north Wales to do that engagement with people?
Andy Dunbobbin: That is probably where we have come into our own, certainly during my time as commissioner. We have introduced surgeries—I know you will be aware of them and I appreciate you spreading that message out to the electorate. I attend lots of community events, such as the eisteddfod. We have been to the county shows recently as well during the summer months, and we have seen just over 5,000 people attending and coming to speak to us there—speaking with our farming and rural communities, with the FUW and the NFU. I am sure Dafydd, Alun and Eleri will say the same things. It is about getting out and linking in with those communities.
The surgeries have come about in the last 12 months. We have an appointment system: people can come and make an appointment to speak to me and discuss any policing matters. I have one on 20 November in Deeside, near my hometown. They are proving to be very popular. Not only do we have those surgeries, if anybody wants to raise anything, we have frequent engagement on social media channels and get emails as well from members of the public. We also have an added tool in the police and crime panel, which offers the public a view and it holds me to account on how I am performing. There are lots of options where we can have that engagement.
Q11 Chair: Dafydd, you seem to go from just south of Wrexham to Tenby, which is a huge area.
Dafydd Llywelyn: Yes. To drive from the most southern point—the Chair is familiar with these areas in Pembrokeshire—up to the northern point of Welshpool towards the border with north Wales, would take you about three hours in the car. That is the reality. The logistics are difficult—I want to remind the panel that they are the logistics that we are policing. So the policing element is difficult from a logistical point of view and not always afforded, in my opinion—I would say this because I am biased in relation to the area that I police—that element of rurality into our funding formula, but perhaps we will come on to funding in a minute.
Just to come back to the logistics of it, it is challenging on a personal level, but I try to use key stakeholders in the community. Town and community councils and local elected unitary authority county councillors are partners, as far as I am concerned. Earlier in the year, I held seven events across the four counties of the force inviting people to speak to senior leaders from an operational point of view, as well as myself. Just next week, I am doing the reverse, which is to invite them all to police headquarters to have an open-doors event. Again, there is that bridge between the community and the police service, but using key stakeholders. Those key stakeholders from town and community council level through to the unitary authority and elected members, MPs and Senedd Members in Cardiff, are leaders that we can use and leverage on our behalf in the communities. We can use that as an avenue for them to feed in some of that community information and intelligence so that we can try to be dynamic—as Eleri described—and responsive to the issues that communities are highlighting to us.
Mr Rob Roberts: Fabulous. I have inadvertently touched on partnerships, which we were going to cover later on, so I will come back to that in a little bit.
Chair: We will move on. My plea to my colleagues is for concise questions and answers a bit more concise because I am conscious that we have quite a lot to get through in the next hour or so.
Q12 Ben Lake: Thank you, Chair. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am ddod bore 'ma. I am quite interested in learning a bit more about how the different forces in Wales collaborate with each other, but also how they collaborate with forces in England, especially in dealing with regional and national crime threats. I wonder if you might be able to tell me how you would evaluate the extent and effectiveness of collaboration between the forces—both the Welsh way, because we have heard we are proud of doing things in a particular way in Wales, but also that cross-border element. I will ask Mr Michael first.
Alun Michael: I think, on the cross-border element, a lot of it is operational. For instance, next week we will have the summit held by the NPCC and the APCC, which will involve all the Chief Constables across England and Wales, as well as Northern Ireland and Scotland and some of the smaller territories—but primarily England and Wales. That is Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables in a conference on the issues that we regard as important.
Some of those issues have been difficult. Race was a major issue in the conference two years ago and it was a very difficult conference in a variety of ways. That one is a good example, in a way, because across England and Wales we need to tackle racism in policing and to deal with it. Frankly, we have done more and done it faster in Wales because we have taken our own approach, it has to be said, led by the four Commissioners and the four Chief Constables. That has led to very significant work, which has been in parallel to the work on racism by Welsh Government.
That is important because you can’t deal with racism just in policing; it has to be in the whole of the criminal justice system. That is the way it was developed with all the agencies in Wales within the criminal justice system, but in parallel with the methodology for the Welsh Government approach, leading to a One Public Service summit, at which the two plans were on the table. As I say, you can’t deal with an issue like racism in a silo, but the will was there to deal with it effectively. It is also easier in a smaller population and where there is a degree of cohesion between leaders to deal with it in Wales, so we went further and faster. We are doing it in the context of England and Wales, but that does not stop us doing more and doing it faster in Wales. Does that make sense?
Q13 Ben Lake: Yes. A former Metropolitan police commissioner raised some concerns in 2019 about the fragmented nature of police forces across England and Wales, especially with regards to the some of the more pan-UK national threats—you identified racism, but there is also cyber-crime and terrorism. Would it be fair to suggest, from what you have said, that perhaps it is a different situation in England and that the level of co-operation between forces is different?
Alun Michael: It certainly is. It is much less. We had a meeting only last week looking at the challenge of providing firing ranges so that there is proper training for firearms police. There is very little collaboration between forces in England. The three southern Wales forces, purely because of the geography, have done a very significant piece of collaboration. Dafydd chairs the platinum board that brings us all together on that. I could give other examples as well. On some of those major issues, yes, at a sort of strategic policy level, there needs to be a discussion across England and Wales. We need to speak with one voice with UK Ministers and so on. Frankly, we are able to in the practicalities—getting from theory to practice—because of that collaboration between the four of us and our Chief Constables. We are able to go further faster. We have created that environment. I think you have seen the graphic, for instance, that spells out what we are trying to do together across the criminal justice system in Wales. Again, we are hearing people in the Ministry of Justice saying, “Are there some of the things that are being done in Wales that we could replicate across the regions of England?” The answer to that is yes, but it will be more difficult because there isn’t the same cohesion.
I can recall some years ago when there was a significant child murder in Machynlleth and we called on mutual aid from across all policing services in the UK. These are mechanisms that are in place for us to call upon. Our duties as Commissioners are to hold the chief and also, regionally, where we have one, the chief officer lead—for example, in southern Wales at an assistant Chief Constable level—to account around the efficiency and effectiveness of those activities and to look sometimes at the quantum of the funding that is provided to that. My observations are that these connections are strong in Wales and that we have good links and good connections, but of course there is quite a porous border with our English forces. Dyfed-Powys, for example, links across to West Mercia. We have Cheshire not so far away. There is Avon and Somerset, also from Gwent’s perspective, and all of Gloucestershire. We are in local operational connection with all these forces, and we use the Tarian, the organised crime element, to link in with other regional assets across the UK.
I possibly see myself contradicting the Met’s view, and maybe that centric view that the Met always has about anything that happens in London must be accurate and right. Our experience, and my experience in west Wales, is that we have those clear structures in place that we can call upon, because as a small rural force in Dyfed-Powys—relatively speaking, compared to others—we rely on the capacity and capability that comes from elsewhere potentially.
Eleri Thomas: We could also submit further evidence afterwards about the level of collaboration between the Welsh forces and the Welsh PCCs. I don’t want to take up valuable time going into the detail.
Chair: That would be very useful, thank you.
Eleri Thomas: Certainly we can offer that, but I do think we have that very good collaboration with English forces. I would use the example of Operation Soteria, which is very much looking at how we take forward the work around the investigation of rape and getting better outcomes in rape cases. We are, as the four Welsh PCCs and four Welsh forces, working collaboratively with English forces that are part of Operation Soteria. We do things the Welsh way, but we don’t do so in isolation. We want to build relationships, not just with our neighbouring forces, but with forces that are driving innovation forward.
Alun Michael: Could I just add that there is a tendency to think that there needs to be consistency? Consistency means doing everything the same; the question is whether we are doing things better. Where, as with Operation Soteria, there are things that can be learned and improvements that can be spread across all forces, that is a good thing, but there is a tendency on the part of some people—the current chief inspector of constabulary seems to be a bit of this view—that it would be good if everything was done the same everywhere. That is not true of everything. You referred earlier to my period as Policing Minister. During that time, I was the police authority for the Metropolitan police and came to the conclusion that the Metropolitan police is much too big for people to be able to see from the top to the bottom of the organisation.
Q14 Chair: Is that still your view?
Alun Michael: Yes.
Q15 Chair: You would break up the Met?
Alun Michael: I think there is a very big challenge about how you would deal with the Met, but that is certainly—
Q16 Chair: If you say it is too big, what in your view should be its constituent parts?
Alun Michael: The larger the force, the longer the line of responsibility from the chief officer to the people who are doing things on the ground. I think where we benefit—even in South Wales police, which is the largest of the four—is having very good connectivity between the Chief Constable and the chief officer team and the officers who are doing things, whether they are doing them in Swansea, Cardiff or Mercia. The difference between the forces is the size that we have already referred to and also the population numbers—we have 40% of the population of Wales; that is a different sort of challenge—but it is still not impossible to have line of sight from the top to the bottom.
Chair: Sorry, I have cut across Ben’s question. Go ahead, Ben.
Q17 Ben Lake: Finally—I think I know the answers from the responses that I received—there is a lot of collaboration between the different Welsh forces, clearly, and it is good to hear about the co-operation and collaboration with English forces. It has been suggested that you could have a single Welsh force. Mr Michael, we are very grateful for your submission outlining why that might not be a good idea. I know it is a big question to ask for a brief answer to, but what would your initial thoughts be to that proposition? Let us start with Mr Dunbobbin.
Andy Dunbobbin: I think we are all of the same mind—a similar mind, anyway—that it is a natural direction of travel, the way we are going, and certainly what happened during the pandemic has accelerated that. I think it is fair to say that. I would be for the devolution of policing and criminal justice. However, to have one Welsh police force I think would be too much. I think it would take away that localised policing approach from the way we have the four forces in Wales. The more local you can make decisions, we know—evidence would suggest this—that you are going to get a better outcome.
Eleri Thomas: I would agree that having the four forces ensures that local connectivity and that the focus is very much on delivering the force for the community. But absolutely, it is about maximising the opportunity of collaboration and partnership wherever possible.
Dafydd Llywelyn: There is a danger in thinking about the single force—certainly, from the perspective of a police commissioner that serves a very rural community—that we could see resources being pulled to the more urban areas, so we are always a bit guarded about that.
However, I sort of agree with Andy’s point. For me, it is an incremental discussion that needs to take place. The first step on that—for me, on a personal level—would be to see criminal justice and policing devolved to the Welsh Government. That is my view. That is the first step, and further on from there, you would decide and dictate what the operational model may be. It might be that we feel we need more than four forces or that we could rationalise it, whether it be to one force, two forces and so on—whatever the model may be. That work has not been done, in my opinion.
The other thing that is important is the systems and back-office functions and facilities that underpin the forces. What people do not realise—certainly, members of the public—is that police forces very often have different computer systems, different HR systems and different finance systems. A lot of work needs to be done to try to rationalise and pull those systems and processes together. From there, efficiencies could naturally happen without having to fundamentally change the structure of the force. I am a little bit sitting on the fence—apologies—in relation to the final outcome, but I am very clear on the first step in that incremental journey.
Q18 Ben Lake: I think there is unanimity among the panel—but Mr Michael?
Alun Michael: Very simply—because I have submitted a note in which I go into the detail—I would quote Tom Winsor, the former chief inspector of constabulary, who said there is nothing that can be achieved by merger that cannot be achieved by collaboration. We have demonstrated a talent for collaboration in Wales, not just between the forces but with others, including local government. It would be very difficult to do that collaboration on an all-Wales basis rather than based on the rurality, the more urban, the valleys, communities, and so on.
The second thing is that I look at it from the point of view of a Minister in the Welsh Government. If there was devolution of policing, do you want that to be a relationship between one Minister and one Chief Constable, rather than four Chief Constables? The discussion now is with Welsh Government Ministers and Ministers in the UK Government, because there are four voices, and we can represent the different needs of different areas. Why would you throw that away?
Ben Lake: Thank you very much.
Q19 Chair: Before I bring in Simon Baynes, Mr Llywelyn, you just mentioned that there are often different computer systems and different finance systems. Do the four forces in Wales have different finance and computer systems?
Dafydd Llywelyn: I am not certain about the finance systems but, for example, Dyfed-Powys has just transitioned to a new record management system for our instant data, which is now consistent with the other three forces. It is only this year that that transition is taking place and we have joined a consortium of forces, which includes North Wales and the north-west of England. Gwent and South Wales have their own consortium on a particular platform. There will be different systems and different software platforms in existence across the forces. From a collaborative point of view, work is being done to try to improve that position, to try to streamline and to try to make that ultimately more efficient and effective from a public purse perspective.
Q20 Chair: Yes, absolutely. Mr Michael previously referenced Operation Tarian and the firearms collaboration. All of you in different ways have already referenced resource constraints in some of your answers. Surely there is something to be gained from working much more closely on some of these back-office systems where savings can be made. What I am hearing is very good, very strong rhetoric about collaboration. However, if we are still only now getting around to actually trying to make computer systems talk to each other and have some harmonised finance systems, isn’t there a long way to go?
Alun Michael: Successful collaboration needs a lot of hard work. I will give you an example of an unsuccessful pulling of things together, which is the National Police Air Service. We had a very good collaboration in that case between South Wales and Gwent, which we were forced by the Home Office to abandon to go into the National Police Air Service, costing more, being far less efficient and turning out to be a long-term disaster over a number of years.
There are lots of examples of collaboration where you look at the arrangements and you say, “Well, is it different from north Wales because of the geography? Is it different from Dyfed-Powys because of the different nature of the areas being covered? You have to get into the detail of why you are collaborating and whether it will work, rather than just saying, “Collaboration is an instant solution”. It isn’t.
Q21 Simon Baynes: Thank you, all four of you, as the Chair said, for taking the trouble to come to see us in person, which is much appreciated.
My question was going to be about working between the Welsh and UK Governments, but I think we have effectively covered that, so I want to ask you about two issues. One is on the political side of things, in the sense that, if my memory serves me correctly, when the Police and Crime Commissioner role was set up by the Cameron-Clegg Government, I have to say there was a degree of cynicism from the Opposition parties. Now I completely respect that Mr Michael went for it wholeheartedly, but I remember that well from my involvement in politics then. My perception, from listening to you and otherwise, is that there is now a consensus that the role is here to stay. That is my first question—just to double-check that this is, from all political parties, a role that will stay.
Secondly, interconnected with that—again, if I am correct in saying this—the timing of the elections is now completely out of sync. For a variety of reasons, we now have different years for the Senedd, local authority and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Do you think there is an argument for trying to bring those more together? That is difficult because I accept that this a reserved matter, but it does strike me that it would be an improvement if we could go back to where were, which was that the local authority and the Police and Crime Commissioner elections were in the same year. I think I am right in saying that.
Finally, could you say how much crime has fallen in your areas since the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners? I think the figure that the UK Government use across the whole of the UK is a 56% reduction in crime since 2010. That covers all categories. You can be very brief in your answers because I know the Chair wants to move things on. Let us start with Mr Llywelyn.
Dafydd Llywelyn: Yes. I am trying to recall—I think there were three main questions. On the one in relation to the timing of the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, you have to understand that we are based on a fixed four-year term of office. There was a shift in that because of covid where we were given an additional fifth year, but that was curtailed to three years in this term, most recently. We are always on that sort of schedule and timetable for a four-year fixed term. For example, the Senedd in Cardiff is a five-year term, so that is always going to be out of sync.
Simon Baynes: I get that, yes.
Dafydd Llywelyn: The same is true to a degree in Westminster. Do I think it is better that they coincide? I think in terms of turnout it does work better, because if you look at the last two elections for Police and Crime Commissioners, particularly in Wales, we had over 50% turnout for both, whereas for the stand-alone election in 2012, the turnout in the Powys area, for example, was below 20%. Therefore, I would advocate for some synergy in the timing of the election.
In terms of the role, I would perhaps refer to my answer in relation to the single Welsh force—that it is an incremental decision around the governance structure that you have for policing in Wales. If you link it to a further widening of devolution, where policing and criminal justice—
Q22 Simon Baynes: Sorry, my question is a very simple one: is the role here to stay, given the cynicism that surrounded it when it was first brought in?
Dafydd Llywelyn: Well, unless there is any primary legislation to withdraw the role, yes, it is here to stay.
Simon Baynes: Good. That is fine.
Dafydd Llywelyn: From a party political point of view, if the role is here to stay, I think all parties have now shown themselves, certainly in Wales, to put candidates up in all of the areas—
Q23 Simon Baynes: That is great. It is just simple. Finally, how much has crime come down in your area?
Dafydd Llywelyn: It depends on what you use as an indicator for crime, because recorded crime by my police force has increased during my term in office because of better ethical crime recording standards. The HMIC has been very keen to see us having greater crime data integrity, as it describes, of above 95% of our incidents being, in effect, screened at that first point of contact.
We have seen a significant increase in the number of recorded crimes. I think the data that you quoted from a comparison with 2010 would be using the crime survey for England and Wales, which many academics would describe as a better, truer reflection. The sample size for having a force level breakdown is very difficult to see in that nature.
What has also happened over time is that the crime survey in England and Wales and the recorded crime levels from each force have grown closer together, so it is a truer and more accurate picture now from the recorded crime levels in force, but my experience is that crime levels are increasing. We now have new crimes—coercive control and behaviour, stalking and harassment, malicious online communications. These are things that have developed, and we have seen incremental increases in those crime types across my force area, for example.
Simon Baynes: Thank you. Mr Michael.
Alun Michael: First, is the role here to stay? Yes, in my view, because there has to be a good reason for changing it and I do not think there is. I think the role continues to develop positively. Oddly, it does seem to be an endangered species in England, because of the incremental increase in the number of Mayors and, therefore, deputy Mayors. The deputy Mayor may fulfil the same function but is not an elected representative, and I think that is important.
I remember my Chief Constable, very early on when I said something that I thought he would not particularly want to hear, said, “I have to give that real consideration because you are elected.” I thought, “Well, that is showing more respect to the elected office than perhaps I dared hope for”, so the election bit is important. It is a very odd picture across England and Wales now. Having said that, I think the functions and the accountability remain important.
Secondly, regarding the election period, I would agree with Dafydd. I think the fact that it is wandering around in a separate time zone, which started with the first elections being in November, for crying out loud—it is not surprising that there was a very low turnout there. Aligning it with one of the other electoral cycles—probably I would suggest the Senedd one because then there is a synergy between people that will be working together, but it could be the local government one; that would work as well—I think would be an improvement.
As far as crime falling is concerned, I agree with everything that Dafydd said, but I would add that the test for me is on specific areas of crime. Have you been able to make an impact on the things that really matter rather than the overall figure?
If I can just take one example, Dyfodol is our treatment service in south Wales for substance misusers. We have joined up the dots, so that the same service is provided, not only jointly with the probation service to probation clients and in the police custody suites but to prisoners in the three prisons in south Wales. It is also provided to prisoners wherever they come out of prison for a year after they come out of prison in south Wales. It is a seamless service.
We have discovered that we are an outlier for reduction in acquisitive crime. Not surprisingly, when the Policing Minister made a comment that there is a real problem that only one third of people who come out of prison on a drug treatment programme continue in that drug treatment programme—only 30% across England and Wales continue in the programme—I asked the question: well, what is our figure? It is nearly 80%. That is because it is a seamless service.
So there are things you can do that can affect the reduction of harm and can also affect the crime figures. That is where the reduction in acquisitive crime figures comes out. I am more interested in those targeted outcomes than in the overall figures, if you see what I mean.
Simon Baynes: Okay. Ms Thomas.
Eleri Thomas: Absolutely. I do not want to repeat what colleagues have said. I think the role is very much here to stay. I absolutely concur in terms of the synergy of election timetabling, but I do think there is a role that the Committee might want to consider around resources for all candidates in elections and how we can ensure that candidates from all parties, who are putting themselves forward in elections, have a way of being able to communicate with the electorate. Making sure that there is a minimum resource for all candidates I think is really important in terms of profiling the role.
In terms of reporting, again, I want to reiterate what colleagues have said but, also, I reiterate our absolute commitment to increase reporting of crime that perhaps have potentially been under-reported. I particularly think of that in terms of violence against women and girls. So while we absolutely want to see rates of offending against women and girls decreasing, we want to ensure that victims have the confidence to report. That might mean that we will see increases in crime, but that is a deliberate action that we want to see.
Simon Baynes: Thank you. Mr Dunbobbin—you are allowed to say, “Ditto”.
Andy Dunbobbin: Yes, thank you. I do not want to sound like I am regurgitating the record here but just to echo what has already been said, I think we should also think of it more fiscally—that there is more of a fiscal benefit as well with the introduction of the police Commissioners. They are cheaper. It is a cheaper model of delivering that scrutiny of police forcing.
It is a better model as well, where I am accountable through the ballot as well as through other governance in place with the police and crime panel, because it scrutinises me. So I think the governance is really strong. I hold the Chief Constable to account. We all do that. The police and crime panel holds us to account, and the public hold the four of us to account when it comes to the ballot box as well.
Regarding crime, my simple message in north Wales is that crime is down, performance is up. Crime is down around 13% and, with performance, we are looking at between a 3% to 5% improvement on year-to-date figures. I know that will be particularly interesting to you, Mr Baynes, from a fellow north Walian.
Simon Baynes: Yes, lovely. Thank you very much.
Q24 Mr Rob Roberts: Good morning and thank you. I want to follow on a little bit from things that Simon said about what changed in 2021-22 when there was a review by the Home Secretary—at that point, Priti Patel. She said they wanted to make it easier for the public to hold their PCC to account for the record on delivering the safer streets that they deserve. Part of that meant changing the voting system to first-past-the-post, which, interestingly—I just did a bit of research—would have meant that half of our panel would not be here, had the last one been on a first-past-the-post system.
Do we think that the changes that were made in 2021-22 were correct or maybe a hindrance to your role in the future? As you are tail-end Charlie most of the time, Andy, you can go first this time.
Andy Dunbobbin: Thanks, Rob. I have no problem with whatever voting system the Government at the time choose to use. I do think it would be easier for the public to understand the first-past-the-post system because of how long it has been in practice. I know that had that been the case I would not be sitting here in front of you this morning. However, I think it would be easier for people to understand. If you make things easier for the public to understand, I think that is healthy for democracy as well, so I have no problem with that.
Q25 Mr Rob Roberts: Do you think that the role as it as it stands should be an elected political role, and should party affiliations have anything to do with your role whatsoever?
Dafydd Llywelyn: Just to come in in relation to the—sorry, was that intended for Andy? I just want to say that we swear an oath of office, so the party affiliation ends on that first—well, the affiliation still stands but, in terms of our actions, I do not think there are many examples, certainly in Wales, where that party political activity has overstepped the mark. We swear an oath of office across all of our communities, regardless of representation.
Just to come back in relation to proportional representation of any form, the second-vote element was somewhat of an unknown and perhaps was confusing for the electorate, hence the reason there was a significant number of spoiled votes. As an individual who benefited from being a first-past-the-post winner in 2016 and then the second-vote winner in 2021, I recall, I think that a greater level of proportional representation would be valuable.
On a personal level, from an ideological point of view, I believe that for other elections as well, not just the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, because they are more representative of the electorate. The first-past-the-post for me is too binary and is too focused on just, in effect, one view of the world in that sense. I would be advocating for proportional representation, and I would have preferred it if the change had not happened in that sense, yes.
Alun Michael: It is very difficult because the problem was that it is a system that nobody understood. People were asking, even in the count, “Hang on, how does this work exactly?” It introduced confusion, even though there was the intention of introducing a bit of balance. You do not always get what you intend.
You asked the question of whether it is a politically elected office—I think it has to be. Take politics out of it and you take out aspiration—you take principles out. We have to stand for something. So I would say that the oversight of policing needs to be connected with the values of society, with things like social justice, tackling racism and all that, and it is only right we should know where the elected individual stands on those sorts of issues.
However, as Dafydd said, we swear an oath of office, and also, in a democracy, people have respect for the other people who are standing for other parties. That sometimes gets lost, and the police have to be the police of the public, not the police of the state. The Police and Crime Commissioner, who is the elected representative, has to represent that. The political engagement is purely a question of accountability to the electorate, not about being exclusively of one political view.
Q26 Mr Rob Roberts: Appreciating that point, there are 40 of us MPs across Wales and there are four of you PCCs, so would you agree that it is much easier, is it not, for the electorate to know us as individuals because we are in constituencies of smaller areas, and it is much more difficult for them to know you as people? It is much more likely, when there are party politics involved, that someone will just turn up to the ballot box and tick the Labour box or the Conservative box, as per their preference, rather than knowing who you are as an individual. Isn’t that a problem?
Alun Michael: It is a problem in all elections, isn’t it? I represented a significant number of people in a large ward in the east of Cardiff. I represented a constituency, Cardiff South and Penarth, for 25 years. I briefly represented an Assembly constituency that covers most of Dyfed-Powys. I now represent the 16 constituencies that make up the South Wales police area. Frankly, the question of connectivity to a large number of people is the same at every one of those levels. It is an issue of democracy—how do you manage it? You do your best; you do the sort of engagement that colleagues have mentioned earlier. We all do a lot of that. It is probably invisible to most of our electorate, frankly, but it is important, because it is a dipstick that gets us voices from the public and gets us out into the real world. But it is the challenge of democracy, not just of the Police and Crime Commissioner role.
Eleri Thomas: I absolutely agree. The importance of being that representative of the electorate and engaging with the electorate is absolutely critical. I know that Jeff Cuthbert, the PCC for Gwent, in his two terms has prioritised his engagement with the public, and also working with MPs, in particular, to make sure we have that mutual way of working.
That is the key—to use every opportunity to engage with the public. Certainly, the Commissioner was reflecting in his engagement over the summer that he feels very reassured that when he has conversations with the public, they are more aware than they were in his first term about what a Police and Crime Commissioner is. But that is certainly an area that we would prioritise at all times.
Q27 Mr Rob Roberts: Following on from that, I am interested to know—because it is a political appointment and a political election—how you would get across to the electorate what your skillset is and what you think the skillset should be for an effective PCC. What kind of experience should a PCC have to perform those roles? In the nature of how we get to the elected position and put people in those roles, do these positions attract candidates with the correct skills and experiences that you think we need? Let’s start with Andy.
Andy Dunbobbin: Each political party will have their own processes to follow to select their candidates through their party, or if an independent wants to stand, they can put themselves forward, so that goes to that process.
Who are we to say which person can stand for what particular role? It is an individual choice I think, and it is not really—
Q28 Mr Rob Roberts: What kind of skills do you think you need?
Andy Dunbobbin: I don’t think it is the role of us or our officers to determine who can stand to be a Police and Crime Commissioner or to be in any other elected position, in truth. From my own personal experience of why it is attractive to me, it is because of the work that I did within local government and the values that I hold dear to my heart about serving the public—what I did as Flintshire County Council’s armed forces champion and the connections and work that I did there. I thought there were skills that I possessed that could be transferred into the role of a Police and Crime Commissioner because of the armed forces and that background. That is what attracted me, and that is from my own personal experience.
It is not for me to say something about any other people. If people want to apply for things, why shouldn’t they? It is a difficult question to answer. I think that you would not really want to be hindering people’s aspirations. What attracted you to stand, to be a Member of Parliament? What attracted all of us here to be serving the public? It is a very individual sort of question, in my opinion.
Mr Rob Roberts: Completely.
Chair: We need to up the pace a little bit, please.
Q29 Mr Rob Roberts: The point of the question is: what skills and experience do we think are relevant? Ms Thomas, you are the deputy. You did not stand for election. Reading your biography, you have a huge amount of experience. Why did you not stand for election? What was it that you felt you did not have that you did not want?
Eleri Thomas: I applied to be the deputy. It is a privilege and I am proud every day to be the deputy, to serve the Commissioner and to serve the people of Gwent.
To answer your question, from my perspective, first and foremost, it is about the commitment of the individual, the commitment to the electorate, the commitment to change, but also the commitment to the police force— to serving and supporting the police force to be the best police force to serve the public. That is absolutely critical.
In terms of the skillsets, you could think about, absolutely, the leadership role, the ability to engage effectively with a range of people every day, communication, the ability to build and forge partnerships and to build relationships. We have talked about that all the way through this session. I think having that understanding and business acumen is absolutely important. There is the importance of strategic thinking.
All of us, and the Commissioner for Gwent, have completely different backgrounds. We are supported very ably by our officers who complement our skillsets and provide the reassurance that we have, that statutory basis—like Governments in terms of the civil service—to operate in the most important way.
Dafydd, in particular, brings huge wealth in terms of his data analysis. We can articulate the skillsets that you require, but the electoral process is what determines who will be the PCC.
Alun Michael: The main thing I would say is that it is important to understand the nature of the role that somebody will be going into after being elected. Effectively, you go straight into a role where you are the Minister, but you are also the leader in terms of those team-building responsibilities that Eleri has referred to. It is a role in which you have to understand—even if you do not understand it to the level that Dafydd does—the analytics and what the evidence is telling you about what the force needs to be doing.
Q30 Mr Rob Roberts: Is it right, Mr Michael, that you appoint and can fire the Chief Constable?
Alun Michael: Yes, but the two roles are quite different. The role of the Police and Crime Commissioner is not to be the Chief Constable, nor indeed to take the decisions that the Chief Constable is there to take. It is to make sure the right person is appointed, and removed if that becomes necessary, and to hold the Chief Constable to account, but they are very different roles.
The role of the Police and Crime Commissioner, as I said at the beginning, is to make all those executive decisions—deciding on the budget, appointing the Chief Constable, the oversight of discipline, the holding to account—but it is also about those team-building roles, which, as Eleri said, we have talked about all the way through. That is where you make a difference and bring about long-term change.
Q31 Mr Rob Roberts: It is very important. It is a very powerful position in that case, because although the chief officer has the operational responsibility, you are in charge of picking who that person is, so you need a particular skillset and a bunch of experience to be able to know who to appoint in that role.
Alun Michael: I think it has always been the case that people have said that democracy is the worst possible system except for all the others, because that electoral accountability is absolutely crucial. How does an election system guarantee that you get the individuals? The only reassuring thing I would say is, having seen so many people from different backgrounds elected as Police and Crime Commissioners across the 43 forces—or 41 that have had that responsibility, plus the deputy Mayors in more recent times—and seeing the way that the opportunity and the nature of the role has started to form the way that you operate in the role is a development that I had not expected.
Dafydd Llywelyn: To go back to the skillset, we are public servants, at the end of the day, and we have stood for election and have a mandate from the electorate to be a Police and Crime Commissioner. We need people who understand good governance, who understand that they need to work in a transparent and engaging way with the public, and I think we demonstrate that across our various and varied skillsets from a professional point of view. I think I am the only one who has operationally worked within a police force, having worked in Dyfed-Powys police for nearly 40 years, operationally, not as a warranted police officer but as an intelligence analyst. Do I think that is a prerequisite and a must for Police and Crime Commissioners? The reality is no. Does it give me some advantage in terms of the internal workings of a police force? Yes, it does. Does that make it more challenging for my Chief Constable when I am asking him questions about data that I use to produce reports on? Yes, it is more challenging for him.
I will just make a point around your question and commentary around the appointment and the potential dismissal of chief officers. That would not be concluded without due process, so when we appoint a Chief Constable, we also appoint with the advice and guidance of the College of Policing. The individuals who are appointed at a chief officer level have already passed the national course for chief officers, so they have already set to a particular standard. We follow that, and we also do not do that lightly in individual settings. What you would expect in any recruitment process is that it is a very robust process that is then checked and tested by the police and crime panel themselves.
In terms of the dismissal, I think we can count on one hand the number of dismissals that have happened, but again they would not have been undertaken without due process.
Q32 Mr Rob Roberts: My final question requires just a one-line answer hopefully from everybody—we will go right to left. How do you feel your relationship is with your Chief Constable and is the boundary very clear between whose responsibility is what?
Dafydd Llywelyn: Yes, in terms of the boundary responsibilities. I do not involve myself in operational policing, but we have conversations about operational issues because they are the issues that the communities will be bringing to my attention. So I will have conversations.
In terms of the relationship with the individual, I have now worked with three Chief Constables and one temporary Chief Constable during the last eight years and it comes down to your personal relationship, ultimately, in that professional setting, in the way that you set boundaries—in terms of the conversations that you can have—and can deliver difficult messages, so that you can tell the individual when things are not going as well as perhaps they perceive them to be. You then check and test the perception against the reality, which is another element of the work that we do.
On the relationship that we have, my experience is that it has been a positive working relationship. I have been fortunate in that sense because I know that there have been some testing relationships elsewhere across England and Wales.
Mr Rob Roberts: Even shorter than that.
Alun Michael: I have been fortunate in having had three outstanding Chief Constables to work with. I think it must be a challenging relationship. You are not there to be friends. You have different roles. It is your responsibility to challenge each other.
I have seen a development with my current Chief Constable that I think is positive, where, for instance, scrutiny is something that he uses as a management tool, rather than as a criticism or a threat. I think that is helpful, because it means that we are using our different skills towards the same end of improving the service that the force gives to the public and finding ways of doing things better, particularly in relation to prevention, early intervention and engagement with the community.
Mr Rob Roberts: Even shorter again?
Eleri Thomas: Boundaries are very clear. We have a very mature relationship with our Chief Constable and, equally, have had relationships with the two previous Chief Constables, with a very clear understanding of the respective roles and the unique co-operation tools, and it is a mutually conducive relationship. I describe it as two sides of one coin, both delivering their unique roles for the people that they serve but recognising their specific remits.
Andy Dunbobbin: There are clear boundaries of responsibility and we respect each other’s role in that regard. Similar to what Eleri said, we both ultimately want the same thing. What we do in north Wales is have a quarterly strategic executive board meeting. That is where we then do deep dives into performance areas related to the police and crime plan to see how North Wales police are performing in that area.
Q33 Chair: How often do you meet your Chief Constables? Is it a day-by-day relationship? Are you in each other’s offices throughout the course of the day, or is it once a week? Give us a sense of what the interaction feels like.
Dafydd Llywelyn: I will structure the answer to the question in two ways. There are some informal communications—for example, there have been some text communication messages between me and the chief this morning—but then there are also formal settings. They will be different in each of the forces.
I hold a policing board every fortnight, which has a formal agenda—a minuted meeting, with minutes published on the website. We have public meetings every quarter, which are police accountability board meetings, where we go through the performance of the force in a public setting, inviting community and key stakeholders around the table. So there is both the formal and informal. We are not in and out of each other’s offices that regularly. I happened to be at police headquarters on Monday in the chief officer’s offices but that was more to do with some activity that we were doing around an award that Dyfed-Powys received. So there is the informal and then the formal.
Some of the informal is just as important as the formal, because it is the environment that can allow you to have some of those critical conversations that Eleri and Alun talked about, where you are being the critical adviser in some ways to the chief officer in relation to the operational delivery, because you are feeling and hearing the temperature both internally, within the organisation, and from the community around the performance of the force.
Q34 Chair: I completely accept what you all say about there being a very clear delineation of roles, but in practice, there are times when it is not that clear. You all have a media profile as elected politicians. There is the Stradey Park Hotel policing issue, which has been a big drain on resources for the Dyfed-Powys force area. When you have spoken in the media about the funding, do you agree a plan with the Chief Constable about what you say publicly?
Dafydd Llywelyn: No, we do not agree a plan.
Q35 Chair: So you have the freedom to go and speak with the authorities, the Commissioner—even though it is a current operation.
Dafydd Llywelyn: Yes, because I have not spoken about the operational delivery of the public order activity at the Stradey Park Hotel. My commentary, if you were to look at the press releases that we have made, is in relation to the funding and the resources from ultimately a diktat from the Home Office around housing asylum seekers in Llanelli, contrary to the Welsh Government’s dispersed model, I hasten to add. None of my commentary has been in relation to that operational response. It has been to do with the strategic and lack of strategic planning by the Home Office and the need to have adequate funding provided, because we would estimate that circa £500,000 has gone into the policing of that activity, which is a burden that is impacting on other operational delivery of the force elsewhere. So the commentary is completely different. It is not formally discussed.
In terms of the informal discussions that I mentioned, no doubt myself and the Chief Constable have been having conversations, because the force has been making representations to the Home Office from an operational perspective, and then I have been making more political commentary publicly in relation to my position.
Q36 Chair: And I agree with the position that you took. Very quickly, Commissioner Michael, on the riots that took place in Ely—I am aware it is sub judice so we are not going to talk about what may or may not have happened in the incidents—you were very vocal in the media while the operation was ongoing. Was that at the request of the Chief Constable? Did you agree with the Chief Constable that you were going to go out there and take a very strong line in the national media on this?
Alun Michael: No. He was aware that I was going to say that. We were talking about the issues that were happening on that occasion. I would be very happy to submit a very detailed note that I gave to the police and crime panel, which of course holds me to account, which I think you may find of interest.
Q37 Chair: Just for brevity, because we have quite a lot to get through, did the Chief Constable brief you on what to say in that interview?
Alun Michael: The Chief Constable did not brief me, no. I was briefed on what was going on. I was aware of what was going on the evening before. One of the interesting things—
Q38 Chair: How were you in a position to take a very clear position on what may or may not have happened in terms of police vehicles pursuing the young people involved? If you were not briefed on it, how were you in a position to know?
Alun Michael: I was briefed on it. You asked me whether I was briefed by the Chief Constable. I was not briefed by the Chief Constable.
Q39 Chair: Okay—so you went to somebody else in the force.
Alun Michael: There was contact with the Chief Constable. I think this is where it is quite important to understand that the difference in responsibility between the Chief Constable, who has responsibility for the operational issues that are going on, and the Police and Crime Commissioner, who is an elected individual and therefore able to take a political position, is a very clear distinction.
Q40 Chair: But in contrast to the example that Commissioner Llywelyn was talking about, you were not commenting on resources. You were commenting on an operation that was still live and making a statement about a sequence of events which, on your own, you would not have been in a position to know.
Alun Michael: No, exactly, so—
Chair: So that delineation that you have talked about, the difference between operational matters, which is the responsibility of the Chief Constable, and then the matters—that is completely blurred when you go to the national media and start talking about a live operation.
Alun Michael: I am sorry; I think the question is muddled, if you don’t mind me saying so. I responded to questions from the media about an operation on the previous evening, and I responded to the best of my knowledge because I thought it was very important for the public to know what the current state of knowledge and information was. Please bear in mind that the previous riots in Ely in the 1990s had gone on for about three days, and it was quite important to give as much information as possible to the public.
There were three separate elements to the event in Ely on that night. There was the road traffic accident in which two young boys sadly lost their lives. There were the riots that then took place, for which there was absolutely no excuse, and there was subsequently the information that came to light that there was a relationship between a police vehicle travelling down roads in Ely and the boys on the bike travelling down roads in Ely, which is the matter still under consideration by the Independent Office for Police Conduct—
Chair: So we should not talk too much more about it.
Alun Michael: And therefore we cannot talk too much about that. Those elements came out during the course of the day, after the events themselves, and I commented in response to the questions that I was asked in the media to the best of my knowledge in my role as the link between the public and the police—not speaking on behalf of the police or speaking on behalf of the Chief Constable.
I am satisfied that what I did was done appropriately at the time and with integrity, and the IOPC findings hopefully will be with us shortly. The IOPC has said that it would take between three and six months to reach its conclusions and six months will be at the end of this month.
Chair: Thank you for clarifying, and thank you for answering that question.
Q41 Ben Lake: Unfortunately, we are up against the time, but I am keen to hear some of your thoughts about the adequacy or otherwise of the central funding for police forces. Perhaps by way of ensuring speedier responses, can I ask: if you were able to change something about the funding formula or the way in which the forces are funded, what would it be? That might exemplify some of the inadequacies.
Dafydd Llywelyn: I have quite a straight answer, because if the force—I think it is true for all forces in Wales—were to get a Barnett consequential population share for the funding for policing, we would have more money afforded to policing in Wales than we currently have from the current funding formula, which is on its second iteration and not yet delivered. There is no timescale, I am led to believe, in the current legislative timetable for it to come into fruition, certainly prior to the next Police and Crime Commissioner elections, and we are not expecting any changes to the current arrangements that we have, which are a bit historic by now and a bit antiquated and need refreshing. The straight and short answer would be that if we were to get a population share in a Barnett consequential for policing, we would benefit from that in Wales.
Alun Michael: I agree with Dafydd’s analysis. I think there are two problems with the way the formula has developed. One is that it does not compensate for poorer areas, or areas that have high challenges in terms of policing and low income. The other is that there has been an incremental shift over the last few years, deliberately by central Government, to put more of the burden on to the local taxpayer rather than on the national Exchequer, to the extent that the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, in making the police grant statement, which should be purely about how much central Government is going to give to policing, has the tendency to say how much local forces should raise from the precept. Because not every force has as much ability to raise and to increase its precept, that is quite an unfair and unjust way of approaching the arrangement. We really need a fairer formula and one that takes proper account of the financial constraints both in terms of the force’s needs but also in terms of the population on which the precept falls.
Eleri Thomas: From my perspective and following on from Alun, I think there is that tension—the move from the majority of funding from central Government into a situation where most of us are almost at a 50-50 and we would have been 50-50 if it had not been for the operation uplift with local precept funding. That is the real tension for us in how we approach budget setting, in terms of recognising the resources that Chief Constables require to have that effective, forward-thinking police force, at the same time as recognising the affordability to our public in a time of a cost of living crisis. That is a real tension and that over-reliance on the local taxation is critical.
Another point that has not been made is on capital investment and the capital grant. All of us have a very low level of capital grant from central Government, and for our big infrastructure, in order to properly be able to deliver a police force in that transformational, modern way, actually, some of our estate matters, some of our fleet matters, are critical. Those are the big challenges for us, with the cost of borrowing as it is now. That is a real challenge in terms of affordability.
Andy Dunbobbin: I think everything has been covered, but I do agree with what Dafydd and Eleri said about the Barnett consequential. That population share would be really important. Local taxation is unfair. There are other things, such as looking at how the funding formula is calculated and what is considered in that, to come up with how much each force area should be awarded. I know that is being worked on as well, but we are waiting to see how that looks. Sometimes, because of how rural we are in certain areas—the majority of Wales is a rural country, a rural nation, and that should bear more significant weight than it currently does.
Q42 Simon Baynes: As the MP for Clwyd South, I have had nothing but helpful interaction with the local police, but there is obviously an issue of misconduct in some cases within police forces. I do not particularly want to dwell on this subject, but I think it is one that we need to cover, so I am interested in your views on handling that. There is also the recruitment and training of police officers and the subject that comes up from time to time, which frankly I do not particularly agree with, that policing should become a graduate profession. Could we take that issue as one? As the Chair always says, please keep the answers brief because we are beginning to run out of time.
Dafydd Llywelyn: Just to concur with your commentary in relation to misconduct issues, they need to be dealt with head on. I have the privilege of speaking to all the new recruits in the force and one of the messages that I deliver to them is that we expect the highest professional standards within our police force in Dyfed-Powys. That I am sure is replicated in the other forces in Wales.
We are a reflection of society, as are many other agencies, and the issues that we have internally within our organisation are no different from in any institution, I would argue, but it is upon us to deal with them robustly. We have seen Chief Constables wanting to take some greater responsibility and ownership of that, which has changed over the years because we have legally qualified chairs dealing with certain levels of misconduct hearings and Chief Constables want the authority to be able to act swiftly and dynamically, as well as ensuring that there is also due process.
One of the practical things that has happened since the tragic incident in the Metropolitan police with the murder of Sarah Everard is that every police officer and details of officers have gone through the police national database to try to uncover any hidden incidents. I took the decision to put my office through that as well, including myself. I put my own name through that from a transparency point of view, and I think that leadership is really important from chief officers—that they work to the highest professional standards as well. Some of those practical steps have also taken place to reassure the public that we are working through some of those details.
In terms of the police being described as a degree profession, this is quite complex, but only from a point of view of—I worked alongside numerous police officers who had 30 years of service, and then, the minute they walked out of the door, they would argue that they had all of the training but had no qualifications to show for it. So through what they have done and the relationship that we have with the universities that are delivering elements of the training for our new recruits, we are standardising that training and giving them a qualification as part of the training. What we must ensure is that there is a balance between the burden placed on new officers—bear in mind, in terms of the recruitment recently of new officers, that approximately 50%, if not more than 50%, of our response officers have less than five years’ service, and they are also working through the accreditation to get the degree qualification, which is a significant burden. They have what is referred to as protected learning time away from the frontline. It is an issue that we need to grapple with and we are working with our service providers—the higher education establishments—to try to ensure that that burden is reduced. We have managed to do that somewhat in Dyfed-Powys but I think across England and Wales, and certainly across the forces in Wales, we have more to do in relation to that.
I would argue that it is important for recognition to be given to the training, and that structured training is of a high standard, because on the one hand, we are saying that we want the highest standards of professional service, but we are also saying that we do not want people to be educated to graduate level.
What we are not saying, and this is an important message, is that people must have a degree to enter policing. What we are saying is that people who enter policing will then be afforded a graduate level training subset, which I think is important.
Alun Michael: There was a traditional approach, which was defensive, about police misbehaviour, and almost presumed that it could not happen. I followed this particularly in relation to the Lynette White case, which was the case of a murder where, with the evidence of one white man running away from the location where she was murdered, four black men ended up being accused before the court and, indeed, ended up in prison. There was a watershed moment where a Chief Constable came to the conclusion that accusations against the force would never go away unless they were met head on and dealt with.
That was a watershed moment, because I have seen incrementally since then the understanding on the part of Chief Constables and on the system as a whole that there will be misbehaviour among police officers. It is something that good police officers find unbelievable. It is something that is totally unacceptable, but unless you meet it head on, as Dafydd said, and unless you have chief officers who say, “If somebody misbehaves, their feet do not touch the ground and it is dealt with head on”—I believe we have that now, although we should not take it for granted that will always be the case. But we also have to have the balance that it needs to be dealt with fairly. Having the legally qualified chair is important, and the arrangements for hearings of those who are accused of misconduct need to be properly fair and balanced as well.
On the recruitment side, I would simply say that we need to recruit the best and those who just do not want the excitement but understand the engagement with the community and improving people’s lives. One of the challenges, of course, is that particularly in fairly high-income areas, the challenge of recruiting to the police force has increased as the salary comparatively has drifted downwards over recent years. That is a real challenge in some areas.
I agree with Dafydd: the fact that people can become a graduate through their training makes all sorts of sense. It is important that police officers are, as the best always have been, people who look to improve themselves, their skills, their knowledge, their understanding and their analytic capacity. My Uncle Bob was a police officer in the Met. I am going back a very long time, I have to tell you, and he always seemed to be studying. That is something that police officers do challenge themselves with, and that is something that we need to encourage.
I would say a graduate profession pretty well—not exclusively perhaps, but why shouldn’t we provide police officers who are not graduates with the skills to become graduates for the rest of their lives?
Eleri Thomas: Absolutely. The Commissioner has a robust position around misconduct, and in his one-to-ones, with the weekly formal meetings that he has with the Chief Constable, issues around conduct, complaints and standards are absolutely a priority. Within that, I am really pleased that when HMIC came in to undertake their PEEL inspection of the force, one of the findings from talking to all of the officers and staff is that, unanimously, there was evidence that everyone they spoke to had a clear understanding about the standard of conduct that was expected by the Chief Constable and the senior leadership of the force. I think that shows a dedication from both the Commissioner and the Chief Constable to ensuring that it is absolutely crystal clear what the expectations of standards are within the force.
I think it is important that we encourage people both in our communities but also across the force, our workforce, if they are experiencing any inappropriate behaviour or conduct, to come forward, and ensure that they are supported to come forward, that investigations are robust and that we support victims and witnesses—victims and witnesses who may be in our communities but also victims and witnesses who may be in our workforce. That is why I am pleased that, with South Wales, we have instigated a pilot with two independent specialist services for violence against women and girls, so that victims, whether they are community members, members of the public or people who are employed by the police service, can go somewhere independently to talk, to seek support and therefore be able to report. It is really important that we support people to come forward and that we recognise that in particular.
We are also doing a significant amount around culture and training— obviously, culture and training in terms of our new workforce but also our current workforce. From my perspective, it very much is about building that confident, transparent organisation that is able to welcome anybody and work with anybody in a respectful manner. That is very much the priority for us in Gwent, so I am really pleased with the progress, but we cannot be complacent.
The challenge in terms of public confidence is that as we become more robust in how we deal with misconduct, we will find more misconduct and then we will be more potentially in the public domain. I think we need to collectively understand that position.
In terms of the professional qualification, I firmly believe policing is a profession. Police officers and staff are dedicated, committed, professional people and they should receive the accreditation for the work that they are undertaking and the degree opportunity, the degree route, provides them with that opportunity.
Andy Dunbobbin: I am going to try not to repeat myself; I will try to be as succinct as I can.
Q43 Simon Baynes: You are allowed to say you agree with the others.
Andy Dunbobbin: I do agree with the others, but I want to try to build on other things there, especially regarding professional standards. I think openness and transparency are important. I was proud that our North Wales police was the first force that came out with its findings back in February. We also have our professional standards board, where my chief executive represents me, and that is where there is scrutiny of how professional standards is performing—so that gets scrutinised by my office.
I will try to link in with what Eleri was saying regarding providing support for victims and members of policing, such as police officers and police staff as well. We all formed Crimestoppers—remember back to the time when Crimestoppers had a dedicated telephone number to make contact, to provide immediate support for anybody who came forward. It is really important that we support victims as best we can.
I agree with the policing degree, PEQF, IPLDP+ and accreditation, although it could be a bit of a challenge as well. I would also bring up the issue we have with the apprenticeship levy, because that is a real problem for us in Wales, where I think it is about £9,000 per person participating in that degree, but we are not receiving that funding in Wales. So there is an issue there and I thought I would take the opportunity to bring it to the Committee’s attention.
Q44 Chair: Thank you very much. Time is against us and I am afraid there are still quite a few questions that we wanted to go through, but we are probably going to have to write to you individually. You have already been very generous with your time, and I know business on the Floor of the House has already started, so we are probably going to have to wrap up very quickly.
I am not picking on you, Mr Michael—this is just because last week there was a big summit here about AI, and new technology and facial recognition tools were being discussed. South Wales police is, fairly or unfairly, one of those forces that always gets mentioned as using facial recognition technology. Do you talk to the Chief Constable about how that technology is deployed? Do you have a role in that?
Alun Michael: Yes. Governance is very important. I could, as I was the Minister for new technology at one time, pick up on artificial intelligence, which seems to be being used in a variety of ways, and reflect that we did not deal very well with the governance of the internet in its early days.
As for the specific question on facial recognition, most of the controversy has been around live facial recognition or automatic facial recognition, as it used to be known, which is the use of a watch list of people you are looking for on a camera that is making observation of the public, usually at large events. The use of the technology, in my view, is not a problem. There has been a lot of misunderstanding—for instance, thinking that the images are captured and kept. They are not. The only image that is retained is of an individual who is identified as being one of the people you are looking for. The legal challenge that South Wales police ended up with had the judges deciding that the use of the technology was legitimate.
What I think is important is the issue of governance. When the technology is deployed—when there is a live facial recognition deployment—I am informed in advance that that is being deployed and what the watch list is. It is an operational decision, but it is an operational decision that I am, in live time, able to review and check. For instance, to give one example, there was the Beyoncé concert in Cardiff.
Q45 Chair: Were you there, Commissioner?
Alun Michael: I was not there, no. In advance, the view was that a watch list should consist of two sets of individuals—of people known to be involved in extremism and terrorism in the light of the Manchester Arena bombing, at a concert event; and secondly, of paedophiles, in view of the fact that there would be very large numbers of young girls attending that concert. That was announced in advance, it was not secretive, and it was reported to me. It seemed to me entirely sensible, and actually seemed sensible to the public, although those who had concerns about facial recognition said, as previously, “We have concerns about this.”
It seems to me that the question of governance and accountability and the way in which operational decisions are scrutinised as being sensible, reasonable and proportionate to the risks that are trying to be dealt with is the right way of approaching it. I am pleased to say that that is the South Wales approach, and that has been endorsed by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and is being looked at jointly now between the APCC, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing.
So what I am saying is: it is not just about the technology. It is about accountability, and the way that the operational decisions are made and held accountable.
Chair: That is exactly what I was getting at, and you have answered it very well. Thank you for responding to that. It is a very interesting area and one that will continue to evolve presumably for all forces.
Thank you to you all. It has been a very helpful session. As I said there is probably lots more ground that we could have covered but maybe we will follow up with some specific issues in correspondence. Thank you again for your time and particularly for being with us in person.