Written evidence submitted by Wrexham University (FPW0007)

In light of the UK Government’s plans to abolish Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales, how should police forces in Wales be held to account?

Police forces in Wales should be held to account through a clearly defined Welsh accountability model that avoids simply replacing Police and Crime Commissioners with another remote structure. The abolition of PCCs creates an opportunity to develop a more local, transparent and participatory system, rooted in Welsh communities and aligned with devolved public services.

Accountability should begin at community level. Local policing areas should have regular community accountability forums where residents, victims, businesses, young people, rural communities, Welsh-speaking communities and other communities of interest can raise concerns, identify priorities and challenge local policing performance. These forums should examine issues such as neighbourhood policing, response times, anti-social behaviour, stop and search, use of force, hate crime, vulnerability, victim care and public confidence.

The existing scrutiny panels used by police forces and PCCs should not be lost. Stop and search scrutiny panels, use of force panels, custody visiting schemes, victim services scrutiny arrangements and community safety partnership structures provide useful foundations. However, they should be strengthened, made more visible and connected into a single Welsh accountability framework. Their findings should feed directly into force-level accountability boards and be published in a clear and accessible way.

Technology should also be used to improve public engagement. Online platforms could allow communities to view local policing priorities, submit concerns, take part in consultations, track progress against agreed actions and access performance data. Digital dashboards could show information on crime trends, police visibility, response performance, complaints, stop and search, use of force and outcomes. This would allow accountability to become more continuous, rather than relying only on periodic meetings or formal reports. Care would be needed to avoid digital exclusion, so online engagement should sit alongside face-to-face meetings, community events and targeted work with groups who may have lower levels of trust in policing.

At force level, each Welsh police force should be overseen by a Policing and Crime Accountability Board. This board should include local authority representation, independent members, victim and community representatives, and people with expertise in equality, safeguarding, Welsh language provision, rural policing and criminal justice. It should scrutinise the Chief Constable, the budget, policing priorities, partnership working, victim services and public confidence. There should also be a clearly identifiable lead person so that the public know who is responsible for democratic oversight.

There should also be an all-Wales accountability mechanism to consider strategic issues that cross force boundaries, including serious and organised crime, violence against women and girls, mental health demand, missing persons, road safety, digital crime and cross-border policing. The Senedd should have a stronger scrutiny role because policing is closely connected to devolved responsibilities such as health, education, housing, social care, youth justice and community safety.

What lessons should be learned from the Police and Crime Commissioner model, and are there any aspects of it that ought to be replicated in the future?

There are important lessons to be learned from the Police and Crime Commissioner model. The first is that the principle behind PCCs was not wrong. Policing should be democratically accountable, visible to the public and capable of being challenged by someone outside the police chain of command. In that sense, the PCC model attempted to address a genuine problem: many people did not understand previous police authority structures and did not know who was responsible for holding the Chief Constable to account.

One lesson, therefore, is that visibility matters. A future model should avoid creating an anonymous committee that the public cannot identify. One of the strengths of the PCC model was that it created a named individual who could be questioned about policing priorities, budgets, performance, victim services and the overall direction of the force. That aspect should be replicated in any future structure. Even if Wales moves to a board-based model, there should still be a clearly identifiable policing and crime lead for each force area.

A second lesson is that strategic accountability is important. PCCs were responsible for producing Police and Crime Plans, setting priorities, scrutinising performance and commissioning services. These functions should not be lost. A future Welsh model should retain a clear Police and Crime Plan for each force area, setting out local priorities, expected standards, partnership commitments and measures of success. However, these plans should be developed through deeper community engagement and not simply through limited consultation exercises.

A third lesson is that PCCs helped to strengthen the position of victims’ services. This should be retained and developed. Victims’ services, restorative justice, support for survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and work with vulnerable communities should remain central to police accountability. Any new model must ensure that these areas are not weakened or fragmented during the transition away from PCCs.

However, the weaknesses of the PCC model are equally important. Public awareness and electoral engagement were often limited, which meant that PCCs did not always achieve the level of democratic legitimacy originally intended. The model could also become too dependent on the personality, priorities and competence of one individual. In some areas, this created risks of inconsistency, politicisation or excessive focus on high-profile issues at the expense of longer-term prevention and community confidence.

Another weakness was that accountability could feel too remote from everyday policing. Many people experience policing at neighbourhood level: through anti-social behaviour, response times, stop and search, hate crime, road safety, safeguarding concerns, or contact with local officers. The PCC model did not always create strong enough mechanisms for those local experiences to shape force-level priorities. Future accountability in Wales should therefore start at the most local level, through community forums, neighbourhood-level engagement and communities of interest.

What is the optimal number of police forces for Wales, and why?

The optimal number of police forces for Wales should remain four: North Wales Police, Dyfed-Powys Police, Gwent Police and South Wales Police. The current structure reflects Wales’ geography, local identities, rural and urban differences, language needs and existing relationships with local authorities, health boards, community safety partnerships and local communities.

Moving immediately to a single Welsh police force may appear attractive in terms of consistency and efficiency, but it risks creating a structure that is too remote from the communities it serves. This is particularly important in rural areas, Welsh-speaking communities and areas where local knowledge, visibility and trust are central to effective policing.

The focus should therefore be on improving collaboration rather than restructuring for its own sake. The four-force model should be retained, but supported by stronger all-Wales arrangements for specialist functions such as serious and organised crime, cybercrime, public protection, roads policing, training, technology, procurement and strategic planning.

This approach would preserve local accountability while still allowing Wales to develop greater consistency and shared capability. It would also avoid the disruption, cost and uncertainty of force mergers at a time when policing already faces significant operational pressures.

In summary, the status quo of four police forces should be maintained, but strengthened through clearer all-Wales coordination and accountability. The aim should not be to reduce force numbers simply for administrative convenience, but to ensure that policing remains local, visible, trusted and responsive to the diverse communities of Wales.

This also fits with the wider Welsh context, as the attached article notes that policing and justice devolution has been repeatedly considered for Wales, but any future model would need careful cooperation and practical planning rather than rushed structural change.

Aside from the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners and the possible reduction in force numbers, how else may the UK Government’s proposed policing reforms impact policing in Wales?

The creation of a stronger national policing structure may improve specialist capability in areas such as serious and organised crime, cybercrime, fraud, digital evidence and national technology. However, it may also centralise decision-making and reduce the ability of Welsh communities to shape policing priorities.

Local Policing Areas could strengthen neighbourhood policing if they improve visibility, engagement and accountability. However, they must reflect the Welsh context, including rurality, Welsh language needs, cross-border issues and the different needs of urban, rural and coastal communities.

The reforms may also increase the use of national targets, performance frameworks and Home Office direction. While this could improve consistency, there is a risk that Welsh forces are judged against measures that do not reflect devolved services such as health, housing, education, social care, youth justice and community safety.

Technology and artificial intelligence could help reduce bureaucracy, improve investigations and support better use of data. However, this must be balanced with safeguards around privacy, bias, transparency, public trust and Welsh language provision.

Existing scrutiny arrangements, including stop and search panels, use of force panels, custody visiting schemes and ethics panels, should be retained and strengthened. These could provide an important way of testing whether national reforms are working at local level.

What are the arguments for and against devolving policing to the Welsh Government, and how could devolving policing improve people in Wales’ experience and perception of policing?

There are strong arguments for devolving policing to the Welsh Government. Policing is closely linked to devolved services such as health, mental health, housing, education, social care, youth justice and community safety. Devolution would allow policing to be better aligned with these services and support a more preventative, partnership-based approach.

It could also improve democratic accountability. At present, responsibility is fragmented, with policing controlled by Westminster while many of the services that affect police demand sit with Welsh Government. Devolution would make it clearer who is responsible for policing priorities, funding, prevention and performance in Wales.

Devolution could also allow policing to better reflect Welsh communities, including rural areas, Welsh-speaking communities, coastal towns, cross-border areas and the different needs of north, mid, west and south Wales.

However, there are arguments against devolution. It would involve cost, complexity and the need for new governance, funding, inspection and legal arrangements. There would also need to be strong agreements with England on cross-border crime, serious organised crime, counter-terrorism, data sharing and mutual aid.

For this reason, devolution should be carefully planned and phased rather than introduced as a sudden structural change. A sensible approach would be to begin with areas already closely connected to devolved services, such as community safety, prevention, youth justice, victims’ services and local accountability. This could then be followed by a gradual transfer of wider policing responsibilities, supported by clear funding arrangements, national standards and cross-border agreements.

Devolution would only improve public experience if it led to practical change. It must not simply move control from Westminster to Cardiff. It would need to strengthen local accountability, neighbourhood policing, victim support, scrutiny panels, community engagement and public confidence.

June 2026