WELSH Conservative Shadow Communities Secretary, Mark Isherwood AM, has challenged the Communities Secretary this week over the Welsh Government’s track record of delivering Safer Communities.
Responding to this week’s Statement in the Assembly by the Secretary, Carl Sargeant AM, on ‘Working Together for Safer Communities’, Mr Isherwood questioned him over many aspects of Community Safety, from youth justice to violence against women, highlighting areas where the Welsh Government must learn from past failures.
He said: “You refer to there being no universally agreed definition of community safety and to Public Services Boards. You don’t refer to Community Safety Partnerships, as I can see, although these are the bodies that target the main crime and disorder problems in our counties. How do you respond to repeated concern that third sector programmes haven’t got an equal strategic voice at that level and that, perhaps, we could deliver more if they did?”
“You referred to the Fire and Rescue Services - timely, given yesterday’s press coverage of a rise in deliberate fires in Wales, with services diverted from other 999 calls and with fire crews called to more than 7,100 deliberate fires in 2015-16 - an increase of almost 11 per cent on the previous year. Now, this is something that has come out year after year, with you and other Ministers or Cabinet Secretaries holding the relevant portfolio. I wonder if you could tell us again, or provide an update on what engagement you’re having with the fire services, and other agencies - hopefully, including the third sector - regarding addressing that.
“At the recent North Wales Police briefing (of AMs and MPs), we heard about police officers being called upon to supplement the ambulance service on calls. They said that they were assisting with managing the impact of hospital pressures to improve decision making around when the ambulance service should call the police in order to reduce unnecessary attendance by police at non-police-related incidents. Again, I don’t know whether it’s yourself or other colleagues in Cabinet, but perhaps you could indicate what role, if any, the Welsh Government might be playing in that.
“You referred rightly to the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act. When you made a Statement on this last November, I referred to the call by NSPCC for a comprehensive Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Strategy for Wales, following the ‘How Safe are Our Children? 2016’ report of a 26 per cent increase in the number of recorded sexual offences against children under 16 in Wales. I also referred to pre-custodial programmes for male perpetrators of domestic violence and a scheme that you acknowledged, Atal y Fro, which is also developing programmes, in addition to those for men, for women and adolescent perpetrators. You might recall that I worked alongside colleagues, hard, to try and get this into the legislation.
“The Minister at the conclusion, although not accepting that, committed the Welsh Government to take this forward and look at the evidence accordingly. What action have your colleagues taken to look at the only accredited programme in Wales to see how this might be better embraced and fill in the gaps that exist?”