North Wales MS and Shadow Minister for Social Justice, Mark Isherwood, has slammed the Labour Welsh Government for withdrawing funding for the Wales Police Schools Programme.
Speaking in the Debate on ‘The Police Settlement 2024-25’ during yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood noted that funding for the four Welsh police forces is delivered through a three-way arrangement involving the Home Office, the Welsh Government and Council Tax.
For 2024-25, the total police funding settlement in England and Wales will rise up to £18.4 billion. Police and Crime Commissioners across the 43 police forces in England and Wales will receive a funding boost of up to £922.2 million from Government grants and Council Tax precept income when compared to 2023-24, with the Welsh Government contribution to the settlement for Wales of £113.47 million the same amount given in the 2023-24 settlement.
Mr Isherwood highlighted that the Council Tax Police Precept will rise by 4.69% in North Wales, 6.2% in Dyfed Powys, 6.7% in Gwent and 8.69% in South Wales.
Mr Isherwood went on to speak about the Wales Police Schools Programme, SchoolBeat, a collaboration of Welsh Government and Dyfed-Powys, Gwent, North Wales and South Wales Police which creates the role of Schools Police Officer, a dedicated point of contact for every school in Wales, and expressed concern that the Welsh Government is withdrawing funding for the programme.
He said:
“SchoolBeat delivers a nationally-reviewed bilingual curriculum of teacher-developed lessons for ages 5 – 16.
“They engage with all schools, including mainstream education, independent schools in Wales, schools supporting additional learning needs and alternative provision including pupil referral units and education other than at school.
“It has an agreed policy of the four Police Forces of Wales for responding to reports of incidents in schools and supporting and advising schools in a safeguarding capacity – basically early intervention and prevention.
“However, it was confirmed to me in Written Questions that ‘the Welsh Government will be withdrawing its match funding for the Wales Police Schools Programme, which includes the SchoolBeat’– thereby removing a key early intervention and prevention programme and thereby stoking up costs for Statutory Services, including those the Welsh Government is responsible for.
“This is therefore another shortsighted decision by the Welsh Government, cutting a programme that is designed to prevent, rather than cure, saving the Public Purse further down the line.”
Mr Isherwood also noted that the UK Government had ‘fulfilled its Manifesto pledge and recruited 20,951 Officers from funding for the Police Uplift Programme’, including 1,005 new Police Officers across Wales, and. referred to the fact that an estimated 95% or more of crime in North Wales operates on a cross-border East/West basis and almost none on an all-Wales basis.
He said:
“Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales has a heavily populated cross border area, with almost half the population in Wales living within 25 miles of the border with England, and 90% within 50 miles.
“Given these operational and population realities, the Welsh Government must explain why it is devoting so much time and resource to devolution of Policing to Wales, when it is cutting key budgets elsewhere – especially when both the UK Conservative Government and the most senior Welsh Labour MP in Westminster, Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stephens, have rejected fresh calls for the Welsh Government to be given control of policing and adult criminal justice.”