Senior police officers are Wales's four forces are divided over suggestions by the Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys Police that they should combine to form a singular service. Earlier this week, Dr Richard Lewis said that Wales should have a single nationwide force by 2030.
Speaking in a personal capacity, the Carmarthenshire born officer, who recently returned to Welsh Policing after managing Clevland Police said Wales should follow the model adopted in Scotland and other parts of the UK. Dr Lewis said merging forces into Heddlu Cymru - Welsh for Police Wales - would be more effective than the current system.
Currently, policing in Wales is divided into four forces - South Wales Police, North Wales Police, Gwent Police and Dyfed-Powys police. Combining them would make the Welsh force the third largest in England and Wales, behind the Metropolitan Police and West Midlands Police. Read more: Dyfed-Powys Police chief wants unified Welsh force
Speaking to the BBC the chief constable of Dyfed - Powys Police said: "Doing away with those borders means we can provide a more effective service. One chief constable rather than four. One deputy chief constable. Dare I say one commissioner instead of four."
A merger would create a service with more than 7,400 police officers, according to Home Office figures. Dr Lewis said he recognised concerns that resources could be concentrated on towns and cities under one force.
"What policing needs across the country is further investment," he said. "We've seen the government uplift figure of 20,000 officers. I'd like to see something similar for police staff members as well.
He said: "My concern is around the way we structure our policing services in Wales. I understand not everybody will be of the same opinion, but Lord Thomas' report on Justice in Wales, suggested a number of changes that have now been seen, such as a national policing board for Wales.
"National structures do exist. What I'm proposing is a development of those things." He admitted if there was a unified force, devolution of policing "may be easier to achieve".
However, the Chief Constables of Wales' other three forces were dismissive of the idea, with both Jeremy Vaughan of South Wales Police and Amanda Blakeman at Gwent Police stating that policing would need to be devolved to Wales before the idea of a singular force could realistically be considered.
Speaking at a special one-off session on policing in Wales at the Welsh Affairs Committee on March 30, Chief Constable of South Wales Jeremy Vaughan said that it was not up to him to "instigate the conversation" as the current setup made it a "patently political decision.”
He said: "My view, the way the law has organised policing at the moment means that I can't really instigate the conversation because the law sets out that 43 police and crime commissioners are elected by the local electorate to set policing priorities.
"I don't think you can go for a single Welsh police force until you devolve policing to Wales. Because otherwise, I don’t really see the benefit of operating on a single force model, if you wouldn’t then have a greater degree of leverage and influence with partners in Wales.
“And that would have to happen alongside the devolution of policing and for me to maximise the benefits, and of course that is a patently political decision.
He added that he had “no doubt” a single Welsh police force would be more efficient but had concerns about how to manage the different policing requirements across Wales. He cited that the needs in a rural area such as Dolgellau are far different from cities such as Swansea.
He said: “You could with a greater scale have better single IT infrastructure systems, you could have better back-office functions, and you could have a greater procurement ability, albeit we do procure a lot on a all-Wales basis now. So the potential for you to do things at scale more efficiently, I think is clear.”
"That you could provide a better service as a consequence is less clear to me. I think there are some big questions that would need resolving as to how you police Dolgellau, and how you police the centre of Swansea. You're frankly not going to get a riot in Dolgellau ever, but we know that we had one recently in Swansea.
"I think that means that that the way we deliver policing would take quite a long time to settle down to mean that we would deliver a better service. I don't think this would ever be a short term delivery. You might deliver efficiencies in the short term, but service improvement could take longer to embed and whether there was the political will and appetite to see that unfold over time.”
The deputy chief constable of Gwent Police Amanda Blakeman echoed Mr Vaughns's thoughts that devolution of policing would need to take place before such considerations could be made. She also noted how she had previously worked in England as part of a strategic alliance between West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police - “a relationship which broke-down.”
"Bigger is not always better. We are here to deliver a service locally, we are locally accountable public servants. We do collaborate across Wales and there is the opportunity to collaborate more. You need to be looking at that devolved status [for one force to work] and we are not there."
Chief Constable Carl Foulkes of North Wales Police said that the force had a good working relationship with forces in the North West of England and that the crime in North Wales usually comes from “left to right rather than up and down”.
“It comes from Mersyside, it comes from Manchester. So all my working partnerships are from the north-west [of England],” he said. Mr Foulkes noted how the force already combined its units - such as dog handlers and firearms - where needed.
However he said that "our shared culture, our shared language are absolutely in Wales. So there are some challenges for us to move and get over for us in North Wales.
“That local element that Jeremy spoke about – and I hope we don’t get a riot in Dolgellau – how do you maintain that local service delivery on a national level, which could be a challenge.”
