Yesterday, Chief Superintendent Mark Mathias expressed trepidation in coming before Neath Port Talbot councillors. As head of the combined Swansea, Neath Port Talbot division of South Wales Police, he was aware of the council’s resistance to the merging of the previously separate divisions. He also had bad news about the effects of the current government cuts. However, he also reaffirmed the force’s commitment to PCSOs, to empowering local officers and outlined some initiatives which should improve local policing in the next year or so.

Coming on top of Labour’s cuts in the last two years of government – cuts which led to the above-mentioned merger, it should be noted – the coalition government’s recourse to the police budget for savings is clearly a risky move. If the steady fall in crime recorded in most of the first world, not just in Britain, continues, and we have no cause of great civil unrest on the lines of the poll tax riots or the anti-Iraq-war demonstrations, then maybe we will get away with it. Indeed, Neath Port Talbot as one of the safest areas in the nation, should be relatively insulated anyway. However, as CS Mathias pointed out, there is a worrying rise in domestic offences.

Localism clearly dominates CS Mathias’ thinking. He has concentrated the cuts on middle ranks and above. It is not lawful to make police officers redundant, so thirteen inspectors, chief inspectors, a superintendent and (next year) CS Mathias himself will be taking retirement. There is an indefinite bar on recruitment. PC vacancies will be filled from promotion from PCSOs. Here comes the hidden obstacle to maintaining the current level of local policing: once vacated, a PCSO position may not be filled. Vacancies may be caused by pregnancy as well as resignation or promotion, putting much of our PCSO structure, which has a high proportion of young women, at risk.

A welcome development is ISTAM, which, as I understand it, is a system of intelligence-sharing between local police and prominent community activists, including community councillors. This would run alongside PACT. Cllr Steve Hunt said at the meeting that the system was already up and running in Seven Sisters, and producing results.

Hanging over the discussion, but unmentioned, was the spectre of elected police commissioners. It would have been invidious to ask a public servant to comment on so political a matter and, besides, it could have sparked a discussion which would have kept us there another hour, but SWP will have to consider what organisational changes will be necessary by the time we all meet again next year at the earliest.

My position is that I would welcome more democratic involvement in police strategy, but only to the extent of direct election to police authories. The history of directly-elected commissioners in the US is not a good one. Besides, a direct election in the current SWP area is bound to lead to the commissioner most favoured by the Cardiff area, to the detriment of policing west of Cowbridge.

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