Gwent Police to lose ‘quite a significant number’ of PCSOs due to cuts

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Gwent Police will lose “quite a significant number” of police community support officers (PCSOs) because of funding cuts, a senior officer has warned.

Councillors in Newport heard the force “hasn’t got the money to backfill and fund” posts the Welsh Government previously paid for.

A report from December 2023 showed the Welsh Government planned to remove £7.5 million from its PCSO budget for the current financial year, as part of a “refocus” of funding “away from non-devolved areas”, leaving £15.5 million available.

A spokesperson said the Welsh Government continues to support the nation’s forces with millions of pounds in PCSO funding, despite policing not being devolved.

At a Newport City Council meeting, Tredegar Park and Marshfield representative, Cllr Allan Screen, raised the issue of a diminishing police presence at some ward meetings.

“I appreciate there are pressures on resources, that you can’t always attend at that time because of other things, but I’d be grateful if you could look at that again”, he told Superintendent Jason White, adding councillors “appreciate having a police presence at our ward surgeries”.

Supt White said the Welsh Government “has cut funding to those Welsh-funded police community support officers”.

“We’ve got to make some really hard decisions,” he told councillors. “We haven’t got the money to backfill and fund those, so we are naturally going to waste and lose quite a significant number of PCSOs.”

Supt White said the force was exploring how to relocate its PCSOs “based on threat, harm, risk and demand”.

He also said the police would “need to be more effective in the way we work with our partners” so that at least some agencies would attend each ward meeting in Newport.

“I just wanted to manage everybody’s expectations, that with even more finite resources, we’ve got to make some difficult decisions going ahead as to where we deploy those officers in those areas,” he told those present in the Newport Council chamber.

In response, a Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We have a proud record of joint working with policing partners on PCSOs and we continue to work with Welsh police and crime commissioners and police forces on our collective approach to community safety in Wales.”

They said the Welsh Government will maintain its £15.5 million of police funding in the budget for the new financial year, as well as a 3% increase “to cover projected cost-of-living rises”.

“This is more than £15m of funding over and above what the forces would normally receive, showing how the Welsh Government is supporting the safety of communities in Wales, despite policing being a reserved area,” they added.