The top police officer in Gwent has voiced his concern about plans to introduce directly-elected police commissioners.
Under the plans, mooted by the Westminster Coalition Government, police authorities would be replaced by elected police commissioners, who would then be a responsible for appointing a chief constable and setting the force’s agenda.
The chief constables of Wales’s other three forces are also concerned at the plans. These concerns have been expressed in a letter to Chris Franks, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales Central.
Mick Giannasi, chief constable of Gwent Police and chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers Cymru (Acpo), wrote the letter on behalf of the four Welsh chief constables.
Mr Giannasi said: “Currently, Welsh police authorities have a good mixture of elected and independent members from diverse backgrounds who have a broad range of skills and the ability to represent our communities.
“Whilst the model may not be perfect, they hold chief constables to account and do work very well and are effective. As a result, many of the generic criticism levied against police authorities don’t apply here.
“In many ways we are seeing a solution being developed without there being a real problem and we do have a concern that a major change is being rushed through on the basis of philosophical principle without the detail having been explained or properly tested.
“Having said that we also recognised that the government has a democratic mandate and has stated a clear intent to introduce what are called Police and Crime Commissioners in each force area.
“We are therefore working with the Home Office with the aim of highlighting the areas we believe are problematic and with a view to developing a working solution.”