Saturday 22 June 2013

Home office seem to be ignoring that fire and ambulance services are devolved.



Plaid Wrecsam  have published North Wales PCC, Winston Roddick's response to the Home Secretary's proposal to bring the fire and ambulance services under the control of PCCs:

It seems to his credit hes not jumping at the chance to increase his powers.

He says::
"There is already collaboration between the Police and other emergency service, as well as other agencies. This partnership working is vital for securing effective and efficient services.

"However, to bring the fire and ambulance services under the control of Commissioners seems premature at this point.

"We have only been in office for just over 6 months. There is a need for us, as elected representatives, to demonstrate progress against our manifesto commitments and Police and Crime Plan.
 But its is final comment that really hits the nail on the head:
"Furthermore, the fire and ambulance services are devolved while policing and criminal justice remain under the UK government. This brings  added complexity and calls for further consideration of the proposals in Wales."
Last week I called for a new tier of government   which would include education ,health, policing and the fire departments in their structure

The idea that seems to be coming from Westminster is that power should be passed to individual  such as City Mayors or PCC.

It will eventually lead to the election of people who have the most campaign money as it does in the USA. and the election of people who take the hardest line on crime control. It will become almost impossible for a candidate for PC to pursue a liberal agenda as they will be  

But Teresa May the Home secretary may have provided us with another argument for the devolution of policing and criminal justice to the Assembly.

We need to have the same powers as Scotland and Northern Ireland in this area or do the Home Office feel we are incapable of doing this?

In Wales we need not to pass more powers to PCC but to abolish them and pass them to a elected and mandated new tier of government responsible to the Assembly.

But at the moment with the home office seemingly interested in passing emergency service to one man or woman seems to show that the Home Office do not take into account devolution



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