The 101 Service

Speech by Peter Black delivered to Plenary on Wed 5th Dec 2007

Peter Black: I will start by quoting the pledge from Labour's 2005 election manifesto that states that

'Not all problems need a 999 response, so a single phone number staffed by police, local councils and other local services will be available across the country to deal with anti-social behaviour and other non-emergency problems.'

Unfortunately, the decision by the Home Office to withdraw funding for the 101 service with only three months' notice is effectively a u-turn on that manifesto pledge. That is greatly regrettable, given the huge success of the service, as described by Jenny Randerson and Jonathan Morgan. I visited the service last week and was massively impressed by the work going on. Funded by this grant is not only the 101 service, but an intelligence operation that co-ordinates the police service around the Cardiff area to an impressive degree. I witnessed a weekly meeting, which took place between the senior officers of the various police stations around the Cardiff area, in which they went through the weekend's incidents and how they should be responded to. They identified trends and intelligence that would help them not only to try to clear up those incidents, but also to pick up persistent offenders. That work is also funded out of this Home Office grant, and will also be lost once this money is withdrawn. However, the South Wales Police has valued that work so much that, hopefully, it will pick up the funding for it, even though it is facing a huge deficit in its budget for the next financial year.

I should also stress that this is not just a Cardiff service or issue. Jenny has already mentioned about it being available around the rest of south Wales, which it is to a limited degree. However, the unique aspect of the service in the Cardiff area is that it is a partnership between the local council and the police, which enables it to deal with a range of issues, including vandalism and graffiti, noise nuisance, threatening and abusive behaviour, abandoned vehicles, dumping and fly-tipping, drug-related anti-social behaviour and broken street lighting. Therefore, when you ring up the 101 number, not only do you get a police response, but you are also able to get a local council response. That has contributed to the huge satisfaction rating that residents have given the service in the Cardiff area. The service is not available at that sort of level around south Wales, but the police aspect of it is.

When we talk about rolling this out across Wales, we are talking about that sort of service being available to every citizen in Wales. It is not just a matter of extra money; cost benefits will flow from that sort of service. That is already being seen in Cardiff. For example, 25 police officers have been redeployed to community duties as a result of the reduction in the 999 workload. There are also benefits in that the local councils are able to pick up the matters relating to the services that they provide, and improve on those services, as well as improving on their response times-and additional benefits and savings result from that. That could be available all over Wales were the Assembly Government prepared to work in conjunction with the police authorities and with local councils around Wales in rolling this out.

Jenny referred to a number of precedents where the Assembly Government has taken on some Westminster responsibilities and provided funding. However, there is a more obvious precedent, which is the £600,000 plus that the Assembly Government gives to Operation Tarian. That is a Home Office responsibility but, nevertheless, when it appeared that the Home Office was not going to fund that in full, the Assembly Government stepped in and provided extra funding to ensure that there was an effective response to drug offences around Wales. That precedent, in my view, can be extended to the 101 service. If the Assembly Government can get a joint operation, similar to what is happening in Cardiff, we can do that.

Jenny referred to the £1.5 million cost of this service, and during my visit last week I asked how much it would cost to extend the service to the whole of Wales. I was told that it would cost about £4 million. The sum of £4 million, on a partnership basis between the Assembly Government, the police authorities and local councils, could be affordable, if the will exists. I urge the Minister to take this on board, to look at this and try to deliver this improvement, which was promised by his Government in its manifesto in April 2005.