Police and Crime Panel

Earlier today the last Gwent Police and Crime Panel meeting of the year was held.

The panel is a body made up of representatives from each of Gwent’s five counties, with the members supporting and challenging my decisions on behalf of the public.

The main part of today’s meeting was to formally receive Gwent Police’s budget bid for 2021/22 from the Chief Constable Pam Kelly.

As almost 50 per cent of Gwent Police’s overall budget now comes from local council tax payers, setting the policing budget is not an easy decision for me to make.

There are many factors for me to consider and I am currently asking people to have their say on policing in Gwent to help inform my decision.

My team and I will scrutinise all of this information over the coming weeks, before a report is taken back to the Police and Crime Panel at the end of January.