The Welsh Government is to blame over police training cash gap claims according to the Welsh Conservative Shadow Secretary for Communities, Mark Isherwood AM.
Responding to comments made by Plaid Cymru’s North Wales commissioner Arfon Jones - who chairs the All-Wales Policing Group - and the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay, Mr Isherwood said:
“Once again, the Welsh Labour-led Government has been caught bang to rights, trying to avert blame from a potential crisis of its own making by pointing the finger at Westminster.
“All police forces in Wales pay the apprenticeship levy, and those funds are passed back to the Welsh Government through an arrangement agreed with HM Treasury. Contrary to Welsh Government claims, the Welsh public purse is set to receive a net benefit of nearly £22 million.
“Only back in February in the Senedd, I warned the Skills Minister that because her policies prevented Forces in Wales, unlike those in England, from accessing the Apprenticeship Levy through its new digital account, and therefore from contributing to the College of Policing, this would cost Welsh Forces over £2million annually.
“With typical Labour bluster and arrogance, she had told me that the Welsh Government would instead ‘strike up a grant or contract arrangement’, but that the ‘Commissioners’ don’t probably know the exact detail of it’.
“This has clearly not materialised and the Welsh Government has only itself to blame for its incompetence and failure to act on warnings and pledges made months previously.”