Local PCSOs won't be given new powers

Police community support officers (PCSOs) won’t be given increased powers because more constables are due to beef up neighbourhood teams, the police and crime commissioner said.

Dafydd Llywelyn also said that giving PCSOs more powers would make them less visible to the public in the Dyfed-Powys force area as they’d become more tied up with investigative work.

Mr Llywelyn had been asked at a Dyfed-Powys police and crime panel meeting if there was a case to extend PCSO powers to help them give greater support to warranted officers.

PCSOs can issue fixed penalty notices for things like littering and take alcohol off a person aged under 18. They can detain someone but generally do not have formal powers of arrest.

Addressing the panel, Mr Llywelyn said it was a question he was often asked and one he’d raised with a number of chief constables.

He said the current blend of sergeant-led neighbourhood policing teams consisting of PCSOs and constables was one “I hold quite dear”.

The Plaid Cymru commissioner said the Welsh Government provided some specific PCSO grant funding, which could be lost if a force decided, for example, to retrain some of its PCSOs as constables.

Mr Llywelyn also referred to a pledge by the UK Labour Government to have 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers on the streets of England and Wales by 2029 compared to currently.

Citing a note from a senior Dyfed-Powys Police officer, Mr Llywelyn said a “significant uplift” in police constables was expected in the coming months.

The force covers Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Powys and, according to a budget report from January, had 1,294 police officers in 2024, plus 146 PCSOs and 746 other staff.

The police and crime panel consists of councillors from the four local authorities, plus two co-opted members. It scrutinises decisions made by the elected police and crime commissioner and approves, or can veto, the taxpayer-funded element of police funding – known as the precept – whose level is proposed by the commissioner.

The precept rose by 8.6% on April 1, which is reflected in residents’ council tax bills. For Band D householders in Dyfed-Powys the 2025-26 police precept is £360.68p, a rise of £28.65p. There were just over 35,000 crimes reported in 2024, excluding fraud, fewer than the previous two years.

Mr Llywelyn, who was first elected in 2016, went on to advise the panel that parking enforcement was the responsibility of councils, not PCSOs, although PCSOs did have a role if a vehicle was blocking the road.

“When asked directly, chief constables plural – because I have asked more than one chief constable this question – do not want to give PCSOs that (parking enforcement) power as they feel it would diminish their ability to undertake the crime prevention role they need to undertake,” he said.

By Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporting Service