Extract from Welsh Parliament questions to the Minister for Social Justice: South Wales Police - Nov 9

Mike Hedges MS: In South Wales West, we have different boundaries for the police service and the fire and rescue service, with the ambulance service on an all-Wales basis. Has the Minister considered consulting on reorganising the fire service so that its boundaries mirror the police boundaries?

Hannah Blythyn MS (Deputy Minister for Social Partnership): I thank Mike Hedges for his question. I think what Mike means is not necessarily—. Some of the fire and rescue service boundaries are aligned with those of local health boards, but the footprints are not the same in terms of the area that they cover. I could say that there aren't any plans to align those boundaries, as I understand it. However, what we are focused on at the moment is actually where organisations can work together or co-locate; we know that that has a positive result, not just in terms of the services working together, but in terms of the relationships that have been able to be built up between them. Just a point of interest on that, in the Member's region, the mid and west fire and rescue service covers Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, which are both near South Wales Police, but the two organisations have a long-established relationship and share the same control room, and we've seen the co-location of services where we've got ambulance and fire and rescue, and that's something that we're keen to support as a Government.