New North Wales chief will be expected to learn Welsh

PCC begins search to replace CC Carl Foulkes who is retiring

The new chief constable of North Wales will be expected to learn to speak Welsh as part of his or her salary and relocation package if they are not currently a Welsh language speaker the PCC has announced.

The current chief constable Carl Foulkes who will retire in October after 30 years service made it a priority to learn Welsh when he became chief in 2018.

Although born in Wrexham his family moved to Scotland and the East Midlands so he was not a Welsh speaker.

So he signed up for an intensive course at the National Welsh Language Centre during his annual leave at Deputy Chief Constable of Merseyside before joining North Wales as chief

The most recent Annual Population Survey (June 2020) conducted by the Office for National Statistics, suggests that 28.6% of people in Wales aged three and over were able to speak Welsh.

In the advert for the chief constable job which attracts a salary of between £149,913 and £164,904 PCC Alan Dunbobbin states the force is committed to being a bilingual organisation and the successful candidate will be expected “to achieve a measure of competency [in Welsh] for which full support will be given.”

Interviews for the post will be conducted between 2 and 5 August.