More police on the beat

In the SNP's manifesto for the May election, "putting more police on to local streets with a more visible police presence" was a priority. Addressing the Scottish Police Federation's annual conference, Alex Salmond was more specific. Under questioning from an audience trained to pin down evasion, he spelled out how the pledges would be put into practice and said that £78m would be made available if required to provide 1000 new police officers. Six months on, it appears that Scotland's eight police forces will not increase in strength from 16,200 to 17,200, but that the commitment will be met by springing IT specialists from their desks and enabling beat patrols to use hand-held computers.