Police and the public will be questioned by MSPs about whether or not policing in Scotland has improved since the new national force was set up last year.
Members of Holyrood's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing are to carry out a series of special visits to communities across Scotland, with the first of these taking place today.
Convener Christine Grahame said: "There has been much comment that local policing is under attack, with proposed closures of police counters and an apparent rise in stop-and-searches. We want to hear first-hand from the police on the frontline and in the back rooms if local policing is for better or worse, or if there has been no change since Police Scotland was created."
The national police force, Police Scotland, was formed on April 1 last year, with the country's eight regional forces coming together to set up the new body. Since then, plans have been announced to close public counters at 65 of the country's 214 stations in an attempt to offer "value for money".
The sub-committee is keen to find out if local police services have improved, remained the same or worsened since Police Scotland was established nine months ago, as well as whether there has been any change in approach.
MSPs will speak to police divisional management teams and community and response officers to find out more about the impact of the changes. The sub-committee will also hold talks with local communities and Victim Support.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article