Council bosses have raised concerns over Police Scotland's ability to maintain local relationships following the introduction of the single force.
Responding to a consultation on Scottish Government policing priorities, Edinburgh Council said since the merger, policing at local level has suffered because officers are frequently moved around the country.
The local authority submission stated: “It is difficult to maintain relationships at a local level due to the police regularly being moved around different areas within the force.”
A range of other organisations also registered their concerns about the force during the consultation, including the Scottish Police Federation who have been very outspoken about the lack of resources available to officers amid claims of police cars being held together with duct tape and damp and mouldy interview suites.
In response to the consultation, which closed earlier this year, SPF general secretary Calum Steele said: "No matter what way the government chooses to dress it up, the dire capital funding settlement for the police service means that the service struggles to deal with existing threats and challenges, let alone be in a position to adequately respond to new ones."
He also claimed that Police Scotland does not have enough money to run an effective IT system, adding: "The capital settlement is simply woefully inadequate to allow the police to innovate to enable the service to be resilient flexible, responsive and efficient."
Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Douglas Ross said: "These are very severe warnings that cover a range of areas where Police Scotland is struggling.
"It is losing traction on the ground locally, and failing to keep up with the world of technology.
"This falls completely at the SNP’s door, which created the single force and has overseen its first few years.
"Ministers said local policing wouldn’t be hampered, but here we have Scotland’s capital city saying otherwise.
"The Scottish Government has to take heed of this."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said the priorities identified in the consultation "will strengthen the community focus of policing, ensuring that our national priorities take account of the needs of local communities".
She added: "In terms of funding, the Scottish Government is committed to protecting the police revenue budget in real terms for the entirety of this Parliament, delivering an additional £100 million of investment over the next five years, in addition to £55 million of reform funding in 2016-17."
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel