POLICE Scotland has effectively been cleared of manipulating crime statistics.
After parliamentary sniping over the quality of official figures, the national force's main uniformed watchdog has found the vast majority of offences were properly recorded.
However, HM Inspector of Constabulary Derek Penman also made a series of recommendations to improve the recording of data that plays an increasingly important role in fighting crime.
Mr Penman found compliance with crime-recording standards was poor in four regional divisions.
They were Renfrewshire and Inverclyde; Ayrshire; Edinburgh along with Argyll and West Dunbartonshire and called on the force to impose nationwide consistency.
Mr Penman said: "Accurate crime data is also vital for Police Scotland as it can inform planning and allows resources to be allocated where they are most needed.
"It is the first time we have presented figures on a divisional level and this will assist local scrutiny bodies to work with commanders improving the quality of recording for their communities.
"We feel this audit gives the Scottish Police Authority an opportunity to drive improvement in recording in line with their wider scrutiny role. Most recording decisions by Police Scotland are good. Some divisions performed very well and show what can be achieved when a rigorous approach is taken to attending, investigating and recording crimes."
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