SCOTLAND'S senior police officers have called for the scrapping of around half the country's 32 councils in an attempt to save money.
The president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents is to question the current structure of local authorities. His intervention follows the creation last month of new national single police and fire services.
Last night the comments by Chief Superintendent David O'Connor were condemned as absurd and simplistic by critics.
Mr O'Connor will warn at his body's annual conference in Pitlochry, which begins tomorrow, that councils and other public bodies, including health boards, must show the same efforts to reform.
Mr O'Connor said: "Police are undergoing a journey of reform to improve services and reduce costs. It is tough. But they cannot be expected to bear the brunt of cuts alone.
"A lot of what the police do, they do in partnership. I think there should be an open, constructive and pragmatic debate about reform of the 32 local authorities and 14 health boards. Are there too many, is there duplication of effort and cost? Can we afford not to consider reducing these numbers?"
He called for options surrounding reform to be debated across the public sector, including the use of a single emergency service and shared emergency service contact centres.
Mr O'Connor added: "Fewer local authorities and health boards could mean fewer senior management posts, better services and reduced costs."
A position paper for the conference describes the need for a "journey of reform" similar to that embarked upon by police, fire and ambulance services. It cites the number of police divisions in the new police set-up – 14 – implying a model for council reduction.
Mr O'Connor said wider public-sector reform was essential, requiring a constructive, open and pragmatic public debate.
He said the single force was finding savings where it could, which are returned to the Scottish Government for reallocation.
He added: "We need to be sure reform is being considered across the public sector and not just mainly in the justice area."
He suggested the numerous emergency services public contact services be streamlined number to become "blue light emergency services public contact services" as part of that process.
The new single police force and fire service are part of reforms designed to save £1.7 billion over the next 15 years.
Estimates suggest Police Scotland will make £39.8 million in annual savings through cutting key civilian staff from Scotland's police service under proposals agreed between the Scottish Government and the force.
The savings come from the loss of an estimated 3000 police staff jobs, as many back-room functions such as human resources and IT are merged.
Councillor David O'Neill, president of the local government umbrella body Cosla, said: "This is as absurd as it is simplistic and comes from an unelected person.
"He misses the point, as we work together as community planning partners, and [Finance Secretary] John Swinney has already said there will be no local government re-organisation."
Professor Richard Kerley, who chairs independent think tank the Centre for Scottish Public Policy, said: "This is both simplistic and premature. It's a bit like planning the victory parade while you are still limbering up for the event.
"There are not even operational budgets in place for the new police service.
"We have had less than two months of the police being amalgamated and while there have been no spectacular disasters yet, it is way too early to say it's been a success and lessons have been learned."
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