THE Scottish Police Federation yesterday voted overwhelmingly to oppose plans for a single national police force.
The SPF represents all police officers in the ranks of chief inspector and below: more than 17,500 people or 98% of all police officers in Scotland.
At their annual conference in Aviemore, they voted 78% in favour of a motion from Strathclyde branch against the merging of Scotland’s eight current police forces into a single national force.
The Strathclyde branch controls 48% of the conference votes and only 20% opposed the motion, with 2% abstaining.
Labour and the Tories are proposing the creation of a single force to save money and increase efficiency while the Liberal Democrats are campaigning on the retention of the status quo. The Scottish Government meanwhile, is conducting a consultation exercise on the issue.
Speaking after the vote, Les Gray, SPF chairman, said: “Delegates have expressed their significant concern against political interference in policing and have also questioned whether the savings stated would be achieved through force reconstruction. This vote will now form part of our submission to the Scottish Government’s consultation.”
The vote puts rank and file officers at odds with their immediate superiors. The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (Asps) supports the formation of a single force. They say it would be the best option to maintain officer numbers at the highest possible levels and would increase capacity for counter-terrorism and fighting serious organised crime.
Speaking earlier this week, Asps president Chief Superintendent David O’Connor said: “A single police service will allow us to maintain existing levels of high performance and public confidence.
“There will be opportunities to retain and enhance local accountability and governance. Importantly, it will also increase capacity for counter-terrorism and serious organised crime.”
According to the organisation, a single force would allow efficiencies to be made while providing the best opportunity to improve operational outcomes at a local and national level.
However, Asps believes there should be no centralisation or asset stripping and local resources must be preserved to protect frontline services across both urban and rural Scotland.
However, the text of the motion put to the SPF conference read: “This motion seeks to oppose any move towards a national police force in Scotland. One police force in Scotland will lose local autonomy, shall centralise power and will give any government the political control of its chief constable.”
After the vote, Liberal Democrats leader Tavish Scott said: “This landslide police vote has sounded the death knell for the planned single police force.”
SNP Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing said: “The SNP Government issued the consultation on reform options, which the Scottish Police Federation and others are engaging in constructively, with the aim of securing consensus. ”
Labour’s justice spokesman Richard Baker said the party would continue to engage with all ranks of police about plans for a single force.
He added: “We believe effective frontline policing can be best delivered with a single force along with enhanced local accountability.”
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