THE history books will show that Police Scotland came into being on April 1, 2013, but there may also be recorded another significant date, September 3, 2015, a day when everything changed at the new organisation.
For on that single day we had a report on call centre failings at the heart of a human tragedy; a report setting out the problems with the use of unauthorised stop and search practices; the appointment of a new convener of the Scottish Police Authority; a set of circumstances which explain the abrupt departure of our first national Chief Constable the previous week; and a recognition by both the First Minister and the Justice Secretary that changes had to be made and acknowledged.
But we have to be careful not to focus on the problems without acknowledging the progress made. Like a number of comparable countries Scotland shifted to a single force.
Was that a wrong decision? We don’t believe so. It was a logical shift for Scotland to become like Ireland or Denmark in having a single force. It was also the correct decision because big public spending cuts were coming and this was one mechanism for absorbing them. The Labour Party agreed with this decision, so it was a bi-partisan project.
Has it gone well? That depends. For the families of John Yuill and Lamara Bell, who died in the M9 crashed ignored by call handlers, we do not expect other than criticism. But on our crime clear-up rate, particularly of murder? Or the full access of rural forces to unheard of levels of technical and forensic expertise?
Above all, the cuts absorbed in Scotland are on nothing like the scale being inflicted South of the Border. Yes, times are tough in policing these days. They are tough in health and education and local government too. That is the reality of the current political and economic settlement — hard times for the public sector.
The police budgets in England and Wales are being decimated, while here they are being trimmed. We would question the arbitrary protection of 1000 extra police officers when operational control might suggest culling some of them and saving civilian staff. That would be progress in the coming manifestos.
The inspectorate report into call centre rationalisation makes uncomfortable reading for Ministers, who have accepted the findings, and for Sir Stephen House, who announced his resignation this week. It is not an inquiry into the M9 case but its implications are clear. Put call centre staff under more pressure and mistakes are more likely.
Similarly, the new chief constable will have to address the issue of stop and search, a political football which statistics show is already being resolved and clarified.
Our policing is about to enter an era of a new chief constable and a new convener of the civilian oversight body, the Scottish Police Authority. The new chief constable will have to overcome a legacy of a predecessor who was seen as rigid, bureaucratic and unyielding — ironically qualities which were probably essential to forging the new single force, if not for endearing it to the public’s hearts.
It was the fall-out between Sir Stephen House and SPA chair Vic Emery which undermined the foundations of Police Scotland from the outset. Andrew Flanagan, an accountant and former chief executive of Scottish Media Group, comes to the post from a role at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
How he gels on with our future chief constable will be key to raising morale within the force and public trust outwith it. Increased budgets are not coming any time soon to our public sector. Managing this is the key.
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