SCOTLAND’S top police officer has said ruling out a hard Brexit or delaying the UK’s exit would reduce the “imminent pressure” on officers and allow for more detailed planning.

Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said the force was currently readying itself for a no-deal scenario and warned of the difficulties this would throw up.

He said police had already entered talks with countries around Europe in a bid to replace the multitude of legal measures built up by the EU, including joint efforts to tackle human trafficking and criminal gangs.

Police Scotland would now have to forge a number of “sub-optimal workarounds”, he said, including finding a replacement for the European Arrest Warrant – responsible for bringing a number of high-profile offenders to justice.

Mr Livingstone said: “The biggest challenge undoubtedly from a policing and security perspective is the loss of legal mechanisms and measures that have developed over many years with the other 27 member states.

“Through Europol, through Eurojust, the use of the European Arrest Warrant, Schengen intelligence system, joint investigation teams through the Europol structures… Police Scotland have been a great beneficiary of that."

He added: "We’ve had a number of joint investigation teams – an awful lot to do with organised people trafficking and high-level organised crime threats to the people of Scotland.

“The use of the European Arrest Warrant is a great tool for not only criminals who are beyond the shores of Scotland in Europe, but also European criminals who are in our jurisdiction and the ability to remove them quickly.”

He said police would “now have to recreate a number of sub-optimal workarounds on a bilateral basis”, adding: “So we’ll have to have an agreement with the French, we’ll have to have an agreement with the Portuguese, with the Germans.”

Mr Livingstone, who was giving evidence to Holyrood's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing, said the biggest challenge in the short-term was the uncertainty caused by Brexit.

He said Scotland would likely suffer less disruption than areas such as the Irish border, but insisted police had to be prepared for worst-case scenarios such as food shortages and disorder from “some of the more radical fringes in the political environment”.

This would need “greater resource than we’ve got at the moment”, he said.

The police chief added: “If March 29 was ruled out as the hard stop, it would certainly give us more time to start to look at other scenarios and look at other options and perhaps have more detailed planning assumptions built in to the work we’re doing at the moment.

“But at the moment we need to make plans for a hard Brexit on March 29. We need to do that against worst case scenario.

“That is the stated policy of the Government in London, and therefore it’s against that scenario that we’re currently planning.

“But I think it’s an undoubtedly reasonable thing to say that if that is ruled out, it would put less imminent pressure on police resources and we could start to look at what other scenarios may arise – again, depending on the nature of the Brexit arrangements.”

However, Mr Livingstone said that even if a hard Brexit is ruled out, it still left the possibility of a general election, second referendum or further European elections.

All of these would throw up “remarkable challenges”, he said.

Police chiefs previously revealed plans to reduce officer numbers were being put on hold to deal with Brexit uncertainty.

In December, the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said up to 900 extra police would be needed in Scotland.