THE body representing Scotland’s police men and women has warned of more crime, more victims and fewer officers on the street as a direct result of Scottish Government budget choices.

The Scottish Police Federation (SPF) said the decision earlier this year to freeze budgets in cash terms for five years would inevitably hurt the entire criminal justice system.

At a fringe event at the SNP conference in Aberdeen, SPF general secretary Calum Steele told Justice Secretary Keith Brown to his face that the financial situation was “dire”.

After warnings from others about fewer lawyers and social workers because of real termn cuts, Mr Brown insisted there was “no vendetta” against the justice system.

In May, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes froze funding for the Scottish Police Authority at £1.246 billion per year, meaning a real terms cut of 8 per cent over the spending review.

However this was well before inflation rose to its current rate of 9.9%, meaning the real-terms cuts are much deeper.

Mr Steele said: “We are in a dire financial situation just now. For the police service the consequences of that will be, in simple terms, a smaller police force, fewer police officers, fewer police stations, more crime and more victims of crime being disgruntled with the police service. 

"There is no point pretending that that is not going to happen, because that is the only thing that can happen. 

“At this moment in time, we have the smallest number of police officers that we've had in well over 10 years. 

“Still higher than when the SNP came to power, but  the way things are shaping up just now -  if there is no change to the expected funding for the police service - we will have a police force of about 15,500 officers by the end of the spending review period. 

“There's no point hiding that and pretending that that's not going to be the case because that can be the only consequence for an organisation [with] 87% of its funding spent with people.

“If the police force was to go back to pre-pandemic levels we would have 17,400 police officers. As it stands, we have barely over 16,500.

“And when the next quarterly numbers come out they are going to be the lowest that we will have seen probably in about 12 or 15 years.

“We have lost 140 police stations since 2013. We have more demand coming in on the police service.

“At this time, violent crime is up 12%, sex crimes are up 15%, dishonesty is up 4% and our clear-up rate is falling.”

Mr Steele said it was wrong that the health service budget was ringfenced, meaning cuts in other public services were deeper than if the pain had been spread evenly.

He said: “I am not going to be naive enough to say give us more money and everything will be fine, but I am going to say this. 

“The decisions that the Scottish Government is making will make the situation worse.

“We cannot afford to protect any particular part of the budget at a time of extreme austerity.

“If the expectation is that health is going to be protected, and that's what the spending review says, then it’s going to make it harder for everyone else. 

“It's going to make it harder for police officers, going to make it harder for criminal justice social workers, it's going to make it harder for the Legal Aid professional.

“That's going to make it harder for our courts and everybody else in the criminal justice system. That's not a fair way of dealing with the challenges that we’re going to face.” 

Also on the panel, Julia McParlin, President of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association, called for defence lawyers to be paid on the same pay rates as those working for public bodies.

She said: “The difficulty that we are facing is a staffing crisis. Legal aid has been underfunded for decades now. There’s simply not enough of us.”

Stephen Low of Unison said criminal justice social departments in councils were under-funded, over-stretched, and had a recruitment and retention problem.

He also warned of a backlash from council staff if the Scottish Government tried to move them to the new National Care Service, with different pension arrangements.

Responding, Mr Brown accepted there was an unprecedented strain on funding, in part because trade unions had demanded £700m in higher pay for public sector staff.

He also blamed the UK Government’s mismanagement of the public finances, leading to cuts to services south of the border which caused knock-on cuts at Holyrood.

He said: “There’s an awful lot being done, there are big, big challenges being done, but there’s no vendetta against any part of the justice system – why would we want to do that?

“The simple point is, the way to overcome these structural limitations, mostly based on finance, is by achieving independence for Scotland.”

The Justice Secretary said the current financial situation in Scotland was “very grim”.

He said: “As bad as it is, Liz Truss is talking about a further £18 billion coming out of public services - we need to think about things called negative consequentials [under the Barnett funding formula], to cut the budget within the year.

“It is an extremely grim situation, and I say these things because … all these things are put at risk because of the current constitutional settlement we have.”

Tory MSP Jamie Greene said: “This is a chilling warning straight to the heart of the SNP government about the impact their real-terms cut to the resource budget will have on policing in Scotland.

“Officer numbers are already at their lowest level since the formation of Police Scotland, yet the Scottish Police Federation say ministers’ broken promise to protect the budget over the lifetime of the parliament will see them plunge further to just 15,300.

“That’s unacceptable and unsustainable. At a time when violent crime is rising we need more police officers, not a further brutal cull of around 1,300 of them.

“The SNP must U-turn on their broken promise and give Police Scotland the budget they need to protect the public.”