Our columnist Calum Steele looks at the vexed issue of police costs for keeping events, big and small, safe
Some 10 days on from the violence that marred the last Old Firm match at Ibrox, the recriminations show no sign of abating. Big, pointy fingers of blame have been waved in the direction of both sets of fans, while radio phone-ins have provided endless seams of ranting entertainment to keep the after-match antipathy alive – often in a manner that puts the tolerance for nuance found on social media to shame.
Our First Minister was quickly out of the traps to condemn – or “slam”, as tabloid writing style demands – the scenes at Ibrox, before returning to the subject last weekend to say he would never take his son to watch the fixture. We were left to guess whether his absence would be more keenly felt by the Union Bears or the Green Brigade, though seeing as the latter remain persona non grata at Celtic Park, it seems unlikely we will see John Swinney dusting off a blue balaclava and heading for the big hoose any time soon.
The appearance of the Chief Constable before Holyrood’s Public Audit Committee last week proved too much of a temptation for its members to resist. Stretching the committee’s remit beyond its natural limits ensured that Labour, Reform, and the Liberal Democrats all managed to take a swipe at the Glasgow duo, while giving Jo Farrell the opportunity to “slam” both clubs for their silence over the disorder and violence at the end of the match, which her officers faced.
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An exercise in forensic interrogation it most certainly was not. Profoundly sober tones were adopted, presumably to convey a seriousness that the questioning itself lacked. Yet for all that – and in a manner that only just managed to bring the discussion vaguely within the committee’s remit – the cost of policing the fixture did at least receive a brief airing.
Here, Deputy Chief Constable Alan Spiers was at least able to make some key points. The management of access to and security within football grounds is not a police matter. It is entirely for stewards. In news that came as no news to football fans, he observed many English Premier League fixtures operate with little or no visible police presence inside stadiums – a stark contrast with Scotland, where larger matches can involve hundreds of officers inside the ground and hundreds more on the surrounding streets. We were left to draw our own conclusions as to why.
The policing of large events is an expensive business, and not just in terms of accountancy, where cash-equivalent costs relied on by accountants often misrepresent reality. At today’s rates it costs £84 an hour for a constable and almost £150 an hour for a Chief Superintendent (and these will certainly rise again come April). Add into that mix a minimum hours charging period, and it’s easy to see how the police “make” some £13 million from the policing of events annually. In footballing terms alone, those costs are not loose change for any club, but they also represent a funding stream that the police budget would struggle to live without. Police officers have to be paid regardless, after all.
Here it is as easy as it is lazy to blame the police for profiteering, as it is an unavoidable commercial reality that the police costs are simply passed on to the consumer in their ticket prices. And whilst for those few hours the cry of "I pay your wages" is, strictly speaking, true, the simple fact is the police have no choice but to level such exorbitant fees for their services.
Through a series of legislative obligations, which are about as riveting a read as the last Rangers-Celtic game was a watch, you end up at the governmental diktat in the guise of the snappily-titled Scottish Public Finance Manual compelling the police to recover FULL costs for events and services.
Whilst I don’t expect anyone to break out the tissues for Celtic and Rangers, these rules extend far beyond the Old Firm. They reach into every corner of the events economy: SPFL fixtures, Highland League matches, rugby internationals and festivals like TRNSMT. Were it left at that, most of us might, after a moment’s thought, conclude it is fair enough. But many of the enterprises caught by these rules – lower league football, community fairs, local music festivals, agricultural shows and Highland Games – run on a shoestring. They exist for the good of the community and not the bottom line on a balance sheet. Almost invariably, such events take place outwith the Central Belt, where they play a vital role in supporting fragile economies; and deliver a social value that far exceeds any financial gain. In such cases, the absence of any discretion in charging for policing is frankly preposterous and can make or break them.
The entirely nonsensical and performative statutory purpose of policing “to improve the safety and well-being of persons, localities and communities in Scotland” seems irreconcilable with the obligation to levy such communities for the privilege of improving their safety and well-being. Expecting the police to do so is an anathema to the very concept of community cohesion.
But if that contradiction is uncomfortable, it is the quiet acceptance of it that is worse. The same public finance manual that compels the police to charge for their services also sets the rules for what those budgets can and cannot rely upon. The fact that income from policing events like the Old Firm is quietly factored into the headline police budget is hypocrisy in plain sight. Adding a £13 million events “dividend” not only distorts the true picture of police under-funding, it amounts to an unambiguous endorsement that revenue generated from the policing of potential and actual disorder is an essential part of a system that depends on the very behaviour it publicly condemns.
And so, a certain dependency takes hold. The fixtures that attract the loudest condemnation also demand the heaviest policing; the heaviest policing incurs the greatest cost; and that cost, in turn, becomes revenue that is essential to sustain the wider service. A safer, calmer environment where police aren’t needed ought to be the goal for all – even if it carries a less remarked-upon consequence. When the need diminishes, so too does the income, and a government that puts costs above all else won’t like that one bit.
Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both.
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