Challenges mount for incoming police chief

Recorded crime in Scotland is at a 41-year low. It is, undoubtedly, a reassuring statistic and one that the SNP habitually turn to whenever criminal justice policy comes under the microscope. Behind that figure, though, lies a much more complicated story. Sir Stephen House’s exit as Chief Constable of Police Scotland this December proves as much.

Inevitably, headlines in recent weeks focused on the fact a third of the police workforce declared their intention to leave within the next three years. It was another number to emerge from this month’s staff survey, though, which summed up the task now facing his successor and a Scottish Government that has backed the force to the hilt: only nine per cent believed that Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) would genuinely act on the findings.

“The survey seems to suggest that we’re not recognising and rewarding [the workforce] and, to a certain extent, I think the target culture that has been pervasive for the last few years has a lot to play in that,” says Niven Rennie, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents.

The longstanding debacle over stop and search – a policy that became synonymous with the outgoing chief constable – epitomised that. His management style was “not everyone’s cup of tea”, admits Scottish Police Federation general secretary Calum Steele. “But I believe he was the right person for the right moment in time.”

Who takes over is now the subject of fervid speculation ahead of the application process closing next week. “The new chief, whoever he or she is, has to give the service a hug,” adds Steele. “They have to say to the men and women working in the service something similar to, ‘we know the past two-and-a-half to three years has been hectic, it has been 100 miles an hour, you’ve not had a chance to catch your breath, you may be feeling under-valued and under-appreciated – as has been demonstrated in the survey – but I, as your new chief constable, absolutely value your commitment and your contribution’.”

That is the inward-facing priority as far as Steele is concerned. The outward-facing one is to defend the service’s reputation amid what he considers to be a “very poisonous political environment” at present.

“A new chief constable has got to have the courage to stand up to politicians who have got away with so much for so long and tell them that policing is not a matter that should be subject to being a political football,” he claims.

It’s safe to say that MSPs who have been most vocal when the force has come up short will describe their input differently. Irrespective, the situation has been “exacerbated” on certain occasions – according to one well-placed policing source – by government being seen to unreservedly back the force.

“There was a time and place for that staunch defence of what the service was doing. If you contrast the level of defence that existed when Kenny [MacAskill] was there versus that which we’ve seen under the new Cabinet Secretary, obviously it’s not quite of the same level.”

Even with a change of personnel, the SNP appear rooted to their policy commitment not to let officer numbers dip below 17,234 – despite the savings being sought. While Steele suggests critics who believe having fewer officers will lead to an increase in the number of support staff are “sorely deluding themselves”, there is no escaping the arbitrary nature of a manifesto promise that owes its roots to a policing landscape of eight years ago.

“We’ve still got 17,234 officers,” adds Rennie. “What we don’t have is the infrastructure behind that that we used to have because that is where the cuts have come.”

Police Scotland is not the only one going through a transition. The SPA has a new chair whose first job is to complete a six-month review of governance arrangements that includes looking at the skills the scrutiny body has at its disposal. Andrew Flanagan will also have to appease those in local government who feel that they have been sidelined, a frustration that ultimately led Michael Matheson to call a local policing summit in Edinburgh last month.

“Put simply, COSLA is concerned about the disjunction and lack of harmony between the local and the national,” says the umbrella body’s vice-president, Councillor Michael Cook. COSLA will propose a forum with 32 local conveners that would directly feed into the SPA board’s agenda. A public agreement akin to one between Police Scotland and the SPA that commits to early engagement on policy is also being sought.

Policing, however, isn’t the only potential headache facing the SNP. The Community Justice (Scotland) Bill, which will see Scotland’s eight community justice authorities abolished, may garner fewer headlines in the mainstream press, but it is causing significant frustration in local government and third sector circles. That was perhaps best illustrated by one councillor’s claim before last month’s Justice Committee that local authorities are being offered “absolutely hee-haw” by way of resource to fulfill the new responsibilities that will be expected of them.

And then there’s prisons, an area that Matheson appears to have made his principal focus. The Justice Secretary’s decision to abandon plans for a new women’s prison at Inverclyde won him praise within the sector. That, however, was the easy bit. The harder task is first, how to reduce a female prison population that has remained stubbornly high, and second, where, as well as how, the five regional units promised as part of his fresh approach will actually operate.

Though prisons and not policing is on the SNP conference agenda in Aberdeen, it is undoubtedly the latter that will attract the most column inches for the foreseeable future. An investigation by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner into the death of Sheku Bayoh, who died after being detained by police in Fife, will be concluded. A report into two unnamed UK forces – one of which is claimed to be Police Scotland – by the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office is imminent amid allegations police used spying powers to identify journalists’ sources. And the outcome of two inquiries linked to call handling following the M9 tragedy will be seen.

With an election on the horizon in which justice policy is likely to feature, it is worth remembering that statistics lend themselves to different stories. Even a 41-year crime low comes with context.