Annual report 2023-24

State of policing 2023-24

HMICS’s function is to improve policing in Scotland. We do this through rigorous assessment and analysis, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of policing services across Scotland, highlighting areas for improvement and innovation. We aim to achieve this in every piece of inspection work that we do – whether acting individually or with partner bodies when we undertake joint inspections.

As a key member of the Scottish Public Sector Scrutiny Network, our inspection and advice function aims to meet the guidance provided in the Crerar Review, to improve policing services for the public and provide assurance to ministers, parliament, other elected members, stakeholders and other service delivery partners. Our intention is to ensure that the police service is:

• efficient and effective; and
• cognisant of the programme for government

while ensuring the operational independence of the Chief Constable.

Our work during the year

During the past year, we have produced inspections of organisational culture; vetting; mental health; wellbeing of officers and staff; and SPA forensic toxicology. We have also worked with key scrutiny partners on four custody inspections, four children at risk of harm inspections, and seven adult support and protection inspections. The range of these inspections was determined both to focus on the totality and governance of policing, ensuring that the value provided by the service is commensurate with the revenue expended on it.

We have also been engaged in work to address the recommendations made in Lady Elish Angiolini’s report and to provide response to the consultation on the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill as it moves through parliamentary scrutiny – evidence of which was seen in the stage one report recently published by the Scottish Parliament.

This work is crucial in building trust and confidence in the systems and processes in place to respond to complaints about the police, to manage the conduct of officers and staff, and to ensure that those within the organisation are suitable for the roles for which they are engaged. Key elements of this are to ensure that:

• vetting at recruitment stage and regular checks on this vetting are in place;
• the Chief Constable has the power to remove officers and staff from the organisation if they are unable to sustain that vetting; and
• the public are assured that, if they complain, matters are dealt with effectively – and that those who pose a risk of harm are removed from the organisation.

Our findings

During our inspection of the vetting regime in Police Scotland, we were impressed with the quality and dedication of staff within the unit. They perform a difficult task, with significant complexity in decision making and risk management. We were also pleased with the appetite for change that was demonstrated; Police Scotland understood our emerging findings and responded to them during the inspection work. This included ensuring that the work being done to assess officers and staff against existing databases was enhanced with checks against the Police Scotland interim vulnerable persons database, increasing the data wash. In doing so, the service demonstrated its determination to understand the risk posed by its existing workforce, while also taking steps to improve the vetting of new staff and creating processes to re-vet existing officers and staff.

The service has also responded to the Angiolini review recommendations, making many changes to the way in which it deals with misconduct (with additional improvements in the pipeline, pending further work on legislation). As part of our scrutiny plan, HMICS has begun work on an inspection of how Police Scotland and the SPA manage conduct and discipline matters.

One aspect of this area of policing that is missing in Scotland is the concept of misconduct in a public office. This charge has a high evidential test but is used, sparingly, in England and Wales, where it exists as an option when there is misuse of the office of constable (or other powers or information that officers and staff have access to).

The offence is committed when a public officer, acting as such, wilfully neglects to perform their duty and/or wilfully misconducts themselves:

• to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder; and
• without reasonable excuse or justification.

This test, and the case law associated with it, provides options that could strengthen public protection from officers or staff who misuse their position for personal gain. Establishing a code of ethics based upon a legislative position, would put the service in very strong position. This could be further enhanced by supporting those investigating misconduct with appropriate tools.

While recognising that there is no current appetite within Scottish Government for this change, I would advocate the consideration of such legislation. This would offer equity with England and Wales but – more importantly – it would provide opportunities to address those situations where behaviour does not currently meet the threshold for an existing criminal act (where the service finds it difficult to remove individuals who pose a threat to the public or their colleagues).

Change of leadership

The new Chief Constable took up office in October 2023. Her early commitments to a new performance framework and a refresh of the organisation’s vision for the future are both welcome and there is strong evidence that these are being worked on at pace.

Historically, Police Scotland has struggled with describing its performance and many of the service’s early problems can be attributed to an overly simplistic and mechanistic target infrastructure. Sir Iain Livingstone moved the service away from the previous red and green target system and the perverse outcomes that this drove. The pendulum appears to have swung too far in the opposite direction and that performance reporting, especially to the SPA Performance and People committees, became a narrative venture with large amounts of prose describing what was happening in the service. These documents regularly ran into the hundreds of pages which is a significant commitment to produce and to digest for those holding the service to account. This overload of data hid the real issues in the mass of, often irrelevant, information with little analysis.

Police Scotland’s proposals to redefine the performance management framework are promising and there are significant efforts being made to show not only what has been done but the difference that this has made and whether this is what is expected and acceptable. We will continue to engage with Police Scotland as this work progresses.

Our scrutiny plan indicated that we would conduct assurance work on strategy and performance in this scrutiny year. However, having discussed this with both the SPA and senior leaders in Police Scotland we decided to delay this for at least a year to allow the new performance framework and vision for 2030 to get underway. Meanwhile, we will observe performance meetings of the service and those run by the SPA to understand the improvements that are being made and the impact of these across the service.

Police Scotland must uphold principles of fairness, integrity, and respect against a constantly-evolving landscape of social, technological, and geopolitical change. In previous reports we have praised its ability to balance complex policing events and human rights, and this must be replicated on a daily basis, with the code of ethics and human rights sitting at the heart of all policing activity.

We are pleased to see the service acknowledging this, particularly in its Policing Together programme. However, our inspections of organisational culture, vetting and wellbeing tell a different story, since divisional officers and staff rarely see senior leaders, hear how the service is performing or how the Chief Constable’s commitments are being delivered (or even what the vision of the future is.) We are aware of the work taking place on the vision for 2030, which places stakeholders and understanding their needs as its cornerstone, with a communication plan to bring the vision to life.

Achieving best value

We work closely with Audit Scotland to ensure best value in policing. Our work has led to a recent report on the Scottish Police Authority and will develop into a full best value inspection of policing in 2025.

I am aware of the comments made by the Auditor General Stephen Boyle on wider reform of the public sector in Scotland:

“Significant reform of the public sector – including its workforce – is needed to protect services over the long term.

That means better workforce planning and wider changes to how staff work within and across organisations.

An approach to reform purely focused on controlling workforce numbers will not address workforce pressures and is unlikely to balance the public finances.”

Police Scotland has been on a reform journey for the past 11 years and – while there remain opportunities to redesign the organisation to meet future budgetary challenges – I am clear that such reform cannot simply be a further reduction of capability within policing. We have shown in recent inspections the significant impact on policing in communities where there is increasing demand for police to step in and deliver services where they are either unable to attend or have no out-of-hours capability.

This was seen most clearly in our inspection of policing mental health challenges, where the voice of those with experience of the police mental health response often described it as non-conducive to improved wellbeing, especially in situations where they had been placed in handcuffs and escorted to a healthcare facility. The service is working with key stakeholders to design new systems to improve this outcome.

The key to public sector reform lies in:

• better integration of systems;
• removal of blockages; and
• better information sharing to allow effective prevention at a much earlier point.

I am in full agreement with the Auditor General that this cannot be about a simple reduction of staffing head count, but rather an integrated view of cross-organisational working that places the individual at its heart, with services designed to improve effectiveness and build preventive actions into all relevant bodies responsibilities.

Calls to Police Scotland

Police Scotland continues to deal with a significant number of calls, incidents and crimes on a daily basis, presenting challenges both in terms of established issues and emerging trends. Last year (2023-24) it received over 2.1 million calls (999 or 101 calls) – 6,000 a day. The volume of 999 calls has increased by almost 10% compared to the previous year (see Appendix 1 – breakdown of calls to Police Scotland).

Trends

Some emerging trends have been identified by Police Scotland (see Appendix 2 – Current issues affecting Police Scotland – from recorded crime and performance reports). There has been a shift in the ages of young people committing violent crimes recently, with peak ages decreasing to 13-15 this year (with a corresponding increase in 12 and 13 year-olds coming into conflict with the law). These complex issues are challenging to tackle and prevent, and will require significant multi-agency working.

Challenges from cyber-enabled offending are likely to increase. Scottish Government figures estimate that there were almost 17,000 cyber-crimes recorded by the police in 2023-24. This is part of an increasing trend and is responsible for an estimated six per cent of all recorded crime, 30% of sexual crimes, and more than half of recorded frauds. Cyber–crimes present particular investigative challenges (such as cross-border issues) and there is likely to be significant under-reporting of these.

The impact of the new hate crime legislation will not be fully understood until statistics and investigative outcomes are seen later in the year. At present, performance figures show that both the number of incidents and crimes has increased, compared with the previous year.

What lies ahead?

There are some significant changes on the horizon for Police Scotland. The new Digital Evidence Sharing Capability service is currently being introduced and represents a significant change in practice: the service aims to deliver a digital solution to manage how evidence is collected, edited and shared across the criminal justice sector. It is hoped that this will save time and money by reducing duplication of effort, removing the need for officers to physically seize evidence (in some cases), and reducing the level of court citations.

Police Scotland is now 11 years old and has survived a difficult start and challenging early years. This level and speed of public sector reform is incredibly difficult to deliver, and many bodies in other sectors have stopped short of commencing such reforms. The benefits brought by reform in policing were well articulated by the previous Chief Constable but should be considered afresh every time a new demand or need for change is placed on the service. The following are all well-evidenced benefits of a single national police service:

• cashable savings in the region of £200m per annum delivered
• higher officer numbers per head of population than the rest of the United Kingdom
• no unresolved murder since the creation of the new service
• high detection rates for all crime, especially crimes of a sexual nature
• an ability to deliver high-profile events to an exceptional standard.

However, as we have said many times, this is built on a creaking infrastructure held in place by committed individuals and an exceptional workforce. The need for a further reform of policing is widely acknowledged, but this must focus on defining the organisation that the future public of Scotland will need and can afford. This includes ensuring that wider systems are joined up and that responsibility for service delivery is apportioned fairly to relevant expertise across the public sector, since failing to deliver reform in other services defeats the benefits delivered by Police Scotland.

Craig Naylor
His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary
September 2024