Strategic review of the Scottish Police Authority

Vision and leadership

16. The SPA has focused on continued improvement in its strategic vision and leadership and now assesses itself as being fully compliant with good practice. It has assessed its operational vision and leadership as strong and improving, with two areas for improvement: fully embedding risk into business planning; and establishing a formal continuous improvement framework.

17. Since the last HMICS inspection of the SPA in 2019, there have been major changes to the structure and staffing of the SPA. These include a redesigned and refocused corporate structure in late 2020 (see Figure 2) and, in early 2021, the appointment of a permanent new Chief Executive, a new Chair of the SPA, and new board members.

Figure 2 – SPA corporate structure

Source: Scottish Police Authority

18. The SPA has a strong commitment to transparency, openness and accountability. We found the Chair, board members and the Chief Executive to be exhibiting greater leadership, vision and direction since our last inspection. This improvement has been supported by a good range of leadership development and training. In response to a recent staff Pulse Survey (showing that 66 per cent strongly agree or agree that the “leadership team models positive behaviours”) the SPA is striving to further strengthen and improve leadership.

19. Previous SPA inspection evidence has shown that leadership effectiveness can be influenced by individual personalities and relationships, as well as interpretation of the
statutory role of the SPA. It is therefore critical that the SPA consolidates and builds on the good progress it has achieved in both executive and non-executive leadership to mitigate any risks associated with future changes in key positions.

20. The SPA has appropriate strategies and plans in place to clearly set out what it wants to achieve over the short to medium term. While objectives are clearly defined, there is scope to include clearer measures of progress and outcomes as part of the regular review of progress (see the performance management section of this report).

21. While we welcome the existence and development of the three-year strategic plans (both SPA corporate and SPA and Police Scotland joint) we found that a longer-term vision and sustainable model for policing is underdeveloped. As we stated in our report on Strategic Workforce Planning (August 2022), without a well-established Target Operating Model there can be no clarity on what should be delivered and to what standard – or the level of resource required to meet those needs in the future.

22. The new SPA Oversight Group for the Revised Model of Policing is welcomed, as are commitments and work towards an effective Strategic Workforce Plan and Target Operating Model. However the SPA should continue to enhance its oversight and scrutiny of Police Scotland’s development of a longer-term vision and sustainable model for policing, with a focus on progress, and in alignment with the Joint Strategy for Policing as it develops.

23. The SPA has developed its strategies and plans through effective analysis of emerging issues and risks, as well as gathering stakeholder views and perceptions through a range of engagement activities. It is in the process of refreshing its Engagement Strategy and this is an important step in demonstrating the impact and value of its engagement activity, providing greater clarity about its engagement processes and ensuring this work is complementary to that of Police Scotland.

24. The SPA can be over-ambitious and complex in terms of its planning, and should accurately assess how achievable suggested improvements are likely to be. For example, the 2023-24 service plan, underpinning the Corporate Strategy, had 147 actions and 490 milestones; its self-evaluation development plan has 80 actions and 20 areas for improvement. Rationalising planned actions and better linking them to desired outcomes, can provide the SPA with a clearer focus and potential resourcing efficiency. It has started to address this, rationalising actions and milestones within its 2024-25 plan.

Effective partnerships

25. The SPA’s performance assessment for this characteristic remains mostly consistent with that of its previous self-evaluation. Last year, it determined that one operational indicator was not applicable for assessment – participation in community planning partnerships and other joint working initiatives, and integrating these into local planning mechanisms to deliver outcomes. With the introduction of its community confidence action research project, it has now assessed itself as being partially compliant with good practice.

26. The SPA has a wide range of partnerships that the Chair has been instrumental in developing and making effective. It has a clear rationale for forming partnerships, with statements of intent and purpose clearly articulated. It provided positive examples of engagement with local government, national bodies and other stakeholders, including collaborative strategic conversations, research and evidence roundtable events, as well as invited input into board and committee meetings.

27. Alongside these many positive examples, we found scope for greater partner engagement and strengthened advocacy work for specific issues, especially those where ownership or responsibility is complex or unclear, such as mental health. We also found that assessment and evaluation of outcomes and impact was missing from many of the engagement activities evidenced by the SPA, as was evidence of next steps.

28. In revising its 2021-2023 engagement strategy, the SPA should be clear about the purpose, range and intended benefits from partnership working, stakeholder engagement and communication, to guide future work. In particular, it would be beneficial for it to outline the aims of strategic engagement and how it intends for this to influence service delivery of specific areas.

29. Consideration of the Scottish Government National Standards for Community Engagement and the related Participation handbook may be useful in future planning of engagement.

Governance and accountability

30. The SPA has assessed itself as having strong and significantly improved strategic governance. Having adopted higher standards for assessment and a stricter interpretation of best value guidance, it has identified two operational areas for improvement: having more formalised processes for continuous improvement and stakeholder feedback. We have commented above on mechanisms for gathering stakeholder views and perceptions to inform continuous improvement, and comment on continuous improvement in the performance management section below.

31. We found the SPA to have appropriate governance arrangements in place and these operate in accordance with a detailed corporate governance framework that is relevant and up to date. Its decision-making processes are generally open and transparent, which is consistent with public sector best practice. Committees only consider a very limited number of reports in private and, where this happens, it is generally appropriate. There is some limited scope for improvement – for example, considering all committee effectiveness reviews in public.

32. As noted above, the SPA also demonstrates good practice in involving partner and representative bodies in its committees – trades union representatives are represented on the People Committee and The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) is represented on the Policing Performance Committee.

33. SPA board members receive appropriate induction and training to ensure that they have the appropriate skills and knowledge to carry out their roles effectively. This includes a detailed and structured induction process, annual appraisals and development plans. They also receive a good range of development opportunities targeted at the SPA’s specific role, including training on scrutiny and challenge.

34. We found that the SPA is now in a position of compliance with On Board guidance for members of statutory boards. All board members attend meetings on a regular basis and perform their duties in a manner consistent with the good practice outlined in this guidance. They carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively and have good working relationships with SPA staff. Views of the support provided by the Chief Executive and SPA staff to board members are positive. There is good co-operation between board members and SPA officers outside of committees. We found no evidence of board members acting outwith their non-executive role.

Figure 3 – SPA committee structure

35. The primary role of SPA committees is to support the Board by providing oversight and scrutiny of relevant issues. As such, committees have little formal delegated decision-making, with agendas made up almost exclusively of reports provided for members to note information (although some committees do have limited decision-making responsibility, for example ARAC annually approves the internal audit plan, the Policing Performance Committee approves the performance framework, and the Resources Committee makes some decisions in line with the corporate governance framework).

36. Despite this, meetings can have extensive agendas and last a long time (sometimes, over six hours). For example, although operational policing matters are the responsibility of the Chief Constable, part of the role of the SPA is to scrutinise these issues – hence the Policing Performance Committee frequently spends a lot of time being briefed on operational policing matters. The committee should review which operational policing reports it actually requires to meet its terms of reference. The SPA would also benefit from providing clearer guidance and rationale over which issues and level of detail it should be briefed. Similarly, all committees should satisfy themselves that their current operation makes best use of members’ and officers’ time and aligns to their terms of reference.

37. The SPA is committed to continuous improvement in its governance and accountability. It conducts committee effectiveness reviews annually to provide the SPA Chair and the Board with assurance over committees’ functioning and effectiveness. This is a positive development. There is scope to improve the committee effectiveness process, with all reviews being considered in public and including the views of others who regularly engage with SPA committees.

38. The latest committee effectiveness reviews in 2023 reported that committees had effectively discharged their duties in line with their terms of reference. They highlighted a few areas for improvement, including a desire for clearer and shorter committee reports and for better co-ordination between committees. We have highlighted examples of where committee reports can be made shorter in paragraphs 60 and 61 and 65. We agree that there is scope for improving how critical issues, such as risk, change projects, etc, are co-ordinated between committees to ensure scrutiny and governance can operate most effectively.

39. Following our recommendations in 2019, the SPA has strengthened its corporate function to support the Board to meet its statutory obligations. At the Public Finance Awards in 2022, the SPA’s Audit and Risk team won the Good Governance, Risk Management or Prevention award. This award recognised the SPA’s improvement in meeting the needs of the Board and Accountable Officer to fulfil their governance duties.

40. Board and committee meetings provide a healthy environment for members to offer constructive challenge and carry out effective scrutiny. Board members generally demonstrate effective scrutiny and challenge of reports. However, we also evidenced situations where the need to scrutinise effectively resulted in members having to repeatedly challenge officers/staff when they did not receive straightforward answers to their lines of questioning. We also found that where some SPA committees have accepted or rejected assurances given, these decisions are not always clearly recorded, and similarly follow-up actions are not always sufficiently captured or monitored. There is scope here for committee chairs to improve clarity over the decisions or actions to be recorded and monitored following meetings.

41. A good example of decision recording can be seen in the decision log of the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which is easily accessible and detailed.

42. There is also a need for those writing reports to better recognise the capacity of board members in conducting their role, and ensure that board and committee reports are written in the most succinct and understandable way.

43. The SPA recognises that it can strengthen its oversight and governance of change. To aid more effective scrutiny and challenge, update reports to ARAC could be clearer about: significant programmes in the change portfolio; reasons for risks to any programmes/projects; and project milestones, control measures and delivery timeframes. As per the SPA’s planned improvement, the SPA should continue to work with Police Scotland to push for more robust reporting on benefits realisation, to improve transparency on return on investment.

44. In this review we found that the ARAC needs to demonstrate much stronger governance over the high number of significant strategic risks that exist in Police Scotland. Police Scotland is currently reporting 17 strategic risks, 11 of which are significant (rated as red and above tolerance levels). The risk reports that Police Scotland present to ARAC do not capture actions or timescales and we have concerns that risk scores do not accurately reflect the risks faced by Police Scotland. External audit has also found that both the ownership of risks and the timescales to implement mitigations to reduce tolerance levels, are unclear. It has recommended that the SPA and Police Scotland ensure clear timescales are in place to implement planned mitigations, so that risks remain within agreed risk tolerance and appetite levels.

45. During 2023, an in-depth development session was provided for SPA board members on risk management, and we look forward to seeing the translation of this into more effective scrutiny and the addressing of external audit’s recommendation.

46. As noted above, the SPA has identified the need to understand far more clearly whether the expected benefits from transformation activity, which are outlined in business cases approved by the Resources Committee, are being realised. This is particularly evident in its oversight of Police Scotland’s transformation programme, where there needs to be greater clarity on whether approved change projects and programmes are delivering the proposed benefits that contribute to balancing budgets, achieving strategic outcomes and progressing towards a more sustainable model of policing. This needs to be a priority for improvement, given the pressure of achieving financial sustainability.

Use of resources

47. The SPA has assessed itself as demonstrating steady improvement in this area since its last self-evaluation.

48. Financial planning and management are critical aspects of best value. In 2022-23, external auditors reported that the SPA achieved a balanced budget position against its revenue budget of £1,287.6 million. External audit did not identify any weaknesses in budgeting arrangements and were satisfied that gross variances from budget were appropriately managed in year to deliver the balanced budget. This is a significant improvement on the consistent overspending that the Auditor General for Scotland previously reported to the Scottish Parliament up to December 2020.

49. SPA staff and Police Scotland meet regularly to examine budget issues, and the SPA’s Resources Committee provides appropriate and effective oversight and scrutiny of financial reports from Police Scotland. In August 2023, Police Scotland’s financial monitoring report for Quarter One of 2023-24 forecasted a budget overspend of £18.9 million by year end. Resources Committee demonstrated good governance by instructing Police Scotland to develop an immediate plan to address the forecast overspend and by increasing the frequency of financial monitoring from quarterly to monthly, strengthening its oversight of financial performance. The SPA’s effective scrutiny of actions to bring spending back in line with budget, resulted in Police Scotland reporting a break-even position again in 2023-24.

50. In its annual audit report of the SPA for 2022-23, external audit recommended that the SPA and Police Scotland urgently focus on medium-term financial planning and refresh the medium-term financial strategy to reflect projected flat cash funding settlements from the Scottish Government. We are concerned that there is a significant risk that – where substantial funding gaps are identified in the medium to longer term – effective plans and mitigating actions are not in place to secure financial sustainability.

51. In refreshing the medium-term financial strategy, there is scope for the SPA to benchmark other police forces around the UK. Whilst we recognise that there are some key differences in the financial frameworks of different jurisdictions that need to be taken into account, there are interesting insights and learning that can be drawn from the similarities. In England and Wales, there is a requirement for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), in consultation with their Chief Constable, to identify and agree a medium-term financial strategy. The Revised Financial Management Code of Practice, referenced on page 11 of the Police and Crime Commissioners Guidance, clearly sets this out. Including funding and spending plans for revenue and capital, the plan should ‘have regard to affordability and take into account multiple years, the interdependencies of revenue budgets and capital investments, the role of reserves and the consideration of risks’, as well as being aligned with the Police and Crime Plan. Links are provided below to two examples of medium-term financial plans from forces in England and Wales. Other examples are MOPAC whose medium-term financial plan is from 2024 – 2027; and British Transport Police Authority, whose medium-term financial plan is 2022 – 2027.

52. External auditors reported that the SPA had a £3 million overspend above its original 2022-23 capital budget of £57.8 million. External audit previously highlighted that the SPA was over programming its capital budget and plan above available funding and was managing this by phasing programmes into future years, which is not a sustainable position. Pushing funding challenges into future years poses a risk that programmes may not be completed with the funding allocated to them. The SPA has taken action to address external audit’s recommendation to revisit its capital plan to ensure affordability. Capital budgets are now not being significantly over allocated, with a break-even position being reported for 2023-24.

53. External auditors reported that in 2022-23, the SPA was allocated £25 million of reform funding from the Scottish Government to support the change and transformation programmes of Police Scotland. At the end of the financial year 2022-23, the external audit report reported a £3.6 million underspend on transformation resource, alongside amendments to several transformation programmes. In quarter three of 2023-24, Police Scotland reported an underspend in its reform budget of £2.8 million to the SPA, but has since reported a break-even position for 2023-24 reform spending in line with its budget of £20 million. The SPA must continue to ensure there is detailed financial reporting to the Resources Committee on this, as well as holding regular meetings between Police Scotland and the SPA, to ensure oversight and scrutiny of 2023-24 reform spending.

54. To ensure future financial sustainability, the SPA recognises the need for a new policing model, underpinned by an effective strategic workforce plan. Our Assurance Review of Police  Scotland Strategic Workforce Planning (August 2022) highlighted the need for the Scottish Government, the SPA and Police Scotland to collectively focus on developing a workforce with the skills required to meet the current and future challenges for policing in Scotland. We also highlighted that – while the People Committee was exerting improved scrutiny over people-based management information – information reported to the SPA did not provide adequate evidence of progress towards planned workforce change (and that the SPA and Police Scotland needed to clearly define how workforce planning decisions will be made and who will oversee implementation). Given budgetary pressures, it is critical that the new SPA Oversight Group for the Revised Model of Policing drives this work and generates progress quickly (see area for development 6).

55. The SPA demonstrates effective financial planning and management, and its Resources Committee provides appropriate and effective oversight and scrutiny of Police Scotland’s financial performance. Its scrutiny of other resource areas (including ICT, fleet and estates) has been less visible and is constrained by a lack of overarching asset management. Recent reporting on estates transformation indicates that strategy is being reviewed and an estates masterplan is in development, which is aligned to a more formal asset management approach.

56. We observed procurement reporting to the Resources Committee as systematic and of a high quality, with robust scrutiny being applied.

Performance management

57. The SPA has assessed its lowest strategic performance for this best value area, despite highlighting that it has been an area of significant improvement. It has identified a range of relevant improvement actions in its 2023-24 service plan, to support further improvement. These include developing and implementing an SPA corporate performance framework, and embedding a corporate performance scorecard so that every team discusses performance as “part of the day job”.

58. The SPA monitors its own corporate performance through clear performance reports and – through its committees – considers a large amount of policing performance information. As such, the SPA needs to be clear about what value its identified improvements will add to existing arrangements.

59. The SPA holds the Chief Constable to account for delivery of the joint strategy for policing. It does this through scrutiny of Police Scotland’s quarterly performance reports. The measures used to judge performance are set out in a detailed performance framework, which is aligned to the outcomes in the strategic police plan. Both the framework and strategic police plan were refreshed in 2023.

60. Police Scotland’s quarterly performance reports to the Performance Committee are consistently over 120 pages. This volume of information places a significant demand on police officers and staff, and on members’ time to read reports, which can potentially inhibit effective scrutiny. The SPA and Police Scotland should determine whether there is scope for streamlining performance reports, including by benchmarking the style, content and quality of reports with those produced by other police forces around the UK, for example:

• Recent Metropolitan Police quarterly performance reports to MOPAC range from 59 pages in quarter 1 of 2023-24 to 93 pages for quarter three of 2023-24;
• In July 2023, Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) quarterly strategic update on performance to the Deputy Mayor’s Executive meeting was 22 pages long; and
• the latest monthly performance report from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to the policing board is 20 pages long.

61. As highlighted above, members have asked (through committee effectiveness reviews) for more appropriate reports to come to committee – and Police Scotland quarterly performance reports are a good example of where reporting can be improved (see area for development 11). More recently, we have observed an improvement in report style; for example, the quarter 3 performance report, which was presented to Policing Performance Committee in March 2024, being reduced significantly to 55 pages.

62. Since April 2020, the SPA and Police Scotland have explored an approach to benchmarking performance that takes account of learning, experiences and best practice from elsewhere. In its 2022-23 Annual Performance Report, Police Scotland used only very limited benchmarking to demonstrate relative performance. Benchmark comparisons used in quarterly reporting to Policing Performance Committee are broader, and include Your Voice Matters survey results, and stop and search data. In Police Scotland’s 2023-24 performance framework, 44 of the 379 performance indicators are comparative indicators (covering call handling, public contact and engagement, assaults on staff, staff views, estates and fleet). While only around 12 indicators can be accurately benchmarked due to data issues, it is encouraging to see the SPA and Police Scotland looking to benchmark a wider range of performance to demonstrate achievement of the strategic policing plan. The consistent use of benchmarks across all relevant reports will further enhance transparency of its performance.

63. As with Police Scotland, Forensic Services and SPA Corporate also give quarterly performance reports. Quarterly performance reporting for Forensic Services is good, and improving, being influenced by SPA scrutiny. SPA Corporate’s quarterly reports are a relatively new addition and, as such, are considered internally by the SPA’s management team. These reports are good and we consider that, to demonstrate best practice and full transparency, the SPA should be scrutinising them in public.

64. Some performance reports are publicly available on the Policing Performance page on the SPA’s website. In examining this, we found scope to develop and improve public performance reporting, both to make information more easily accessible and more relevant to the public, (for example, ensuring that webpage links are up to date and linked to the most relevant materials).

65. The main performance report that the SPA makes publicly available is its Annual Report and Accounts. The 2022-23 report is 194 pages long and has a degree of duplication with reporting from Police Scotland. As such, the SPA should consider whether there is a way to reduce duplication and effort in performance reporting between itself and Police Scotland.

Equality

66. The SPA has assessed itself as demonstrating both strategic and operational improvement in this area from its last self-evaluation. Although it has assessed itself as not having any areas of non-compliance against equality indicators, it recognises it needs to better demonstrate application of its impact assessment framework.

67. There are robust structures in place for ensuring that both SPA Corporate and Police Scotland meet the requirements of equality and human rights legislation and Scottish-specific public sector equality duties. There is shared commitment between the SPA and Police Scotland in respect of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) issues being embedded into standard processes through their Policing Together programme. Progress is outlined in a two-year cycle (see the Joint Police Scotland/SPA Mainstreaming and Equality Outcomes Progress Report), and delivered and monitored through the SPA Service Plan.

68. The SPA Policing Together Strategic Oversight Group provides enhanced oversight and scrutiny of the delivery of equality objectives and outcomes. In addition to this, an SPA Equalities and Duties Working Group has been established, with a Terms of Reference document developed, to ensure appropriate scrutiny and challenge on achieving equality outcomes.

69. The SPA recognises that there is work to do in fully embedding equality in all its processes, however there is evidence that it has made a commitment to communicating the EDI aims to staff. There is ongoing work to enhance the use of impact assessments in day-to-day business and to ensure that these are consistently used.

70. The SPA regularly scrutinises Police Scotland on cross-cutting EDI issues in its committees, however it would be beneficial to ensure that there are robust structures in place to ensure that this happens systematically. The handling of cross-cutting issues such as equalities, sustainability, risk, performance and change should all be considered in this way.

71. The SPA aims to reach and represent disadvantaged groups, protected groups and seldom-heard voices, as highlighted in its Community Confidence Action Research work. With Police Scotland, they have jointly sponsored projects to support improved engagement between policing and seldom-heard communities, working in conjunction with the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR). There is also ongoing work to monitor the impact of the Policing Together strategy, as well as areas within SPA Corporate on these groups: a recent example was monitoring the impact of the SPA’s approach to hybrid working. There is capacity for research and evidence gathering through the Joint Research and Evidence Forum, and the SPA should ensure that research on the impact of all policies, services and functions on different equality groups has been considered.

Sustainability

72. In its previous self-evaluation, the SPA assessed itself as not complying with best practice for any of the relevant indicators in this area. It has now assessed sustainability as the area of most significant improvement, attributing this to its corporate sustainability plan. It recognises sustainability as an area for noticeable further improvement and has identified individuals to lead relevant work, putting measures in place to monitor progress.

73. Sustainable development can be defined as “securing a balance of social, economic and environmental wellbeing in the impact of activities and decisions” (Best Value (revised statutory guidance) SG 2020). There are five broad principles within this: “promoting good governance; living within environmental limits; achieving a sustainable economy; ensuring a stronger healthier society; and using sound science responsibly” (see Best Value in Public Services: Guidance for Accountable Officers (2011)).

74. The SPA has oversight of Police Scotland’s environmental sustainability commitments in a number of areas, including estates and fleet. A joint SPA/Police Scotland Biodiversity Duty Report (2021-2023) has been published and a joint Climate Change Report is prepared annually by Police Scotland and the SPA. The climate-related reports are published on the Sustainable Scotland Network.

75. The SPA has demonstrated a commitment to financial sustainability and has embedded a number of activities in its plans. We have outlined above our concerns about the SPA securing financial sustainability, and actions that can be taken towards ensuring future financial sustainability (paragraphs 50 and 52).

76. Social sustainability can be defined as “identifying and managing business impacts, both positive and negative, on people” (Social Sustainability). We found evidence of several areas of work relating to this, including protected characteristics and workforce health and wellbeing. A sustainable workforce is one of the outcomes of the SPA Corporate Strategy 2023-26 (Strategic Outcome 4: Our workforce is valued, engaged and skilled) and the SPA provided evidence of monitoring of equality issues in the workplace, along with progress and next steps (Equality and Diversity employment monitoring analysis report - 2023). In our recent report on Wellbeing (April 2024), we noted that – while Police Scotland had reported to the SPA People Committee an intention to develop a wellbeing impact assessment – this has not yet been achieved. The SPA should ensure that it maintains a focus in this area.

77. The SPA and Police Scotland are working with communities in their Community Confidence Action Research. This work also includes a Green Leaders Network which comprises 140 police officers and staff from all 13 Local Policing divisions, and Police Scotland Youth Volunteers, which aims to strengthen the relationship between police and young people. They also provided evidence of the ICVS scheme which monitors the welfare of people detained in police custody.

78. Work is ongoing, but SPA Corporate needs to articulate how it is addressing social sustainability more clearly in its Corporate Sustainability Plan – as well as its governance role for Police Scotland in this respect. The SPA could also make more effective use of noting sustainability implications in the designated section of committee reports, to ensure ongoing monitoring and scrutiny.