Reality check

As a new film on the relentless challenge of policing is premiered,
the Scottish Police Federation’s chair and the Justice Secretary go head-to-head

By Tom Martin

Reality check

As a new film on the relentless challenge of policing is premiered, the Scottish Police Federation’s chair and the Justice Secretary go head-to-head

By Tom Martin

From young recruits thrust into life-threatening situations, to the violence that seasoned officers regularly face, the raw and unpredictable nature of policing has been laid bare.

At the Scottish Police Federation’s (SPF) conference in South Ayrshire, Justice Secretary Angela Constance and Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell were among those told of the everyday reality faced by rank-and-file cops.

A powerful new film, Relentless, was debuted. It depicts scenarios including a mental health crisis, a domestic dispute, a drug-related overdose (main picture), a man wielding a machete, and a young officer helping a bereaved child.

SPF general secretary David Kennedy said the four-minute production, directed by filmmaker Sam Taylor, shows how officers “deal with violence on a daily basis, and the mental and physical toll is immense”.

He added: “One of the most powerful scenes is of a young officer helping a bereaved child. There’s no training for that.”

The Chief Constable praised officers for saving lives and protecting communities, adding: “The work of police officers was powerfully represented in the Relentless film, a very worthwhile reminder that behind the unforms are people, with families, friends, and lives to lead.”

Shortly after the film was broadcast at the SPF conference, the federation’s chair David Threadgold delivered a blistering 27-minute speech directly to the Justice Secretary.

In this long-read article, the speech is published in full below.

This was followed by Constance’s 20-minute response, which we also publish.

And on the following page, 1919’s Alan Roden analyses the extraordinary moment when truth was spoken to power.

Watch ‘Relentless’

 ‘We will never settle for second best’

Speech by David Threadgold
Scottish Police Federation chair

Cabinet Secretary, I believe the Scottish Police Federation’s working relationship with you and your government is built on mutual respect, co-operation, and a joint understanding of the challenges of policing in Scotland.

And despite our occasionally differing views, ours is undoubtedly that policing should be a greater priority for your government.

We want Scotland to have an exceptional police service with highly trained and highly motivated police officers working as part of an efficient and functional justice system.

But do we?

After a long, protracted attempt to resolve police officer pay for 2024/25, the matter of police pay required to be concluded through arbitration.

This process of negotiation was an incredibly frustrating, one-sided, and ultimately unsuccessful one, which in our view has damaged the relationship between police officers, their Chief Constable, and your government, all of whom find it so easy to talk about the value of and the priority placed on policing and police officers in this country.

The SPF will never settle for anything less than the best for police officers in Scotland. For executive officers to address police officers highlighting a pay offer which was the second best across the public sector, whilst at the same time failing to publicly support the ‘staff side’ claim for a pay deal that would have matched NHS colleagues in Scotland, is deeply disappointing.

Police officers are unique in our role in society, and in the communities of Scotland. No one else does, or can do, what we do.

But police officers are also unique in the role they have within Police Scotland’s workforce mix or blend.

Prior to arbitration, the communication received by Unison from the SPA [Scottish Police Authority] at the conclusion of their pay negotiations stated, and I quote, ‘if the outcome of police officer negotiations within the Police Negotiating Board for Scotland [PNBS] results in an agreement that officers receive more than 4.75 per cent as a headline figure, the Scottish Police Authority gives a clear commitment to re-open pay negotiations to ensure staff do not suffer any detriment compared to their police officer colleagues’.

This statement is in danger of failing to recognise the unique nature of our role.

I take absolutely nothing away from the remuneration provided to support staff colleagues, but let me be absolutely clear, police officers are different.

The Desborough Committee of 1919 reported they were ‘satisfied that a policeman has responsibilities and obligations which are peculiar to his calling and distinguish him from other public servants and municipal employees’.

That committee added that the ‘burden of individual discretion and responsibility placed upon a constable is much greater than any other public servant of subordinate rank’.

“Cabinet Secretary, we will never settle for second best for police officers in Scotland, and neither should you”

The Royal Commission of 1960-to-62 reported that the constable is unique among subordinates in the nature and degree of the responsibility he is required to exercise.

The committee of inquiry said ‘the police cannot properly be compared to any other single group of workers, the unique nature of the police service and the work they do makes this impossible.’

We accept the decision from Acas [Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service]; we entered the process knowing that the outcome was binding, and we have reflected and we have learned from the process.

However, are we confident that we will not be there again this year? Only time will tell.

Cabinet Secretary, we will never settle for second best for police officers in Scotland, and neither should you.

Now you cannot talk about police officers without talking about the numbers of us.

At the inception of Police Scotland in 2013, there were 17,496 police officers in Scotland.

For those unaware, since our last conference, to meet a projected budgetary overspend of £5 million for the financial year ending March 2024, Police Scotland were forced to implement two fairly significant measures of mitigation.

The first, a recruitment freeze between September 2023 and March 2024, and the second was a pause on anything other than ‘essential’ training, but more on that later.

Police Scotland has a budgeted establishment of 16,600 police officers.

Regardless of whether you agree, consider it prevents workforce flex or any other reason given to try and justify that figure, in the simplest of terms the government of Scotland provides Police Scotland with the budget for 16,600 police officers.

At the end of that recruitment freeze in March 2024, by our calculations, Police Scotland had less than 16,000 police officers.

So today, when government officials hail police officer numbers as ‘higher than at the same time than this point in the year before’ or that ‘police officer recruitment is at record levels’, please remember that context is everything.

So, what do those numbers, now or then, actually mean in the context of trying to deliver policing in Scotland?

Fewer officers facing increased demand creates record absence through physical and mental health illness, challenges with recruitment, retention, and job satisfaction, as well as an inevitable move to a more reactive service, are simply inevitable consequences.

Statistics can be misleading. Politicians may be more used than most at spinning statistics, but does the evidence show that the standard of recruits being employed by Police Scotland is dropping to deal with the recovery from this ultimately government-imposed recruitment freeze?

Changes to our pension regulations, a crisis where over 3,700 – almost one-in-four of serving police officers in Scotland – can retire in the next four years creates risk now and in the future, so how does the organisation and the government mitigate the potential loss of not just officer numbers, but the experience, rank and corporate knowledge that will go with them, and why is nobody asking why?

Why are so many officers taking the first opportunity they can to exit Police Scotland?

Should we read anything into evidence which shows a reduction in applications to Police Scotland, at the same time as record recruitment levels and an increase in the pass rate for the police standard entrance test to 93 per cent?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Police Scotland has to increase its appeal and reach into the wider communities of Scotland, but we are steadfast in our view that this is, and should always remain, a disciplined organisation that demands the highest standard of potential recruit.

The ability to deliver the most basic of policing functions across our communities suffered during the recruitment freeze and continues to suffer as a consequence today.

This is a job like no other, and failing to instil these standards from the very start of the application process is doing a disservice to all and will ultimately fail to deliver for our organisations and for the communities we serve.

“The difference between the ‘haves and the have nots’ across the policing estate is frankly unacceptable and for that, your government should be ashamed”

“The difference between the ‘haves and the have nots’ across the policing estate is frankly unacceptable and for that, your government should be ashamed”

Since its inception in 2013, Police Scotland has closed over 140 police stations across our country, three in the east of Scotland in the last month, with many more across the communities of Scotland in the pipeline.

Chronic underinvestment in policing, and in particular the police estate, has resulted in a situation where large areas of our country have become policing deserts with an almost invisible policing presence, providing an utterly reactive service.

A recent SPF deep dive shows that some of our colleagues are still, 12 years into the creation of Police Scotland, working in frankly terrible conditions – unfit and unacceptable for a modern 21st century policing service.

The difference between the haves and the have nots across the policing estate is frankly unacceptable and for that, your government should be ashamed.

The demand from the public, the scrutiny, and the standards demanded of police officers in Scotland is rightly high, but expecting officers to perform to those levels in the environments we are forcing them to is simply unacceptable.

Cabinet Secretary, you will say to me that investment in policing is at record levels, but this simply is not enough.

Please do not try and fool the public into believing that Police Scotland being forced into closing police stations in rural communities, or in areas of extremely high policing demand, is anything other than a reactive financial decision being made to deal with that chronic lack of investment from your government.

You have been quoted as saying it is important to recognise that there are particular challenges for particular workforces in rural Scotland, and the creation of the Scottish wide single police service means that all communities have greater access to national policing capabilities.

What these words actually mean is that, particularly for our rural communities, they will receive an increasingly reactive policing service, with limited visibility, limited relevance, and connection to our communities will be non-existent unless something goes wrong.

Your words fail to recognise the benefits of that engaged, visible, and relevant police service across our communities, and our fear is that we create a situation where we lose the ability to deliver the most basic of policing functions across Scotland, and that should rightly concern us all.

Cabinet Secretary, I know that you have stated publicly that this year has seen record investment in policing.

This fact is undeniably true, as it would be if this year’s budget was a single penny more than last, but the question for you now is what does that extra, and I use the word very carefully, actually allow Police Scotland to do?

Does that investment allow Police Scotland to recruit, and more importantly retain police officers; to provide appropriate working conditions, or even appropriate winter equipment for those carrying out policing duties in the worst conditions our country has to offer?

Does it allow Police Scotland to move away from an increasingly online and ineffective training model, which whilst it may have its place, provides nothing like appropriate levels of detail or inclusion for those who we expect to deliver excellence for our communities?

Does it deal with the situation where probationary officers are being tutored by officers who have barely had the opportunity to learn themselves?

Does it deal with the situation where ‘remote supervision’ is evolving to become the model by which the service satisfies itself that the appropriate levels of protection for our staff, and for the organisation itself, is somehow acceptable?

The risks to police officers, the organisation, and let us not forget the public, are significant and exacerbated by a chronic lack of funding to deliver the most basic of service in our country, made even worse by your government’s decision not to fully fund increases to employer National Insurance Contributions.

Your response will undoubtedly be that the Chief Constable has a budget and she has to manage it, but without multi-year budget settlements, the ability to carry forward unspent revenue into the next financial year, or the ability to borrow money to address the chronic lack of capital budget, we simply cannot deliver policing in this country to a standard which we can all be proud.

“The risks to police officers, the organisation, and let us not forget the public, are significant and exacerbated by a chronic lack of funding to deliver the most basic of service in our country”

And what intrigues me on the subject of investment in policing is how keen you and your government are to align yourself with Westminster.

I can think of no other area of business, across any portfolio, where the SNP government is so keen to highlight positive comparison with England and Wales.
To be clear, and I do mean absolutely clear, our view is that this is not a race to the bottom.

Policing in Scotland is unique and we deserve to have a government that acknowledges and reflects that in its budget allocation if we are ever to fulfil the potential that I know exists in our organisation.

Policing simply has to become a greater priority for your government, or mark my words these risks will increase, make our communities less safe and further diminish the reputation of policing in Scotland.

But my experience, and we have spoken many times, is that you may say three things in response to me.

The first one is you will say that police officers in Scotland receive the best pay anywhere in the UK, and that police officers in Scotland have consistently been the highest paid at the minimum and maximum of each rank.

Notwithstanding different tax regimes in Scotland, allowances paid to colleagues in the Metropolitan Police, Police Service of Northern Ireland, and different incremental pay growth across the UK at all ranks, do you think that this statement can actually be evidenced in the take home pay of police officers in Scotland?

The second one is that you will say that there are more police officers per capita in Scotland than there are in England and Wales. Can you please explain how you reach this conclusion?

If it is as simple as taking the census figures and dividing them by the budgeted establishment of each country’s police service, I would contest this figure is misleading in the extreme.

It fails to consider the geography of Scotland, the different laws we have in Scotland, or as I suspect is the case in England and Wales, the inclusion of PCSOs [police community support officers] in that figure provided for your calculations. Again evidenced clarity on the subject would be appreciated by all.

And you will say finally that recorded crime is down. I ask you to consider please a number of theories.

Could recorded crime be down because officers are no longer carrying out proactive patrols, could it be down because the public simply cannot be bothered to wait on the phone for their call to be answered, or that the perception of a ‘proportionate response to crime model’ which largely relies on non-warranted officers asking questions from a pick list to generate a crime report is so negative that, again, people simply don’t bother?

So considering these theories, does this ‘success’ story hide the detail?

From your own government’s latest publication on recorded crime for 2023/24, and the figures I’m about to use relate to comparisons for 2022/23, non-sexual crimes of violence were up by four per cent.

An increase of 18 per cent in robberies, 15 per cent increase in domestic abuse under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act, crimes of threat and extortion up by 20 per cent, crimes of dishonesty up seven per cent, three per cent increase in housebreakings, 35 per cent increase in shopliftings – 15 per cent higher than the previous high recorded from 2018/19 – a 17 per cent increase in the possession of weapons, and as if to illustrate my point about proactive patrolling, a 15 per cent decrease in police officer detected offences, with a 75 per cent reduction since 2014/15.

This year has also seen a 25 per cent increase in deaths on our roads, each case having a devasting impact on the family concerned as well as the impact on our officers in dealing with these most horrific of cases.

I make these points to show that it is much more complex and there is far more context than just saying recorded crime is down in an attempt to reassure or satisfy the public that all is well, because your own evidence says that it is not.

Cabinet Secretary, we have spoken many times, and there will be few in the room who are unaware of the impact on policing from carrying out health functions in Scotland.

This is compounded by a still present culture within policing of risk aversion, afraid that taking risk positive decisions, not to avoid scrutiny but to try and manage policing demand, may realise adverse or potentially career-defining involvement from the PIRC [Police Investigation and Review Commissioner], our own professional standards department, or the Crown.

And if there is a single decision-maker, and I’m going to say this again, if there is a single decision-maker in this audience who doesn’t think these perceptions exist, can I present an evidence set which should be ignored at your peril.

Police officers are untrained in health. Our involvement can have an extremely negative impact on the citizen concerned and these interactions are having a crippling impact on our ability to deliver policing in this country.

The police will always attend emergency calls and provide an initial response to those in acute crisis, but the handover to suitably trained healthcare professionals is broken and it is hamstringing our ability to deliver policing in this country.

We are steadfast in our view that the solution is not to provide enhanced mental health training to police officers or to increase the powers available to detain people from within their home addresses.

Members of our community who suffer health problems deserve to be treated by qualified staff who can actually assist them in their progress towards recovery.

We acknowledge the work done by Police Scotland and partners to tackle this issue, but according to my colleagues in this room and beyond, this has barely translated to operational change in the demand that we face, or the response provided by operational officers across Scotland.

Police Scotland has gone through significant reform since its creation in 2013. Some £2 billion and more has been removed from the public purse and – apart from our colleagues in the fire service aside – I ask you has that reform been replicated across other public sector areas in Scotland?

The health service in Scotland is in crisis, but we ask has it reformed at all in the last 12 years?

Conversations I am party to with health board CEOs suggest reform is not even on the agenda for health boards, far less being anywhere close to being delivered.

“The health service in Scotland is in crisis, but we ask has it reformed at all in the last 12 years?”

The recently published ‘framework for collaboration’ is welcomed, but again in our view this is a document focused on a health crisis in Scotland which the police are the lead partner in trying to solve.

This is unsustainable and risks long-term damage to the reputation of policing in this country, as well as the health of officers trying to deliver it.

You have spoken publicly about potential solutions to this challenge, including saying safe spaces can be crucial in the prevention of an escalation of matters; continuing that your government is considering the next steps; and that ‘we can perhaps look at a toolkit that supports local development’ – whilst at the same time acknowledging that ‘there is still a fair amount of work to be done in the area’.

Cabinet Secretary, you are a master of understatement.

This is urgent, and this is impacting on our ability to deliver policing now.

Colleagues in this room and beyond will tell you that operational capacity can be lost to the tune of anything from 40-to-70 per cent on a daily basis. Forty to 70 per cent of our time that is not being spent providing a policing response to our communities.

This figure is as staggering as it is concerning, and something has to be done.

And if we need reminding about how effective we can be at policing let us not forget how easy it is for ministers to laud the policing successes of the Commonwealth Games, Operation Unicorn [following the death of Queen Elizabeth] or COP26.

We have shown time after time that we are capable of delivering an excellent service across this country, but you need to play your part and work with government colleagues to deliver reform across the wider public sector that will allow us to do our job.

So I ask you, what is your proposal, timeline – call it what you will – to ensure that policing does not continue to be hamstrung by challenges in health?

Our policing community and the public deserve to know how you and your government will address these crippling challenges, and we need to know quickly.

You may respond with talk of pilot programmes across part of Scotland, thousands of calls diverted from control rooms, increased use of technology and enhanced partnership working.

But the impact of this crisis on operational policing and the delivery of the most basic policing functions has barely changed at all. Quite simply it is unsustainable, indeed it is relentless.

Every single one of the ‘successes’, and I use the word very deliberately, in dealing with this health crisis is still predicated on police officer involvement.

It is not the function of the police to ferry members of the public to health facilities due to a lack of appropriate patient transport, to bridge the sometimes substantial time delay between initial contact and assessment or treatment.

The first function of any government is to keep its citizens safe, but let me be crystal clear – there is no bigger inhibitor in delivering policing in Scotland with the inevitable impact on community safety in this country.

“Policing simply has to become a greater priority for your government, or mark my words these risks will increase, make our communities less safe, and further diminish the reputation of policing in Scotland”

My colleagues, who have displayed time and time again that they excel in policing, deserve to know how this will be resolved. And they deserve to know now.

In an interview you did, Cabinet Secretary, in November 2024, you described yourself as a ‘fixer’. If health is not yours to fix, then surely damaging inefficiencies within the criminal justice portfolio are?

Hundreds of police officers across Scotland are cited for court on a daily basis knowing full well that they will never give evidence. These are officers recalled occasionally from annual leave, having days off cancelled to attend court for cases that we know will never call.

Simple solutions like citing officers to attend in the afternoon have been often cited by the SPF as an easy fix to part of the problem, so Cabinet Secretary if you are truly the fixer you say you are, please meaningfully engage with all criminal justice partners and deliver – or as you might say yourself – fix the criminal justice system to allow us to effectively do our job, because our service and our communities demand it.

Cabinet Secretary, the justice portfolio is broad, but we ask you to convince us that even in your portfolio, policing is a priority for you and your government?

Convince this audience that with the spiralling costs of HMP Glasgow, a commitment to the construction of HMP Highland, a policing budget that may be supplemented depending on underspend in prisons, that policing is the priority you and your government claim that it is, because at this time we remain to be convinced.

This week, we will finally see the introduction of training for officers to use body-worn video cameras. This has been a very, very, very, long time coming, but there is no question that this is a positive step for our service.

We also embrace the possibilities of facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and how these tools will help detect and prevent criminality in the future, but we forget at our peril that policing will always remain an activity where engagement with our communities should be at the heart of our efforts.

We will shortly see the impact of the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill, we have real concerns regarding vetting and the speed with which this bill proceeded through parliament.

We offered reasonable, ethical and affordable solutions to a lot of the issues that we now see years ago: the return of home visits; the interviewing of applicant referees; amongst others.

Let’s make sure that those who want to be police officers are fit to do so.

Let us have the capacity to properly train our officers so that we can better utilise existing performance and misconduct regulations to ensure that should officers who are within our organisation need to be removed from it, that a fair, transparent, and efficient means of doing so exists.

Cabinet Secretary, despite all of these challenges, there is hope.

Before you today are the elected representatives of the police federated ranks, officers who will be the future of this service until the middle of [this] century and beyond.

They are your greatest source of knowledge; your greatest sounding board regarding policing in Scotland.

Without exception, they are proud to be police officers, and proud to wear the uniform that demands such scrutiny and public expectation.

Will you play your part in supporting them, providing adequate resources to allow our organisation to flourish so that we can truly deliver an excellent service for our communities in Scotland?

Because if you do, we will deliver.

‘The Scottish Government does listen and it takes action’

Response by Angela Constance
Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs

Thank you David for that very warm welcome. I have always had a plain-speaking relationship with this federation.

I value candour, and so in the same way that your chair has given me much to reflect on, I know that I can also reciprocate with a frank reflection from my position as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs.

And while some may think otherwise, I do indeed recognise the role of a police officer has never been more demanding.

From protecting the public to navigating complex challenges in our society, the service and commitment that I continue to see is unwavering, and that, of course, is exemplified fully by the film that we have all just viewed.

And I will emphasise again that policing is indeed an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

Improving public services is a top priority of the First Minister’s agenda, and I also commend the Chief Constable’s leadership in driving forward further reform, not just in policing, but also in the criminal justice system as a whole.

And I remain committed to supporting everyone on this journey and will always advocate for policing at the highest level.

Let me start with pay, and I agree that negotiations this year have been challenging.

I too was disappointed that we were not able to reach a collective agreement through negotiation, and I can assure you that we enter negotiations for all pay claims in good faith and with the best intentions.

We want to ensure that the agreement reached is both fair and affordable to all parties. And I have been and remain committed to securing the best possible award for this workforce, but I must do so under extremely challenging financial constraints, where public sector pay is the single biggest cost for the Scottish Government.

In circumstances where the PNBS failed to agree on a position through collective bargaining, the conciliation and arbitration procedures are in place to provide officers with safeguards.

Of course, entering into the arbitration process is not without its risks, especially for the government, but we are clear that the findings of the arbitration panel are effectively binding on ministers in all but exceptional circumstances.

And this is backed up by legislation – legislation that I took through the criminal justice committee.

“As we head to [pay] negotiations for another year, I am keen that we move forward, and we can only do that by working together – we all need to put the frustrations of the past behind us”

Public sector pay is not a competition. It’s not a test of which workforce is the best or who is favoured the most.

Each pay settlement is negotiated through separate collective bargaining mechanisms, taking account of a complex range of evidence which will be specific to that workforce and its context.

As we head to negotiations for another year, I am keen that we move forward, and we can only do that by working together.

We all need to put the frustrations of the past behind us and move on from positions which have already been tested through arbitration. And just for the record, while this is entirely a matter for the PNBS, I have absolutely no objections with the arbitration report findings being put in the public domain, because transparency for police officers is imperative.

And as we move forward, we of course await the findings of independent research that we jointly commissioned into police officer pay and benefits, and it should provide evidence to allow both sides of the PNBS to consider whether current levels of pay fairly reflect the unique aspects of the police officer role, such as the inability to take industrial action and restrictions on an officer’s private life.

The Scottish Government’s four key priorities include ensuring that we have high quality and sustainable public services, and that’s why there has been sustained investment in the justice system and in policing in particular.

It may not be obvious from David’s address, but almost half of my portfolio resource budget allocation goes into the policing budget. And in 2025/26 we will provide a total of £1.62 billion investment for policing.

Negotiations within parliament played out very publicly over the Scottish Government’s budget. No other party made an ask of the Scottish Government for additional funding for policing, but there was one, and that was me.

And that’s why there is an additional £70 million for this year’s resource budget, on top of the additional £92 million that was in the current financial year budget.

This is a record investment, but it’s a record investment against a challenging financial backdrop, and it does build on year-on-year increases to the police resource and capital budgets, and there now has been a total investment of £14.6 billion in Police Scotland since 2013.

The core police capital budget has increased year-on-year over recent years and is now more than four times higher than it was in 2016/17, and the additional capital budget we are providing this year will be used to deliver improvements across the police asset base, whether that’s fleet, the estate, specialist equipment or digital transformation, to help provide the tools for you to do your job.

“If you don’t see the progress or the delivery that you should be seeing, I will want to know why that is… because I can assure you that I am not in the business of accepting second best”

“I can assure you that I am not in the business of accepting second best”

Financial certainty into the medium term would indeed help the SPA and Police Scotland to develop longer term plans. Single year budget settlements are constraining, and I know because I have a single year budget also to work to.

But as you will know, the majority of our funding is controlled by the UK Government decisions – with many decisions being taken on an annual basis.

And recent changes to employers’ National Insurance costs, also known as a tax on jobs, made by the current UK Government impacts on all of our public bodies – and we have committed to funding 60 per cent of these additional costs in 2025/26 and I am well aware of the challenges facing Scottish public bodies in meeting total costs.

The First Minister and the Finance Secretary have repeatedly called for these additional costs to be fully funded by the UK Government.

A record investment in policing has meant that we have kept higher officer numbers of Scotland than elsewhere in the UK. David may, of course, question my use of this statement, but it is a fact of which you should be proud.

And you would rightly challenge me if it were not the case.

I do not share David’s pessimism on the challenges of recruitment. Policing offers excellent career prospects and continues to attract a strong field of applicants, and it is vital that those recruitment campaigns encourage participation from across our diverse communities.

And I know that succession planning is also important, particularly as more officers retire. The police pension scheme remains one of the most generous occupational pension schemes in the UK, and is an important part of the overall reward package for officers, and rightly so in my opinion.

And there is also £504 million in this year’s budget for police pensions.

But as you know, pensions are largely reserved to Westminster. And I know that the UK Government reforms led to tremendous uncertainty for officers.

And in response to the wishes of police staff associations, we did go further than the UK Government by removing restrictions to lump sums where officers retired with under 30 years’ service.

The police workforce is dedicated to serving communities, keeping them safe and supported, often putting yourselves in harm’s way, and I am acutely aware that managing trauma, helping people in crisis, and seeing the worst of humanity can take its toll – and I acknowledge the federation has been at the forefront of efforts to raise awareness of those impacts and champion the wellbeing of its members.

“Policing is a difficult career, and the vast majority of officers carry out their duties with integrity and utter professionalism”

A workforce can only thrive if its health and welfare is promoted and protected.

Let me repeat what I have said many times, but one that just wasn’t in any of the quotes that David used today, but as a former mental health worker I fully recognise that responding to mental health-related incidents puts real pressure on policing.

Officers do incredible work supporting those in distress, but they are not and nor are they expected to be mental health and wellbeing experts.

Those in distress need to be seen by the right professionals at the right time and as quickly as possible. And that is why, in partnership with Police Scotland and the SPA, that we embarked upon an ambitious programme of activity to deliver real and lasting change.

And I want to be clear that this isn’t just talk. That we are building the system where people get the right help from the right system at the right time, no matter where they are or what time of the day they present.

And we are scaling up on existing practical solutions.

The enhanced mental health pathway is already delivering. Police Scotland’s control centre has diverted more than 10,600 calls to NHS 24’s mental health hub, freeing up more than 54,000 officer hours. The Distress Brief Intervention [service] has rolled out across all 32 health and social care partnerships, letting officers and call handlers refer people directly, cutting down on unnecessary callouts.

In instances where police officers attend an incident that has a mental health distress aspect to it, there is a capability with the ability to contact a mental health clinician in their health boards to get advice on the best course of action.

The community triage pathway is available in the majority of health boards. It has resulted in reduced attendance at emergency departments and quicker handover times to mental health professionals or other services.

For example, when this approach was implemented in NHS Lanarkshire, the board noted a 73 per cent reduction in police conveyances to the emergency department for mental health presentations compared to 2019.

And yes, we have launched the framework for collaboration to set out how services must work together across boundaries.

We will, I can assure you, continue to work with partners, particularly in health, to ensure that our increased investment in [the] health and social care portfolio – now at a record £21 billion – that that delivers on the objectives to improve health outcomes.

And as a result, this year you will see results.

I want to see less strain on policing, better support for communities, and a consistent, shared approach to support those in mental health distress.

And if you don’t see the progress or the delivery that you should be seeing, I will want to know why that is.

Because I can assure you, colleagues, that I am not in the business of accepting second best.

Partnership is key, and we are – I can assure you – committed to making it work. 

“Officers do incredible work supporting those in distress, but they are not and nor are they expected to be mental health and wellbeing experts”

Partnership was also the basis on which we developed legislation to reform the policing conduct and scrutiny landscape.

The Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act was shaped by valuable insight from a range of voices, including those with lived experience of the police complaints system.

The act provides a framework to improve the culture and behaviour at all levels of policing.

And the provisions of the act are not only vital for maintaining public confidence in policing; they are also beneficial to maintain the standards in the profession.

Policing is a difficult career, and the vast majority – vast majority – of officers carry out their duties with integrity and utter professionalism.

And on rare occasions when things go wrong, we need robust, clear, transparent mechanisms in place for investigating complaints and misconduct – and none of us should want to compromise on that.

This will be supported by a programme of ongoing vetting. The act implements a key HMICS [His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland] recommendation, supported by the criminal justice committee, to improve vetting by placing it, and I quote, ‘on a statutory footing and thus provide appropriate levels of protection to the public, the organisation, and those who work in it’.

And this is fundamental to protecting the principle of policing by consent and future proofing the overall framework.

And I want to prevent problems from arising in the first place.

I know you may say ‘Cabinet Secretary, you are not reading the room on this’. But with the greatest respect, there are other voices and other rooms that also matter too.

However, along with ongoing vetting for all officers, we must also ensure that there are safeguards to protect the rights of officers.

Robust appeals procedures will be key to ensuring these are fair and that they protect human rights. My officials are currently working on developing the implementation programme for the act, and the Scottish Police Federation and other policing partners will be involved in this process.

As we move to the future, there are undeniable signs of progress in the fight against crime.

I do, however, acknowledge that it is a debate for nuance and context. Yes, long-term trends show a decline in the number of violent crimes experienced by adults in Scotland, including those not reported to the police. They fell by 58 per cent between 2008/09 and 2021/22.

But the landscape of crime is not static. It’s never static. The nature of crime is evolving, with new challenges emerging as society and technology advance.

What was once a matter of physical confrontation has now shifted into the realm of digital manipulation, with perpetrators able to target victims on a global scale.

And we must ensure that Scotland remains resilient to the ever-growing threats from cyber-crime. In 2023/24 there [were] an estimated 16,890 cyber-crimes, including fraudulent sales and online sexual offences, recorded by the police in Scotland. That’s an increase of over 10 per cent when compared to the previous year.

So Police Scotland must remain agile and have the right skills mix to take on this significant challenge; to be able to enhance the response to the changing context of crime.

“I know you may say ‘Cabinet Secretary you are not reading the room on this’, but with the greatest respect there are other voices and other rooms that also matter too”

But this is not a challenge for Police Scotland alone. Partnership will be critical to our efforts to respond to and mitigate the risks of new threats. It lies at the heart of our wider vision for justice for a safe, just and resilient Scotland.

And if we are to be agile and responsive, we must work together to innovate and to develop. And this requires a ‘whole systems approach’ across the justice system, and I am pleased that Police Scotland is a key partner in our programme to develop a more efficient justice system – one that will work better for everyone who experiences it, where cases take less time, more cases conclude early, and fewer witnesses have come to court, including police officers and staff.

And that’s why the increase in investment, whether that’s to the Crown Office or indeed to our courts system, is so important also, because that also has a positive impact on policing.

The Scottish Government has invested £33 million in the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability [DESC], a world-leading digital transformation programme, and the implementation of this groundbreaking initiative represents a step towards a modern criminal justice system, and it has helped to resolve cases more quickly, reducing the risk of trauma to victims, witnesses, and other users of our system.

DESC is a critical enabler in the criminal justice reform. It allows other initiatives like summary case management and body-worn video to follow the same path.

An introduction of body-worn video will indeed help to increase public confidence in policing, and importantly, improves safety for police officers and staff, and it can also benefit victims and witnesses of crime by allowing cases to be brought to court sooner.

And I am assured that its introduction and rollout remains a priority for Police Scotland and the SPA, and I look forward to hearing more about the rollout of the first tranche in the next few days.

As I bring my remarks to a close, I hope that the developments that I have outlined reassure you that the Scottish Government does listen and it takes action.

We are responding to your calls on different ways of working to better manage the mental health demand on policing, and we are challenging ourselves and others in the public sector to work differently also.

And the initial results of this work and reforms to the wider justice system are encouraging.

But we will continue to test them and to drive further improvements, and I want to see a meaningful difference on the ground for you and for everyone on the front line.

As your Cabinet Secretary for Justice, I am to my core pragmatic – not much of an ideologue – but I will always be focused on seeking solutions that work, that can be implemented, and I am committed to policing now and in the future.

But I would like to end by saying that while we will not always agree on every issue, the one thing that I do believe that we can all agree on is that Scotland is home to one of the best police forces in the world, and it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to maintain and strengthen that reputation.