By Gemma Fraser
Head of content
Officers in some of Scotland’s most remote communities say they are “unable to fulfil the fundamentals of policing” such as making arrests due to insufficient resources.
The struggles facing rural cops in Argyll and West Dunbartonshire – or L Division – have been highlighted in a catalogue of incidents where officers have spent a chunk of their shift travelling hundreds of miles to cover jobs or to transport detainees to custody centres.
As a result, it is claimed that policing in these areas has “fallen by the wayside”.
The data, gathered by Scottish Police Federation (SPF) representatives and seen by 1919, reveals a number of incidents between January and June this year, including:
- Officers from Dunoon being required to travel to Rothesay on 94 separate occasions due to Rothesay having “insufficient resources”, equating to a total of 5,264 miles and 188 hours in travel time.
- A shortfall in Dunoon due to the backfilling of Rothesay being filled by officers from Helensburgh on 73 occasions, equating to 8,322 miles and 219 hours in travel time.
- Probationers frequently being paired together due to lack of service on Rothesay.
- One officer being close to falling asleep at the wheel when returning to Lochgilphead from Oban (a one-hour drive) following a night shift.
- Officers taking an arrested person from Campbeltown to the Rest and Be Thankful (pictured) on the A83 – a five-hour round trip – to hand them over to colleagues from Helensburgh, who then made the onward journey to Clydebank police station.
- Dunoon officers being required to travel to Bute and Lochgilphead to pick up arrested people and take them to Greenock police station.
A police source told 1919: “Due to officers merely backfilling, the culture is simply that of providing a fire service response.
“No-one covering other offices is actively going to invest themselves in an area or provide a proper service to the community, if they are there for one or two consecutive shifts and not returning again for another week or two. Apathy is rife.
“Officers in these rural areas should be leading the way when it comes to providing community policing, however due to the above, it is the complete opposite.”
L Division officer
The figures and incidents were collated by SPF reps who carried out a “manual trawl” of the duty management roster for the first six months of the year.
On each occasion where an officer’s deployment location was changed, this was marked as being “due to insufficient resources”.
In July, 1919 revealed how Scotland’s police stations have lost almost 40 per cent of their cells since the creation of the single force.
Figures obtained via freedom of information showed 438 cells have been taken out of action since 2013, meaning officers with no local availability have to travel to the nearest town or city with detention facilities.
The impact is felt acutely in more rural areas, where officers can be diverted for hours at a time.
One L-Division officer said: “Policing has fallen by the wayside because of it. These abstractions for long periods are leaving minimal amounts of officers on the ground, and resilience is non-existent.
“Whilst I appreciate the issue of low resourcing is a theme across the service at present, it is particularly dangerous in rural and remote areas. When things go wrong, we know help is not coming, unlike the city where there is perhaps more chance of support.
“The service will argue we do not have the call demand, but we have very different demands. We find ourselves, more often than not, unable to fulfil the fundamentals of policing.
“Arresting individuals becomes the most difficult of tasks due to logistics of getting to a custody centre, therefore someone who should undoubtedly be held in custody is being released on an undertaking – not because that’s the best thing to do, but because it alleviates a problem resourcing a custody trip.”
Chief Superintendent Gary I’Anson
Chief Superintendent Gary I’Anson, local policing commander, said policing remote, rural and island communities poses a “unique set of challenges”, but that the service has “well established processes in place to ensure coverage”.
He told 1919: “We have flexible working plans to accommodate staff working away from their usual areas, and have invested in police accommodation, increasing the number of properties we have on Bute so as to attract new officers.
“As a national force, Police Scotland is able to flex resources and second staff from elsewhere to work in our rural areas at times of busy demand. We also recruit from outwith Scotland to seek officers from other forces who may wish to work in areas such as Bute.
“Although we ensure all local policing posts are filled, our local policing teams are supplemented by secondees at busy times. Support from other areas is provided to ensure resilience when officers are abstracted from their usual duties, including to attend court, or while on annual leave.
“Officers make sacrifices every day to keep people safe, and their dedication and professionalism is the reason we manage to deliver effective policing for all our communities.
“Their welfare is of the utmost importance to us, and we work closely with staff organisations to ensure they are supported.”
But the SPF questioned whether relying on ‘flexing resources’ and seconding staff is merely papering over the cracks.
Chair David Threadgold said: “In no way do I underestimate the challenges faced by Police Scotland in staffing remote and rural areas of the country, but the comments of CS I’Anson have the real risk of painting a picture that all is well in this area.
“Each of the challenges he identifies are legitimate, but no reference is made to actual implications faced by police officers in Argyll and Bute because of them, or how the organisation is solving them.
“Whilst the public should be reassured that there is a policing response in this area, the impact on police officers of delivering that response should not be underestimated.
“Dialogue has been ongoing between the SPF and Police Scotland for years now to highlight the impact of the organisation’s now almost customary practice of running below minimum staffing due to available resourcing, training, logistical and financial pressures placed upon the business.
“The suggestion that ‘flexing resource’ and ‘seconding’ staff is somehow unaffected by regulation, availability of staff, and ultimately the cost as well as the impact on the ‘home’ area of the secondee, again cannot and should not be overlooked.”
