Illustration by Kimberly Carpenter

Notebook: Scotland’s police and justice news

  • Planned cuts to cop overtime will reduce service provision

  • Police Scotland seek new borrowing powers to tackle buildings crisis

  • Wealthy landowner donates spaniel pup to stop Highland drug dealers

By 1919 staff

Notebook: Scotland’s police and justice news

  • Planned cuts to cop overtime will reduce service provision

  • Police Scotland seek new borrowing powers to tackle buildings crisis

  • Wealthy landowner donates spaniel pup to stop Highland drug dealers

Illustration by Kimberly Carpenter

Cuts to overtime budget ‘will hit service provision’

The target of reducing police officer overtime by 20 per cent will require “a change in culture and service provision”, it has been warned.

Amid falling numbers of frontline officers, Police Scotland has been increasingly reliant on using overtime to plug gaps, spending more than £31 million last year.

The Scottish Police Authority’s budget for 2026/27 assumes a £5.3 million saving by reducing the number of hours covered by a fifth.

But the budget document has warned it will be “extremely challenging given the current pressure on the service”.

It added: “A change in culture and service provision will be required to deliver this.”

Traffic cop numbers hit the skids

The number of fully trained road traffic officers has dropped by around nine per cent from a decade ago, new figures have revealed.

The 511 cops who have completed driver training represents a small increase from the same point in 2024, but is part of a longer-term decline.

According to the latest Police Scotland statistics, there are 139 full-time equivalents in the east, 161 in the north, and a further 218 in the west region.

Historic figures date back to 2015, when there were 560 officers covering the country’s roads.

Landowner donates pup to fight drugs scourge

A landowner in the Highlands has donated a puppy to help police tackle drug dealing in the region.

A businessman based near Inverness gifted Oreo, a black and white springer spaniel, to Police Scotland’s dog unit.

The canine will now begin training to become one of the force’s dedicated drug detection dogs.

“Oreo joins us thanks to the generosity of a local landowner and businessman who kindly donated him from a local litter of pups,” a police statement said.

“Their wish was for Oreo to develop into a drugs detection dog, specifically dedicated to tackling illegal drugs across the Highlands and Islands.”

Conviction in cop murder attempt

An officer who was nearly killed as he attempted to contain a serious incident in Edinburgh has been praised for his bravery along with his colleagues.

PC Adam Brealey was attempting to stop Thomas Malone, who was driving a stolen car, when he was deliberately struck by the vehicle.

Malone, 29, has now been convicted on numerous counts, including attempted murder and the abduction of a teen.

He pleaded guilty following the episode in the city’s Stenhouse area in July 2024, which ground traffic to a halt for hours on a key city thoroughfare.

Colleagues immediately arrived to contain the incident, while PC Brealey was treated for serious injuries in hospital.

Detective Inspector Alan Sharp said: “The courage and determination shown by the officer and his colleagues, who were simply doing their job, led to the swift arrest of Malone and ensured the threat he posed to officers and the community was quickly contained.”

Borrow time for police estate drive

Police Scotland is seeking new borrowing powers to turbo-charge a £500 million building maintenance drive.

With the estate in dire condition and funding limited, the force is looking at other ways of raising the necessary cash for a buildings overhaul.

And while the £24 million repairs budget for 2026/27 is higher than in most previous years, significant funds are still required.

A report to the Scottish Police Authority stated: “The service continues to also make the case to government for borrowing powers or alternative funding mechanisms to achieve the investment required.”

The Scottish Government, which is known to want more borrowing powers of its own, is understood to be sympathetic to the idea, but consent would likely require a complicated change in legislation.

They didn’t start the fire

Electric vehicles may not pose a greater fire hazard than their diesel and petrol counterparts, according to new Scottish statistics on car fires.

With their weighty lithium batteries, concerns have been raised that EVs are more susceptible to bursting into flames than traditional vehicles.

However, research by 1919 has revealed there were just 10 fires involving electric cars in 2024/25, and a further nine last year.

That represents a fraction of overall car fires, with fire brigade data for 2024/25 revealing there were 1,249 across Scotland.

Scottish courts escape UK delays crisis

The court delays crisis in England and Wales which will see some cases heard as late as 2030 will not be replicated in Scotland, new data has shown.

UK victims groups expressed horror at revelations earlier this year that at least 29 cases are four years away from commencing in crown courts, with thousands more set for 2028 and 2029.

However, research by 1919 has suggested that while some cases in Scotland have been planned for 2027, there are none for subsequent years.

A freedom of information response from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service stated statutory time limits prevented any later scheduling, adding: “There are no trials scheduled for those years for High Court, Sheriff Court solemn and Sheriff Court summary business.”

Prison play completes tour of Scottish jails

A critically-acclaimed play about prisoners and neurodiversity has completed a tour of Scottish jails.

‘Mind of Man’, written by Sam Rowe of the Bethany Christian Trust alongside serving Scottish prisoners, completed 11 dates across the estate in April.

More than half of inmates are thought to suffer from conditions like ADHD.

The play explores the impact of neurodiversity on men serving prison sentences.

Dundee vape seizures revealed

More than 1,600 illegal vapes and related equipment have been seized in Dundee in the last four years, it has emerged.

Research has revealed seizures by the city’s trading standards department peaked at 851 in 2024.

Numbers slipped back to 291 last year after a nationwide ban on single-use vapes came into force in the summer.

A number of localised campaigns have been established in Dundee in recent years in relation to litter caused by disposable vapes and the impact on schools.

Scottish businesses should hire people like me, says ex-offender

A former prisoner turned entrepreneur has said Scottish businesses should consider hiring people with criminal records.

Jacob Hill, founder of Offploy, said integrating offenders into the workplace would reduce reoffending and broaden the recruitment talent pool.

Speaking to the Let’s Talk Social Value podcast, he said: “Employing people with convictions is something every business should be looking to do, and there are many benefits for that business and for society.”

Host Sarah Stone added: “This is something Scottish businesses should consider – it all ties into the importance of how to build social value.”

Relief after the chaos

By Magnus Gardham 
Former Scotland Office special adviser

Got there in the end. That, at least, was the snap verdict of the Chancellor’s backbench colleagues, who waved their order papers wildly at the end of her 65-minute budget speech.

They have endured a miserable few weeks as downbeat briefings, followed by clumsy un-briefings, sparked fears of a political disaster for Labour and dented confidence in the government.

And the drama didn’t end on budget day, with claims that Rachel Reeves misled the public followed by this month’s resignation of the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

“The most chaotic lead up to a budget in living memory,” taunted Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the Commons as she highlighted the pre-budget blunder that led to this resignation – the early publication of the OBR assessment.

When the spending plans were finally announced – as we knew to expect – Reeves avoided the poisonous step of increasing the basic rate of income tax in clear breach of Labour’s manifesto.

Instead, she revealed a plethora of smaller taxes that Labour can argue will hit those who can afford to pay more. And, of course, a freezing of thresholds until 2031 which will bring more people into tax and into higher rates.

Those rates do not apply in Scotland where income tax thresholds are devolved to Holyrood.

“The Chancellor handed Scottish Labour another get-out-of-jail card”

But the Chancellor’s move goes a long way to explaining the genuinely positive reaction from Labour MSPs. They had faced the unhappy prospect of explaining complex intergovernmental fiscal rules – and why they would cost the Scottish Government £1 billion – had Reeves raised the basic rate by 2p.

With the Holyrood election looming ever larger, the Chancellor handed Scottish Labour another get-out-of-jail card.

The two-child benefit cap was popular with the public, but appalled Labour.

By axeing it, in what was easily the most heartfelt section of her speech, Reeves delighted her own side but also removed a potentially devastating dividing line between Labour and the SNP.

SNP ministers were committed to mitigating the impact of the cap, starting just weeks before the election, and were preparing to hammer Labour – sorry, make that “callous Labour” – for the £155 million it would have cost them next year.

The Scottish Government will now save that cash and have an extra £820 million to spend, to the end of the spending review period in 2028, through the Barnett formula.

Reeves tried to credit Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar with the windfall. “Because he asked us to,” she told the Commons.

That is not really how the Barnett formula works and the sum, reflecting UK spending, was a lot less than last year’s bumper £3.4 billion transfer.

It will not stop SNP claims of austerity in the run up to next May but then, nothing would.

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