Thank you for the invitation to appear before the sub-committee.
I took up my post on 1 February, and, on 1 March, as you said, I appointed Lynn Brown as the authority’s chief executive and accountable officer. Ms Brown is an outstanding public servant who had financial responsibility for the budget of Glasgow City Council, which is £1 billion greater than the SPA’s £1.3 billion budget for policing. As well as her very substantial financial experience, she has considerable experience of stakeholder and public engagement.
In your letter of invitation, you asked me about my vision for policing. I led the authority’s restatement of the strategy for policing, and I worked hard with Police Scotland’s senior leadership to ensure that it was a shared strategy with a shared vision. The strategy was approved by the board and became the “Joint Strategy for Policing”. The authority and Police Scotland now have shared purpose, values and vision, as well as the five outcomes of policing. I and the board own and are fully committed to that vision and those outcomes.
You also asked about my priorities. I will outline four attitudes that I bring to the role of chair of the authority, which have been shaped in part by my career in civil society in Scotland and in part by my two-and-a-half-year apprenticeship for the role of chair as an ordinary board member of the authority.
My first attitude is localism. The single Police Service of Scotland is at its very best when it combines national standards with local, responsible and responsive delivery. Local government is therefore the critical partner. Together, Police Scotland and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities have created a step-change improvement in that partnership over the past year or so. In the coming year, I will focus on matching that. As chair, I have already met, or will meet before the end of March, the president and vice-president of COSLA, the 32 scrutiny conveners through their forum, the chief executive of COSLA and the chair of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers. I have outlined my engagement plan to the scrutiny conveners, and delivering that plan will be my priority in my first year.
My second attitude is around social justice, which has been a personal and long-standing focus. Over the past six weeks, I have met key colleagues in civil society to discuss how best to improve social justice in policing. Public confidence in policing is high and has remained so even over the Covid pandemic. However, public confidence in policing in our areas of multiple deprivation is consistently 15 points lower than the Scottish average. I will lead with a key civil society partner, and with the already promised full co-operation of Police Scotland, in exploring how we might reduce significantly that gap in public confidence. Once we have had conversations with local communities about what they think and want, we will all have a thoughtful and agreed plan of action. I will make that a priority for my second year.
My third attitude is around technology. I am concerned that Police Scotland is at risk of falling behind its peers in the United Kingdom and more widely in adopting technology and deployments that can keep us all safe and protect our individual and community wellbeing. To change that, Police Scotland and the authority must improve our conversations with the public about the potential for innovation.
I emphasise that it is conversation and not broadcasting. Openness and respectful, active listening are key to gaining public trust for change. The authority also has to improve the velocity, openness and focus of its decision making in this area, once the chief constable has identified the technology or deployments that he considers are required to fulfil his obligation to keep Scotland safe. I and the chief constable have initiated the development of a joint memorandum of understanding between us to start to achieve those objectives.
My final attitude is on evidence, and it cuts across all that I have said on localism, social justice and technology. Evidence rarely makes any decision simpler; indeed, it can often make decisions more complex. However, evidence leads to far better and far more sustainable decisions. By evidence, I do not mean academic research alone; I mean the professional experience of police officers and leaders in civil society and local government and the lived experience of citizens. Last year, I established a joint research and evidence forum to accelerate the use of evidence in policing and to improve listening and learning, and I intend to continue to co-chair it with the deputy chief constable designate of Police Scotland.
Once again, I thank you very much for the invitation and for listening.