Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones. Agenda item 1 is the third oral evidence-taking session in the committee's community policing inquiry.
Good morning, gentlemen. Your written submission calls for
During the session, it would be helpful if someone could give a lead opinion from the conveners. Thereafter, if anyone feels that they need to augment that, they should do so. However, we are fairly tight for time.
Although we have called for a clear definition, we would not want it to be restrictive. It should be broad based and should highlight some issues, such as defining the neighbourhoods in which we want community policing to work and considering performance standards. Community policing can mean different things in different areas. In some parts of Edinburgh, it is about the community beat officer and their interaction with community councils and so on. In others, it might be about the policing team and how it works throughout an area. In Lothian and Borders as a whole, there might be a difference between community policing in the city of Edinburgh and community policing in some of our rural communities in the Borders.
We have already gathered that from other evidence sessions. Councillor Greig, do you have anything to add?
We will be up to it.
Good morning, gentlemen. What priority do the police give to community policing in Scotland? Does it vary between force areas?
Yes, it varies. Each force determines its level of community policing. In Strathclyde, we have 600 to 700 officers who are dedicated to community policing, so we already have a significant commitment to community policing. We have those resources in communities because we believe that it improves engagement with what we are trying to do in agency and partnership working—as you are aware, it is important that the police are represented. We also want more delivery, in terms of ensuring that every officer assigned to a community is well aware of the prevalent issues.
We are having an evidence session with Chief Constable House in a couple of weeks.
Councillor Greig, do you wish to add anything, either from yourself or from Sir Robert Peel?
Grampian Police has tried to allocate individual constables, sergeants and inspectors to specific areas. That is obviously a resource-intensive exercise and there are many examples of abstraction from the local areas. I hear complaints from constituents and others that local officers are being abstracted, for example to royal Deeside to provide protection or to specific campaigns. A lot of effort is being put into the community policing function, certainly in my force area, but it requires significant resources and we have major problems with that. We are one of the below-average funded forces and we have additional unmet financial pressures, such as policing the oil and gas industry and royalty protection. There is also the upcoming problem of the pensions shortfall, which will put additional pressures on Grampian Police, as it will on all forces.
All forces have to grapple with the challenge of finite resources, but we hear what you are saying—I am sure that the Government hears it, too.
There are 37 neighbourhoods in the Aberdeen City Council area, and Grampian Police has attempted to allocate an officer to each. The city is also divided into six areas, with an inspector in each one. I am not exactly sure of the pattern in the other two local authority areas, but that is the general format.
I am grateful for that. What is the situation in Lothian, Councillor Whyte?
It is similar to the situation in Grampian. We have a community beat officer in each area. The areas were modelled on the old single-member council wards. The new multimember wards have three or four officers, each in a beat area, depending on the size of the ward. A sector inspector is in charge of each team.
So, you think that it is important to have a direct link and to maintain continuity.
Absolutely. The sectors are brought together into larger sectors and there is a superintendent in charge of each one. A chief inspector and a superintendent look at each area to ensure that feedback is given to local elected members, communities and our new neighbourhood partnerships.
Mr Higgins, do you have anything to add to that?
Not at this time.
We have heard that there is perhaps a problem here and there with abstraction, although the councillors have differing views on that—we heard the views of Councillor Greig and Councillor Whyte. In your experience, how does the delivery of community policing vary throughout Scotland in terms of available resources, priorities of community officers, levels of engagement with communities and abstractions?
It is difficult for me to talk about things that are happening in other parts of Scotland.
What are the good things in Lothian and what are the things that could be improved upon?
I can think of a number of good things. The police are firmly built into the neighbourhood partnership arrangements that are in place in each council, although those arrangements are called slightly different things in different areas. The local inspector goes along to the partnership meetings, or ensures that he sends someone along on his behalf.
Grampian Police force is closely integrated into the work of the community planning partnerships and it is a key player in them. The force has an important role in setting the agenda and in actioning tasks set by the partnerships. Local police officers attend all the community council meetings in their area whenever that is possible. There are five community councils in my ward and there is a police officer at every community council meeting. That is an important way to have an effective dialogue between residents and the local community policing force.
Is that not a bit of a challenge? You are aiming for qualitative rather than quantitative criteria.
As ever, you must be careful when you handle performance statistics because you will only ever get quantitative results. That is why it is so important to have the correct context for statistics gathering. We are trying to be focused about determining what priorities we want measured and what exactly it is that we want to know that the police are doing, perhaps at divisional level and at more local level. Thanks to information technology, it is possible to obtain detailed figures. A vast amount of information is available from the improvement through knowledge and performance system—IKAP—and through information technology that has been developed. The information is there; we just need to interrogate the system to get the information that we want and that will support conclusions.
There has been a vast improvement in community engagement in Strathclyde through dedicating resources. One of the failings is that too few officers are dedicated to local areas. We currently tend to have one officer per former council ward, which may equate to three or four officers in an area. As you indicated, the main failing is abstractions. As you can imagine, various football matches and parades are held in the Strathclyde region and community officers were always the first port of call for policing such events.
Has the chief constable taken that operational decision about the non-abstraction of certain officers?
Yes. In the joint board's discussions, we have passed on clearly the feelings of communities. I am sure that all committee members have attended public meetings at which they have heard the frustrations that communities experience when police officers—whether superintendents or local community officers—change. We are trying to promote better engagement and relationships with the police so that the police can start tackling the issues that all our communities face. As I mentioned, as a joint board we believe in visible policing and in providing additional resources in our communities over and above the response policing resources that already exist. That is the way forward.
I have one final question. The committee hears what Councillor Rooney has said about the additional 500 to 600 police officers that Strathclyde Police believes it will have over the next three-year period. Obviously, we wish that to happen. However, was Councillor Rooney a wee bit dismayed at recent reports that Strathclyde Police had 200 fewer officers over the past year?
I emphasise that we should have a sizeable increase in police numbers in Strathclyde this year. That recent report gave only a snapshot—and an interpretation of that snapshot. As the committee will be aware, we are suffering from the Edmund-Davies effect so a decision was taken early on to inflate or establish our numbers so that we could compensate for that loss of experienced officers. I ask the committee not to place too much emphasis on this year's figures but to consider the number of officers that we are bringing through. This year alone, Strathclyde Police will put in excess of 800 officers through the Scottish Police College. In addition to the 500-plus additional community police officers to which I referred, that takes us to 1,200 new officers. That is a sizeable number in policing terms. Indeed, the committee might wish to note that that exceeds the total of some forces in Scotland.
We all hope that Councillor Rooney's confidence is well founded.
I have a question on abstractions. Can Councillor Rooney give a cast-iron guarantee that no community officer will be abstracted from duties? Such a commitment was given by the previous chief constable, who also said that abstractions would in principle work in favour of the community police officers. However, the Faslane 365 campaign resulted in quite significant abstractions in the interests of public safety.
Mr Martin is quite right that that is what has always been said. As a local councillor, I was told on many occasions that our community officers would be secured and would not be taken away. The difference now is that that is policy. I cannot give a cast-iron commitment that community officers will not be abstracted because that is an operational matter. When circumstances such as the terrorist incident at Glasgow airport occur, we cannot give an assurance that community officers will not be used to deal with those. However, the chief constable of Strathclyde Police, Mr House, has given a commitment that community officers will not be assigned duties to deal with regular events such as football matches, parades or even a Faslane 365 protest. The chief constable cannot be expected to give a cast-iron guarantee that officers will not be abstracted in any circumstances, but he has said that they will not be abstracted for regular events, which is when communities have suffered. For most of the year, some 50,000 or 60,000 people attend football matches every weekend in Glasgow; one can imagine how many officers are required to police such events.
Which officers will be abstracted? Will it be those who are monitoring sex offenders or dealing with other specialist duties? Somebody has to be abstracted, so who will it be?
You are absolutely right to ask that question, but it is a more appropriate question for Mr House, because that is an operational matter. The joint board does not have any ability to direct the chief constable, although obviously we try to use our influence to ensure that we get the best delivery of policing services for all our communities.
I remind members that the committee will have the opportunity to question Mr House on 24 June.
I have a question on that issue. Councillor Rooney, you said in response to a question from one of my colleagues that community police officers from within the Strathclyde force area would be dedicated to that job for perhaps a year or two years. The committee took evidence last week from community council representatives and neighbourhood watch scheme representatives who called for a longer period of continuity than that. I know from the area that I represent, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, that that is one of the points that communities raise. Do you think that one or two years gives the community sufficient time to get to know the officer, and vice versa, at the grass-roots level?
I would like a one or two-year commitment. There is currently none; community officers can be in place for as little as three months and no relationship is established. If we have a guarantee of at least one to two years, we can start to cement relationships, whereas at the moment there is no such commitment for local policing. We have been very successful as community partners in ensuring that the police are setting out the tables at a strategic and tactical level. We now need to have the police doing that at the delivery level.
Do you accept—perhaps the other witnesses will nod their heads—that a one or two-year commitment is not what the general public expect from Scotland's police forces? They say that they want community police officers to be rooted within the community. Those are the people that you and I seek to represent, and they say that there should be a longer commitment.
I am trying to be realistic. I am conscious of the fact that there is currently no commitment and that officers, far from being given permanent postings, are abstracted on a daily basis. By having a subdivisional model, the officers will probably not, in reality, be removed from a particular community. We are trying to dedicate resources to specific communities and streets where there are problems.
That was the point that I wanted to make.
We will continue to monitor the situation.
You have already mentioned some forces' community policing measures. Are you aware of any other examples of good practice in your board areas, Scotland-wide or elsewhere?
I can provide some more detail about Grampian Police's role in Aberdeen's community planning system. The city's CPP is developing neighbourhood networks, which are modelled on police tasking and co-ordination groups and involve the council, professionals and police officers in working relationships in small, geographically identified areas. Everyone gets round the table to identify local interests and work together to find solutions to very basic grass-roots problems that concern residents such as cleanliness, safety and roads. The networks are not all in place, but those that have been established are very proactive.
Although it takes a slightly different approach, Edinburgh's city centre policing unit—of which members such as Margaret Smith who know the city will be aware—is a similar example. The City of Edinburgh Council has paid for additional officers to patrol both the city centre and other areas of the city. However, the officers in the city centre form a dedicated resource that has been added to the force's existing resource in the area. The chief constable has assured us that they will not be abstracted unless there is an absolute emergency, and we have a partnership agreement enforcing that policy.
The on-going example of the city centre plan in Glasgow and the various town plans throughout Strathclyde demonstrate that, by sourcing additional funding from local councils, community planning funding and so on, a visible presence can be put on the streets, specifically on Friday and Saturday nights, when problems are most prevalent.
I do not think that we should go that far.
I would like to pick up on some things that Councillor Whyte said, including his comments on abstractions. There have certainly been improvements in Edinburgh, but will you clarify the funding arrangements that have been put in place in Lothian and the Borders? Obviously, there has been direct funding from the council, so guarantees in the partnership working have followed. We know that people frequently want to work together, but the difficulties of doing so often result from the issue of funding. Will you give us a little more information about the funding arrangements?
I think that the council paid for 36 dedicated officers in the city centre team. The chief constable agreed to match that number in order to have a 24-hour team available. That has ensured a constant officer presence in the city centre, which is weighted to the times in which it is most needed. Obviously, extra officers will be on the streets on Friday and Saturday evenings, for example, when the night-time economy is in full swing.
The examples of community policing that the three councillors have cited have been mainly to do with urban areas. The boards that the panel members represent include rural areas, so could they give us an indication of how they view community policing taking place in more rural areas, rather than in high-crime urban areas?
It is fair to say that we have concentrated on urban areas. My opening statement was an attempt to define community planning. Every community in Scotland is unique and diverse, but the Strathclyde joint police board area, which includes 12 councils, is particularly so. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach, even within one police force area. We take cognisance of that when we consider rural policing.
Obviously, the police are allocated finite resources, which have to be used in places where there are the greatest problems with crime and disorder. That is why we have concentrated, to quite a large extent, on the urban areas. I know that individual towns and villages have allocated community officers. For example, the small village of Braemar has a named local police officer, who is well known to the community and works along with the mountain rescue teams. Even in that area, which has some of the lowest levels of crime and disorder in the United Kingdom, it is still important for a small village to have an identified police officer. That is what is happening in rural areas.
There is a similar situation in Lothian and Borders, where the approach involves community beat officers in each neighbourhood, whether that be urban or rural, and partnership working with local people, the councils and other services. For instance, in some of our smaller towns and villages that do not have a police station, police officers are able to use a council office, or the office of another organisation, if they need to stop off somewhere to write up notes or take a break. That enables them to remain within the community. Further, by co-locating with other services, they are able to learn from those services and can work together with other people to tackle problems.
Stuart McMillan was going to ask you a question about stability and continuity, but you have anticipated that to some extent. However, as I cut him off earlier, I will allow him to raise another issue.
Councillor Rooney said that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. That comes across in paragraph 12.1 in the forum's submission. However, paragraph 3.1.2 says:
Mr Higgins, were you the author of that submission?
Unfortunately, yes.
Then it is only appropriate that you should answer for it.
That point raises the difficulty of the situation. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Earlier, I did not enter the discussion when I was invited to because I thought that the three conveners had pointed out quite clearly that we have a model that is about visible policing in the community.
I will add something to that. The key point is that the overall vision must be defined for each community. The definition in each community must be shared by the police, the community and the elected members in the area so that they all understand exactly what they are signing up to. That takes me back to what I understand the committee heard from community councillors and those representing smaller community organisations, who often say to me that they do not know, or are unclear about, what policing there is in their community. That must be defined in future to ensure that they are clearer about what they are getting and what their interaction with the police service is.
That is an important point, and you have explained it quite well. We will now pass on to community engagement. Again, you have anticipated some of the questions that we might wish to ask on that, but Paul Martin will open.
I refer the panel to the Chicago experience, on which we received evidence a couple of weeks ago. We heard that the police took the lead in engaging with the local community. Have any of the panel members taken that kind of approach in their local communities?
Before I became convener, Lothian and Borders Police was already doing what you describe through community beat officers engaging regularly with community councils. They do not go to every meeting, but they attend regularly. With the advent of neighbourhood partnerships in each area, the local inspector and some of his policing team usually attend neighbourhood partnership meetings and engage in that way. In addition, community councils feed up into our neighbourhood partnerships by electing the community representatives.
I understand those examples of engagement, but I have never heard of the innovation in the Chicago experience happening in Scotland. The panel members can correct me if I am wrong, but I have never heard of a local police authority organising and leading the public meetings, and engaging with the public and other partners. In my years as an elected representative in Strathclyde, I cannot recall such an approach, but somebody from another authority might be able to give examples.
I am not aware of that approach directly, but I can see the merits in it. When the partnership teams are brought together, the police often take the lead in getting action on things. In my experience, they seem to have much quicker ways of doing things than some of the council services do, for example. They will push others into action by challenging them effectively within a co-operative mechanism. Therefore, I can see a lot of merit in the approach that Paul Martin described. However, the trouble in Scotland is that we have just invented something called community planning, which we have localised in many neighbourhoods. It is still embryonic, so we must give it a chance to work. However, the way to do it might be to have police-led sessions in each neighbourhood partnership meeting in which the police report back to the public, listen to concerns that are raised and interact with others to get things done.
I will take the opportunity to advise MSPs of some proposals that the Strathclyde joint police board is seeking to implement. We believe that the police authority should take the lead in community events, as happens in the Chicago model. At the moment, in addition to local elected members, who are part of their communities, we have dedicated police board members for each area in Strathclyde. That is the case throughout Scotland. Through the community planning model, we would like police board members to be able to sit alongside police officers on community planning boards and to influence the debate on policing matters. In Strathclyde, we have representation at strategic level—I serve on the strategic board of community planning—although that is not the case everywhere. However, at the tactical and delivery level, only the police are represented. I believe that, by serving on community planning boards, police authority members could play a role in influencing the debate on behalf of communities. Such a proposal is being developed.
Let me be realistic. Some communities have no constitutional arrangements through which they are represented. For example, they might not have a forum such as a community council or a tenants association. How do people in those communities influence how the local police force's resources are used? Would it not be better to set up a framework that would allow those people to influence that process?
Mr Martin is right that in some communities there is a dearth of community councils. Indeed, the area that I represent does not have an active community council, but that is where community planning comes in, because there is a community planning board.
Can I look forward to seeing announcements on notice boards about meetings that will be led by local community police officers? You seem to be saying that we are going in a direction whereby communities that do not have adequate representation can look forward to question-and-answer sessions that are led by the local police force and which do not have to be instigated by local elected representatives.
You are absolutely right—that is the proposal in Strathclyde. I believe that we have a meeting coming up, at which we can discuss that in private. I should add that that is a divisional level proposal; at this stage, it will not be possible to implement it in individual community planning areas. At divisional level, there should be an opportunity for meetings to be called by the police authority, at which divisional commanders can be held to account by the community, by which I mean police board members, elected members, community representatives and members of the public. Although that is only a proposal, I am extremely confident, from my discussions with them, that other members of the community are highly supportive of it.
Paul Martin has asked an important question, and I am grateful for Councillor Rooney's explanation of how Strathclyde envisages dealing with some of the issues that arise as a result of what some people might consider to be a democratic deficit as regards the accountability of the police force. I want to examine that issue further. You say that police board members may sit on local area partnerships to engage in the debate and discussion at that level. Correct me if I am wrong, but the number of police board members from local areas in Strathclyde, for example, does not equate to the number of wards or area partnerships in the region. Therefore, if board members sit on the local partnerships, could that not be seen as an imposition, particularly given that the partnerships may have a different agenda or outlook on community policing in their areas? I suggest that the same applies equally to Grampian, Lothian and Borders and other forces throughout Scotland.
I can speak only for Strathclyde on the issue and not on behalf of my colleagues. The member is absolutely right. In Glasgow, there are eight police board members and 10 community planning local boards. That is an issue—those police board members might not be able to sit on the groups at the delivery level. However, that is not the case elsewhere in Strathclyde, where police board membership has a more localised dimension. At the tactical level, which is the level that we sometimes forget in community planning, there is scope for police board members to participate and to influence how we engage with the public on policing and other issues in which the police are involved.
Community engagement is a challenge for every elected member. It is particularly challenging for the six joint police boards, whose membership comprises appointments from a variety of local authorities. In the Grampian Police area, a positive model has been developed in the local authorities through community planning partnerships. The Aberdeen city alliance, which has been a helpful model and an example of joint working, has enabled local areas to express their concerns and views and have them recorded in a neighbourhood community action plan. All members of the community planning partnership have ownership of that plan. Obviously, the police have a strategic as well as a tactical role in carrying out the plan and addressing the issues that are raised.
We have questions on partnership working, although the witnesses have largely anticipated what we were going to ask. I ask Nigel Don whether there are any other points that he wishes to cover.
I will work through the issues to ensure that I heard folk right. If not, I might pick up on issues at the edges.
We still need to build up more experience. In Edinburgh, we have moved from bigger areas that were based on parliamentary constituencies to areas that are mostly based on the new council wards. Some of the new areas are amalgamations of two council wards, but colleagues tell me that they are sometimes a little big.
Every area is different, and each city centre has its own specific policing programme. In Aberdeen, operation oak has been in place since August 2006.
Cathie Craigie and Margaret Smith both have small points to raise. Perhaps they could ask Councillor Rooney their questions simultaneously—or, rather, one after the other. [Laughter.] Yes, the prospect of those two in a duologue is not a happy one.
I would like to ask each of the witnesses about the percentage of the police force in their areas that is made up of community police officers? In particular, what percentage of the force in Strathclyde is made up of community police officers who will not be abstracted to other duties?
And now for something completely different. I wanted to ask about the practical difficulties of joint working. I am a Lothian and Borders person, so I read with some interest the submission from Lothian and Borders Police on community policing. One thing that seems to be working quite well is the sharing of information. In joint working in the past, sharing information has been difficult. The submission talks about the lack of a secure network when computers are speaking to each other, and about practical organisational difficulties that have arisen. Will you give us examples of the practical difficulties in developing joint working with council colleagues and others?
I was trying to do the mental arithmetic, but I have given up, so I will just say that the rough figure at the moment is that 10 per cent of the overall establishment are community officers. They are not ring fenced currently, if I can use that term, but we propose that around 13, 14 or 15 per cent of community officers should be protected from abstractions, which is a significant point.
Gentlemen, as is inevitably the case when politicians speak to politicians, this session has run over time considerably. That is not to say that it has not been an extremely valuable session. I thank you very much for attending, particularly Councillor Greig, who has come from a far distance.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
We reconvene to take evidence from Joe Grant, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation. As he requires no introduction, we will proceed to questioning from Bill Butler.
Good morning, Mr Grant. In your written submission, you choose to emphasise "visible street policing" rather than "community policing". Will you elaborate on that? Do you think that community policing, as a distinctive specialism, no longer has a place in Scottish policing or are you trying to say something else?
We are trying to say something entirely different from that. We have seen evidence to the committee that suggests that some people have sought to achieve almost a silo of community policing by keeping it untouched as a specialism that does only specific tasks. We see a far broader role for it than just policing communities. That links to one of the first questions that is put to most evidence providers about defined community policing. You have our submission, so I do not intend to repeat what is in it, but you will perhaps remember that the subject exercised me considerably the last time I was here—I said that it was easy on the tongue, but difficult on the head. I hope that what I say today will be a bit more informative.
Would you be more comfortable with the term that you use in your submission, which is "24/7 response policing"? Does that term encapsulate—for you—response policing, reactive policing, intelligent policing and community policing? Would such an integrated approach fit more easily under the heading of "24/7 response policing"?
It would, but it must be remembered that we used the term in the context of establishing a baseline that would allow the committee to make a judgment later on whether additional resources have been delivered to communities. For me, the issue is one of context rather than ideology.
You have provided a formula for establishing a baseline figure—the committee is grateful for that.
By and large, we agree with the outcomes and recommendations of the report. We see differences of nomenclature for community or neighbourhood policing—it has a variety of titles—throughout Scotland and the UK. Using common terms across Scotland will not improve services, but it will improve understanding and may lead to better engagement with the people for and with whom we police. We are not as critical as HMICS was in 2004, because much of what would be identified as best practice has already been adopted in Scotland. We have been less good at articulating the structure within which such best practice fits, and at packaging—or marketing—it. There is work to be done on packaging, which will aid better common understanding of community or neighbourhood policing by all the people of Scotland.
Do you agree that such a framework must encompass both national strategies and local flexibility? Are those approaches complementary rather than contradictory?
As a collection of words, the terms appear to be contradictory, but in practice they must be complementary. It is right that there should be a national framework, because that will ensure a common understanding and the common vision to which the police board conveners referred. The fact that such a vision is being set out and articulated is a positive development for police services in Scotland.
That is all I have to ask. I am obliged, Mr Grant.
What are your views on identifying the needs of rural communities compared to the needs of urban communities? On a recent committee visit to the Borders, it was evident that the challenges that are faced by officers in the Borders are different from those that are faced by those in Strathclyde.
There are different approaches to policing in Scotland. In rural areas, there are fewer officers, but they play a wider range of roles. In urban areas, there are more officers but they tend to have narrower or more specialised roles. In rural communities, the officer will be the community officer, the response officer and a few other things into the bargain. He or she will likely be subject to fewer abstractions—because of geography—but will be more likely to require a vehicle to get around and will rely far more heavily on the special constabulary in the area. As we have heard, in some areas the special constabulary is the policing response.
Despite the lack of crime in many communities compared to other parts of Scotland, those communities say that they want to see the local police officer as a reassurance. We are providing such officers not because serious crime is taking place in the area, but because the local community has demanded it. Other communities, in which a great deal of criminal activity takes place, might need that additional resource but do not get it because another community wants to be reassured. How do we deal with that?
For sure, that tension exists. However, you must understand that we must provide a basic level of service. We can talk about three levels of service. The basic level of service—which might be what Paul Martin articulated—may, perhaps controversially, be felt by the recipients of that service to be the best service that we provide. There is also good service, and there is best service—that is what we are trying to identify through our discussions about community engagement and community policing. There will always be tensions, and chief officers and local commanders must make decisions. However, it would not be wise to ignore the needs, desires and articulated wishes of the communities that we police for and with.
Concerns are often raised about community policing not being part of core policing and about performance management indicators not fully recognising the breadth of community policing activities. Are those concerns justified in Scotland? If so, how should they be addressed?
That addresses the important questions of whether community policing is seen as part of core policing and whether there are tensions. You will have read our written submission; I do not intend to repeat it.
I asked this question of academic witnesses who mentioned that it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of community police officers. Could it be measured by looking at what happens when there is no community police officer in a community? That happens throughout Scotland.
Sure. I was going to say, "Let's not test that". The reality is that there are still too many areas without community police officers. Those areas can be looked at.
Is there an issue about performance measurement of community officers in urban, as compared to rural, environments? Are there different demands in those environments?
There are, but there remains a need in each community. The communities may be disparate for a variety of reasons, but they are joined by their need to have the best possible policing service and for solutions to their problems when the police can intervene, interact and implement solutions. That is the common factor.
You referred to the Scottish Police Federation's visible street policing and community policing and the number of abstractions. Is there a better way of working? Does the SPF experience different operational methods in the different forces throughout Scotland?
Abstractions are dealt with differently in different parts of Scotland. We hear that in Strathclyde—and indeed elsewhere, such as in Lancashire—abstractions are a real difficulty for police managers. We state in our written evidence that we cannot envisage a situation in which a police officer who is posted to a particular duty will never be called away to do something else. It is a bold fact that when there is an emergency or a major disaster, or sometimes something less than that, we need all hands to the pumps. In those circumstances, there is no time or, indeed, place for arguments about whose job it is to do something. Frankly, that flexibility is what makes us so useful and able to deal with events.
You heard the conveners of the police boards on the previous panel. In the SPF's experience, how do different police forces operate abstractions? Are some forces more willing than others to abstract community officers, or do you have no feel for how different police forces operate community policing?
By and large, the majority of forces and chief officers in Scotland seek to reduce the number of abstractions of community police officers. Like us, however, they understand that there is no place for an absolute diktat that there must be no abstractions. Such an approach would not deal with reality.
Do police forces provide appropriate leadership and management support for community policing? Do community officers receive sufficient training for their duties?
Have we been trying hard to provide leadership and management support—the last part of which, I suppose, is training—in the police services across Scotland? Absolutely. Is there a renewed focus on those matters? Without a doubt, and I hope that that will continue. The chief police officers can best describe the situation to you, but I am satisfied that there is the right leadership. There is ample evidence of excellent delivery in Scotland.
Do officers who take on the community policing role receive sufficient training for them to understand what is expected of them when they deliver community policing and with whom they should engage?
I do not spend an awful lot of time on community police officers' training. However, do I have a sense from speaking to community police officers that they receive appropriate information and training both in being introduced to the role and while they are performing it? Yes. However, I do not have a broad knowledge of the area.
Good morning, Mr Grant. Thank you for being here earlier and listening to the first panel's comments, because that enables us to speed up.
Your latter question is easier to answer first. We have not formed a view on co-location. Have we heard that there are positive aspects to it? Absolutely. We will support it if better service provision can be demonstrated, but I would like to hear more about it before giving a definitive view.
My question follows on partly from Nigel Don's question and partly from John Wilson's, and is also about something that was in your written submission. Your answer to question 5 states:
For sure, and crikey, we have been busy since we wrote to the committee. I will not repeat what I said about Lancashire, but we looked for good practice and at some of the different community policing models in Scotland and beyond. As I have said, and as the committee has heard this morning, there are many examples of good practice. In Edinburgh, there are neighbourhood action units, which work with other public services—in particular, housing—and the antisocial behaviour teams. In Tayside, the community liaison officers are now called community crime officers—a far more active phraseology. As the committee has heard this morning, and as we have discovered, in Grampian they talk about total communities, which seek to involve each of the public sector partners. In Strathclyde, we refer to community policing teams and community policing units.
I am sure that you are aware that the committee has been searching the globe as part of its inquiry. As a taxpayer, you will be pleased to know that we have been using all the modern technologies to do that. We have heard evidence from Chicago about the use of geographically focused teams to deliver community and response policing. What is your view of the appropriateness of such a model in a Scottish context? I do not know whether you have read that evidence. If you need me to go into more detail, I will.
My understanding of the evidence from Chicago is that what they do there is geographical. We understand it to be sector beat—a variety of terminologies can be applied to such policing—which was widely practised in Scotland over many years. Instead of having a city-wide responsibility, the response officers there are allocated an area of the city and largely they stay there. Professor Skogan said that officers spend about 70 per cent of their time on the beat. Depending on precisely what he meant by that, we could probably match that in Scotland in many cases. There are some good features to what people in Chicago are doing—such as structured community meetings, shared funding and working with voluntary groups—but their model for policing cover, while obviously new to them, is not entirely new here, as far as I can establish. What is different in Chicago is the coming together of what we understand as community officers and response officers. In Chicago, they are one and the same.
Earlier this morning, we heard from Councillor Rooney about the length of time that an officer could or should spend as a community police officer. He gave the example of someone being a community police officer for only about three months. What period of time should an officer spend in that role?
That is one of a variety of factors that should be considered. Perhaps the word that we should be using is "tenure". If we want to achieve what communities are asking for, which is consistency and sustainability in the policing response—and in saying that, communities are referring to people as well as to service provision—a realisable and achievable tenure, as Lancashire Constabulary has found, is two years. The force is not naive enough to think that all officers will be in post for that length of time—it knows that some will serve a community for only 18 months—but it hopes that others will do the job for much longer that that.
On a recent visit to Motherwell, committee members met a couple of community police officers, who had been in the job for about three and half years and five and a half years. They seemed to be thriving in their role of CPO, and clearly they were getting a great deal of satisfaction from the job. You mentioned a period of two years, but those officers had three and a half and five and a half years' service. Surely CPOs can achieve much more if they spend a longer time in post.
For sure. I was recounting the situation in Lancashire—a policing situation that is not far from Scotland in geographical terms. Lancashire Constabulary says that, instead of an officer having to leave community policing if they want to progress their career, they should and must work in community policing before career development comes to them. Ultimately, the effect of that shift in thinking on policing and management cultures will make officers more willing to go into the CPO role and sustain it for some time. The two-year period that I mentioned is what Lancashire Constabulary aims for. Given that we have been practising community policing in Scotland for a long time, I am sure that many officers will have been in community policing for much longer than the three and a half to five and a half years that you mentioned. Barring the things that can intervene in any officer's career, there should be an achievable minimum period during which a community can expect an officer to be there for them.
I call Cathie Craigie and ask her to be brief.
Is there a role for streaming? Someone might join the police force and have no real interest in becoming part of the drugs squad or criminal intelligence department; they simply want to work in their community. What can the police force do for such people? Last week, we heard that every officer who joins the police force does so to serve their community. However, surely they can do that in different ways.
For sure. I have not heard enough about streaming to give an extensive response to your question, but I believe that one of the duties of the police is to give communities officers who are as rounded as possible. Of course, that does not mean that they have to spend three months, six months or a year in every department, but a rounded officer with a breadth of experience is best for communities, and I am concerned that streaming people in the service will result in single-track specialisms and blinkered views.
Over the past few weeks, we have heard an awful lot about how community policing is really a partnership with other activities and agencies, particularly local councils. What distinctive contribution can police constables make to that partnership?
In responding to your question, I will also set out how I think such partnerships should develop.
Thank you, Mr Grant. The committee is obliged to you for your evidence, which, as ever, was the acme of clarity and brevity.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome our third panel. We have with us Chief Superintendent Val McHoull, who is president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents; and Chief Superintendent Matt Hamilton, who is also from the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents. We will go straight to questions.
Good afternoon, colleagues. I will begin with a question that I asked Mr Grant. The report that HMICS published in 2004 highlighted certain confusion and ambiguity around the term "community policing"—there were different approaches, labels and styles. The report stated:
We have the national public reassurance strategy, and I think that we have agreed this morning that there should be different models of community policing. The model of community policing in the Scottish Borders is different from that in Edinburgh city centre. There needs to be agreement not so much on a process or a model, but, rather, on an ethos. The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents believes that community policing is an ethos.
Will you explain what you mean by that? My background is education, where people were always going on about ethos, which seemed a nebulous term. Can you define it for me? I would be grateful if you could.
I think that our federation colleagues and others have used the word "vision". It is about our having an agreed understanding of what community policing is about. We heard about Chicago this morning. Another police force from which we have heard recently on the topic of community policing talked about the same cop, same neighbourhood ethos. It is about visible, accessible officers in the community, who are there not just to attend community meetings and run youth initiatives but to deal with crime in their area. They are there to understand their community—not just residents but business premises and so on—and the issues that arise and, collectively with other partners, to come up with long-term, proactive, preventive solutions. It is about early intervention and crime reduction.
Do you wish to add to that, Chief Superintendent Hamilton?
My point is about what community policing does. I echo what my colleague said: the key factors should be prevention, intervention and collaboration. We can talk about those in more detail if you like. Every officer who is involved in a community should be quite clear about what their role is.
I am grateful for that answer. In your submission you give a helpful general description—not a definition—of community policing as being
The key is that they are different and require different service delivery. Community policing is the model in a rural setting—we liken it to a total policing model that will be able to react to anything that happens in the community. We understand that things will happen with which officers will need specialist assistance, but nevertheless, when the specialists move out, the officers will still police that community and deliver that service.
Do you mean that, in rural areas, communities are much more easily identifiable and discrete, and that in order to get the best that community policing can deliver in terms of engagement, visibility and identification we must try our best to transplant that ethos to create various villages within conurbations such as Glasgow or Edinburgh? Would you go that far, or is that too fancy?
I do not think that it is—if you examine the urban areas, you can see that there are areas that identify themselves, such as areas within Dundee, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. That is not too much to ask.
The difference between community policing in rural areas and community policing in urban areas is to do with the history. Originally, all officers were community officers, because they had the time to get to know their beat and the people who lived on it and their concerns and issues. The demand, the pace and the complexity of policing pushed officers into cars, going from call to call, and therefore they no longer had that contact and engagement with the community.
I am obliged.
The issue of performance management indicators not reflecting the depth and involvement of community policing activity has been raised with the committee. Do you think that they accurately reflect that activity? If not, what can be done about it?
We are moving in the direction of being aware of more qualitative issues. One of the performance indicators that would be specific to evaluating the benefit of community policing relates to crime reduction and reduction in antisocial behaviour. The Scottish Police Federation evidence referred to a change of terminology in Tayside from community liaison officers to community crime officers. That is important, because we believe that community beat officers should respond to and investigate calls to do with low-level crimes and antisocial behaviour. Crime reduction should be the biggest measure of how things are working.
Do you agree with that, Mr Hamilton?
Yes. I certainly agree that, in the past, greater emphasis has been put on crime detection; indeed, the key performance indicators to which police forces have worked have predominantly been to do with crime detection. However, greater emphasis is put on the quality stuff in the new policing performance framework, such as whether people feel safer in their communities.
I am sure that the witnesses heard what Councillor Rooney said about abstractions and Strathclyde joint police board's policy to ensure that abstractions do not happen. How effective do you think that policy will be? Have you heard about it before?
I think that Mr Rooney was asked to give a cast-iron guarantee that officers would never be abstracted. Of course, such a guarantee can never be given, but forces are putting much more effort into planned events as opposed to unplanned events, during which it will often be a case of all hands to the pump. Let us consider T in the Park in Tayside as an example of a planned event. That event is now policed on a rest-day working basis, which is expensive but is an alternative to moving officers from their communities. Community policing is important when such events are being run. It is important to engage with local communities that are concerned about the size of such events in their area. They will be doubly concerned if their community beat officers are taken away to police the event. Tayside Police therefore chose to pay for rest-day working. Police officers must come from somewhere—that issue was raised with Mr Rooney when football matches were being discussed. Sometimes a more expensive alternative must be used.
Officers must come from some part of the force. Should things then be prioritised? Should officers who are involved in tracking and monitoring sex offenders be asked to police T in the Park, rather than community police officers being asked to do that? How should we prioritise abstractions?
That will always depend on the individual event. We have stripped officers from specialisms to police events that were the size of the G8 summit to the extent that those specialisms were closed down.
Big events would not have been properly planned if they did not involve community policing. The G8 summit is a great example. A year before it, community policing was introduced in the local area to mitigate the summit's effects. It was introduced so that there would be a lead-in to and a lead-out from the big event. The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents understands that community policing must be an integral part of the planning for big events.
The G8 summit and T in the Park have been mentioned. A number of forces were involved in policing the G8 summit, and substantial costs were associated with that policing. There has been some debate about whether those costs were fully recovered. T in the Park is, in effect, a private event. Chief Superintendent McHoull said that using officers' rest days, as opposed to taking officers out of communities, to police it is expensive for Tayside Police. Does Tayside Police recover all the costs of policing T in the Park or does it bear the costs as a result of the policy that has been adopted?
I have been the commander for T in the Park for the past couple of years. Tayside Police recovers the costs of the rest-day policing, so there is no cost to the local community. Obviously, the organisers of the event must pay the relevant amount. The community policing that takes place is similar to that which took place at the G8 summit. T in the Park moves in and hits the Kinross area big style, and, with the local community, local community policing must ensure that the area can recover after the event. That is the whole purpose of building community policing into the planning for the event.
Thank you—you have answered my question. I was just interested in the cost of policing events and in whether Tayside Police had to bear the brunt of the cost without being able to recover it.
How are abstractions monitored? Some chief constables take the issue seriously, but they will have competing priorities. Is it sometimes difficult for them to deal with abstractions, and will they sometimes allow them in order to deal with initiatives that arise? How can we ensure that there are no abstractions? Could there be a more effective monitoring process than what is in place at the moment? The rights and responsibilities of the chief constables are in statute. What Councillor Rooney says, what Kenny MacAskill says, or what I say, is absolutely irrelevant—it might sound good to the public, but what does it actually mean?
You make a good point. However, as a local divisional commander, I feel that the method of monitoring is clear if you listen to the local community. People in a local community that has had a community officer—or whatever terminology is used—for the past two years will not be long in telling you that they are getting a bit fed up with that community officer being continually taken away to do other work. If the police service and the local commanders listen to the community, that is an accurate way of monitoring whether things are right or not.
The committee has heard that community planning provides
There are a lot of examples of how community planning has developed community policing or community delivery of policing. Good examples exist in West Lothian, which my colleague, Chief Superintendent McHoull, will know more about than I do.
I raised a point earlier with the councillors about the appropriate size of local planning partnership and community policing partnership areas. I got the impression that, in different places, the size of those areas might be different. Do you think that the areas are relatively easy to define, even if in some places they are the size of one ward and in other places they are the size of two wards? I am not worried about the detail, but is it clear how we can choose the areas and make them work?
The areas vary in size. In Edinburgh, some council services have been aligned to neighbourhood action units, rather than the other way round.
I hear what you say. I guess that I am not looking for a specific initiative, which could be carried out over any size of area. My question is more whether we are trying to encourage the police to move towards a model that has a locally defined area within which community policing is seen in partnership with as many other agencies as you can sensibly involve. Do you foresee difficulties in defining that area? Will the area be definable but different in different places?
Generally, local authority areas across the country are aligned with local police command areas. We are comfortable with that set-up, which does not restrict how we deliver our service.
I want to pick up on the issue of public reassurance, which was mentioned in your submission. Chief Superintendent McHoull talked about work in West Lothian to tackle underage drinkers, which is a high-profile issue. I presume that, through the media for example, members of the public can get some sort of feedback about what is happening and whether it has been successful. However, an awful lot of community policing is much more low level. It seems to me that one of the problems, which I have probably been negative about in the past, is that perhaps the police are not as good at going back to the community to give them feedback about something that has happened. Some of that may be due to the sensitivity of the information involved—perhaps because people have been charged. How do you get round that?
The communications strategy for community policing must be twofold. It is about not just feeding in the concerns, but feeding back what has been done in order to provide reassurance. Lothian and Borders Police have looked at impact assessments after certain incidents, particularly for the signal crimes that greatly affect the community's fear of crime and so on. Feeding back information to the community is very much part of the process, whether that is done formally, through sophisticated platforms, or informally, through the community beat officer chatting with local shopkeepers. In the capital partnership model in the city centre, the sector inspector has a specific role in feeding information through the tasking and co-ordinating group, and feeding back the results.
Much is said about the value of community councils. I think that most people would agree that there are certain constants in community councils, one of which is that the local elected member attends the meetings; the other is that the local community police officer is usually there, too, unless something drastic happens to prevent that. Much information can be passed on at that level.
We have heard evidence from Professor Wesley Skogan, in Chicago, with which you are familiar. Do you feel that the Chicago project could be successfully imported into Scotland?
Yes. As we heard from Joe Grant, the principles are similar to those of some of the policing models that we have had here, particularly in rural areas, so it would fit quite nicely in Scotland. We have also heard from Kathleen O'Toole, from Boston—I think that you were at the same meeting, convener. She talked about what she termed the rebirth of community policing in Boston in the 1980s, which focused on crime reduction and early intervention. We see those as the important aspects and do not believe that we should get hung up on the name of any particular model. It should be very much about the delivery on the ground.
I think that we can take that as the association's view.
Earlier this morning, we heard about the tenure of a community police officer. How long do you think that someone should be in that role?
Many variables must be taken into account, one of which is the career development of the officer, and not just from the point of view of progression and whether any given officer should have worked in different departments or whatever before they can be promoted. I conduct recruitment interviews, and when I ask young people why they want to join the police, nine times out of 10 they talk about part of the attraction being the variety of the job and the fact that they can work in many different specialisms.
We should never be obstructive to change. I can give the committee real-life evidence of a number of letters that I have received from local areas in which people complain about our moving a community officer, telling us, "This is the finest community officer that we have ever had". However, once the officer eventually moves on, the person who replaces them then becomes the finest community officer that the community has ever had. The important point is that we should always try to improve on the previous person who held the role. We need to have the strength in depth and the systems and methods of policing in place. That will enable us to ensure that community policing is not solely dependent on an individual, but that there is much more strength to what we deliver in community policing.
You will have heard what Joe Grant said earlier about what the police bring to partnership working. Do you agree with him—I suspect that you will in terms of initiative and leadership, which we recognise as characteristics of our policemen—that the police should perhaps not be leading the partnerships?
I do not think that we should always lead; which partner agency should take the lead depends on the particular initiative. There are now areas of community policing in which we would find it difficult to operate without our partners, one of which is the funding of community officers.
We should not get hung up on who it is that steps up to the plate; the important thing is that somebody does so. However, we should also be keen to ensure that it is not always the police who step up to the plate. We should never be precious about that. The important thing is about what is delivered, and we clearly have an important part to play in that.
I have been trying to build a model in my head of a locally defined group of people that includes police officers, community wardens, the important people in the council who deliver, for example, social work services and education, and perhaps some health workers as well. We need to build a model that enables people to understand what they are collectively trying to deliver.
I think—and I am sure that the association feels the same—that the single outcome agreements give some direction in that regard. As the matter clearly sits within the remit of the community planning partnership, that would be the key engine that would move the agenda forward.
So the model already exists.
Exactly. Whether it is working as well as it could be is another issue. I am sure that it can work better.
Thank you for giving your evidence in a concise and clear manner.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
The final witness today is Chief Constable John Vine, of Tayside Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.
I will ask you the same question that I have asked our previous witnesses. The HMICS report of 2004 highlighted some confusion and ambiguity around the term, "community policing". It stated:
I agree with much of what the HMICS said and recommended. There is confusion over terminology, which could be improved. Some of the confusion arises from a desire to make an impact locally and to reassure the public that the service that they are receiving is tailored to what the chief constable of their area thinks they need and want. Some of the catchy titles are designed to provide reassurance about quality of service delivery.
Essentially, despite "rationalisation in terminology", as you put it, you are saying that community policing is about local flexibility and national strategies being complementary rather than contradictory in order to ensure that, as you say, although we can have locally tailored initiatives, it is basically the same suit.
They have to be complementary and we must tailor the response to local need, which varies enormously. The committee has talked about the rural/urban dimension, but that is only one dimension. Different communities, depending on whether they are wealthy or not so wealthy, will want to have contact with the police through different mechanisms. For example, in some communities it is difficult to get the public to talk to the police as readily as they do in other communities. We must therefore tailor our responses and work with our partners to ensure that we reach the community and find out what is going on and what people's needs are. We must tailor the response locally depending on geography, the urban/rural dimension and the type of community with which we are dealing. Is it a wealthy middle-class community or is it one of the poorer housing schemes that exist in many of our cities?
You have given the committee some general descriptions. Can you now give us specific examples of the way in which community policing is delivered differently in different communities within your police force?
In Kinloch Rannoch there is a community cafe project, which tends to be the community centre for the area; it is where most people would congregate. Having the police officer drop in there regularly is a model that would work for that community.
You are essentially saying that the key elements are community engagement, accessibility and responsiveness to the community's needs.
Yes. Those are the traits that you will find running through all the initiatives that are mentioned in the ACPOS submission.
I am obliged.
I refer you to paragraph 12 of your submission, which suggests to me that community policing is not viewed as a part of core policing and that performance management indicators do not reflect community policing activities. Is that the case?
Traditionally, that has been the case. The "Scottish Policing Performance Framework" represents a good attempt to measure the qualitative element of service delivery, which in the past the service has neglected.
I will pursue that a little further. I am a tiny bit concerned about what you said about encouraging people not to apply for promotion but to stay in community policing. It would worry me if someone did that, because it would demonstrate a lack of ambition.
We have to cater for people's ambition. Any police service has a wonderful array of opportunities for police officers and we cannot stop people progressing their careers if they want to, but sometimes there is a direct contradiction between the pursuit of those legitimate ambitions and the desirability of keeping in a community the familiar face of a well-respected and well-known officer.
I will not disappoint you—I will move on to abstractions. As you heard, this morning's evidence fully corroborated our previous evidence that abstractions are a problem. Could the methodology of community policing or of policing in general be changed so that more protection is provided from abstractions?
In practical terms, it will be extremely difficult to do that. All chief constables are highly conscious of the need to provide visible community policing and are doing their level best to ensure continuity of such provision, but we cannot say that there will never be circumstances in which we will have to use those officers for other purposes.
Is there appropriate leadership of, and management support for, community policing within police forces? Do you believe that community officers receive sufficient training for their roles, which appear to be expanding?
In short, no. There is a course on community policing at the Scottish Police College, which is attended generally by inspectors from all over Scotland who are involved in community policing, but there is room for improvement.
I have a practical question about handover from one community officer to a new one coming into an area. Is there a general handover procedure, or does it vary from force to force?
It varies not only from force to force but probably from division to division and section to section. It depends on whether we can provide an overlap period between the incoming and outgoing officers. In my experience, that is often worth while, if it can be done, because it introduces the new officer to key players in the community. However, it is not always possible because we have to make best use of our resources and it must be remembered that community policing is not our only priority.
I am concerned that you said that a period of overlap is not always possible. I agree with what you said earlier about continuity. If a force is losing an officer who has built experience, who knows where the criminals are and who the key people are, even a few days of overlap would be worth while.
I agree entirely, and where we can do that, it should happen. However, I cannot sit here and guarantee that it is common practice throughout Scottish policing because I am not aware that it is.
You made a comment about lower crime figures not necessarily reassuring communities, but reassurance for communities is fundamental. What are your thoughts about engagement between the police and communities, and what evidence is there of different mechanisms being used across Scotland? What is most effective? Also, I asked a question earlier about the importance of feedback to communities at the end of initiatives and so on. How is that going?
There were a number of questions there. I will start at the beginning.
Thank you for staying for the whole meeting and listening to other witnesses' responses. I am sure that someone or some department in St Andrew's house has mapped out the entire community planning process. I certainly hope that, unlike in previous years, the process of gathering information from community planning organisations will not be a tick-box exercise.
Such cynicism!
I say that from experience, convener.
Very much so, but problems lie in how we define communities and whether we can get people to buy in to such definitions. Someone said earlier that that might be easier in rural areas. That point was not pursued in questioning, but I think that it might be easier because rural areas probably have more of a defined sense of community than do the suburbs of large cities. It is more difficult to define where communities in large cities begin and end. We have had a go at it in all forces in Scotland; it is where we get the name "division" from—it is a division of a city or an area. We have used police criteria to define that, but we have not really thought about defining communities in the same way that the people in Chicago have done.
Aren't we all. It would be useful for the committee to get sight of the Work Foundation research, to help shape our view of what we are trying to do. I am sure that the Work Foundation would have compared what happens in Surrey, the London area and Dundee.
I have a report, which I can send you without any difficulty.
That would be useful.
I want to tease out something that you have been around the houses with, Mr Vine. I return to the issue of performance management. In a previous existence, I was a factory engineer. It was wonderful when the engineers were all sitting in the workshops drinking tea, because that meant that the packing lines were running. It would be wonderful if your police were all sitting back at the shop drinking tea because the world outside was wonderful. When I was an engineer, I could measure the fact that the world was wonderful, because I could measure the output of the packing lines. Do you have adequate measures of the world outside being wonderful, other than lower crime rates or greater customer satisfaction? Do all the measures exist, or do you and the academic world need to scratch your heads and think of other measures?
I am always happy to get expert advice from anyone. I will listen to anyone who can offer me answers about how to address public perception of crime levels. I can go to a community meeting and talk until I am blue in the face about how crime has fallen in my force area, but people will still fall about in the audience not believing me. By the way, crime has substantially fallen in my area over the past few years—indeed, it fell by another 8 per cent last year. According to Endsleigh Insurance Services, Dundee is now the third safest place in Britain. I thought I would just get in that plug.
It goes a long way to clarifying my thinking that perhaps we need to get somebody outside of the police to help us to analyse the situation.
Yes. I am quite relaxed about that.
Previous witnesses spoke about tenure—the length of time that an officer spends in a community policing role. What period should an officer spend as a CPO? What is your view on such tenure?
In my force, we do not have a term. We used to have a tenure of post policy, which meant that, after a period of time, an officer had to leave their post and be redeployed to another position. I abolished that, because the policy was dysfunctional. As you say, many forces have tenure policies, although I am not entirely sure where they all sit at the moment. Managers need to manage staff effectively. The people who we put in the community have to cut the mustard. I want our officers to be out there, well received by the community and delivering the goods. If an officer provides community reassurance and prevents and detects crime—by which I mean arresting people—they can stay in post for as long as they want.
There being no further questions, I thank you for your attendance this morning. However, before you go, I note that, unless there is one of the unforeseen emergencies that we talked about earlier, this will be your last appearance before the Justice Committee prior to your departing to your new role in the UK Border Agency. The committee would like to thank you for the considerable contribution that you have made to Scottish policing over the years, for the way in which you have made yourself available to give evidence on a number of occasions and for the facility that you granted the committee on our recent visit to Dundee. Thank you very much indeed for all that you have done.
Thank you, convener.
We will pause briefly before moving on to the next item.