I welcome everyone to the third meeting this year of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing. I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices completely, as they interfere with the broadcasting system even when they are switched to silent. No apologies have been received.
I hope that I have managed to work the technology.
All the microphones will come on automatically—do not worry about that.
Thank you.
No, you are always interesting; do not put yourself down.
It is very kind of you to say so.
Good afternoon. I am a police officer with 26 years’ service. My role is divisional commander for division 4 in Police Scotland, which is the Highland and Islands division. There are four local authorities in that area, all of which are very different—in addition to the three island authorities, there is the mainland Highland Council.
Do not worry—we have others here who can do that just as well.
To some extent, keeping people safe is relatively straightforward for us, in that they are safe already. As a team, we listen to what local people want from local police officers and try to deliver the best service that we can. We also try, through public engagement, to fill the gap whereby although people are safe, they sometimes do not feel that safe. That is part of our role as well. For me as a manager and leader, my role is about our visibility, our energy and the grip that we have in policing terms.
There are 14 divisional commanders across Scotland, all of whom have been selected—as Chief Superintendent Innes has been—for their local experience and knowledge. In each of the divisions, we wanted to build closely on the existing local relationships, so we have selected individuals who already have the confidence of their communities across Scotland.
Thank you, ma’am.
Thank you. I could see that it is quite nerve-wracking for you to give evidence, but do not worry. I have had to do it in front of colleagues on other committees, so I know what it feels like. It is fine here, though, because we do not bite—at least, some of us do not. We have all been taking notes, as the evidence is very interesting. John Finnie will ask the first question, followed by Kevin Stewart.
I declare an interest, in that I know Chief Superintendent Innes.
I could tell that by your face.
Yes, indeed.
Is that possible?
It is possible.
Heavens.
We have been given examples of 10 plans. Quite coincidentally—I am sure—one of them is for the area where I reside. I want to ask Chief Superintendent Innes about the compilation of that plan. How did it come about and who is involved? I was a councillor and dealt with various community councils, which had differing demands. How do you deal with such competing demands within a ward, never mind build beyond that?
It is about striking the appropriate balance. We started planning for the ward plans through Northern Constabulary, as the legacy force, building towards strategic aims and objectives for the following year. We had therefore already done some work locally in the community in relation to what our aims and objectives would be.
The job is not done just because we have published 353 multimember ward plans, which is only the first stage. The real challenge for us now is to report back formally on each of the plans and ensure that they are living documents. We will achieve some of that with partners relatively early in Police Scotland’s first year. We need to be able to refresh some of the plans and ensure that they are live and that officers who work in teams such as the one that Sergeant Blundell leads are working on those priorities and understand how they fit with the national plan and—below that and between the two—the local authority plans.
One of the difficulties with plans is that people focus exclusively on them. How dynamic can things be? Clearly, policing can involve fast-moving situations, so priorities, or what a community may see as its priorities, can change. I imagine that policing operations could reflect that quickly, but would there be any impact on a plan?
That is exactly right. The plans are there as a guide. A plan is a snapshot in time covering what local people thought was important, and local communities can change very quickly. I would like to think that we are agile enough because we go to community councils. We have certainly committed to trying to make it to as many of them as we possibly can; if we cannot do so, we have dialogue with the chair or secretary. That is where local police officers pick up local issues. My role is to ensure that we are there, listening and agile enough to respond. Just because something is not in a plan does not mean that we are not interested in it.
As you would expect, we manage on a national basis, but we also manage right down to the local basis. As has been said, operational policing identifies emerging problems and issues, and it is tasked on a daily basis at a divisional level. Individual teams will work on issues right down to the very local level. They will certainly have long-term priorities, but they will also be able to look at any emerging issue. There might be an area that has a problem with its night-time economy, for example, or a school may be experiencing difficulties with road safety. We are able to task around such things very quickly.
You said that you consult community councils, but they are not always representative of communities. Do you go elsewhere? My concern is that you consult only community councils. I can tell that I am going to be done for that by them, but you know what I am saying. They are not always representative.
I understand exactly what you are saying. Younger people are often missing from community councils. We did an excellent session with young people through the Scottish Youth Parliament, and addressed 70 young people in the Highlands in the run-up to developing ward and local policing plans. We asked them questions in the community consultation survey that, as a force, we send out to people across the force area, and they gave us answers using electronic buttons. We therefore got a snapshot from young people.
I want to follow up on John Finnie’s line of questioning.
In my role, I quite often go to community council meetings with my community constables and listen to issues. Believe it or not, I will be Twitter trained in a fortnight. That is new to me.
I am sorry, but what was that?
I will be Twitter trained.
Right. They will not let me do that. Be careful.
That is another tool for us to use to get information out to the community and for it to feed stuff back to us. We also have links on Facebook, for example.
As you would expect, we are looking at what has been done—we are looking at those specific elements of good practice—in the eight legacy forces and identifying where engagement might not have been so successful, for example with particular communities of interest or minority groups.
Something that I have noticed previously, which is not exclusive to the police, is that folk sometimes like to keep their good ideas to themselves. How do we get folk out of that mindset? Will the single force help in that regard?
It gives us a huge opportunity. I bring our divisional commanders together on a monthly basis, not only to establish that we are very focused on the job that we have to do but to share good practice. In fact, we met last week and identified that we have some good practice that we want to share at our monthly meetings. The divisional commanders will look at areas where they think that more work needs to be done. I have invited them to present, at each of those monthly meetings, on the good practice that they have identified in their divisions. In that way, we will have a peer group that is anxious to do the best that it can for Scotland. I hope that I am representing the views of our divisional commanders in saying that.
For a long while, I have followed on Twitter the police in my neck of the woods in Aberdeen and I find it extremely useful. I am sure that the amount of retweets has helped evidence gathering in many places.
I just did a little straw poll of how many people here use Twitter. I am getting noes from some members—I am glad that I am not alone in that. However, you are a gallus lad, so go ahead.
I am not so sure about that, convener.
Our divisional commanders see themselves absolutely at the forefront of that. It is a real challenge for them because most of them have to engage with more than one local authority. That is a big commitment to make but I am confident that they will be able to do that well.
You are right that you are only one partner. The Parliament’s Local Government and Regeneration Committee would certainly be interested to know where the police service thinks that community planning is not working and where you are trying to engage but not getting much back.
It is up to the Local Government and Regeneration Committee to call the police as witnesses and get the evidence.
We might well do that, convener.
There you go. Our witnesses will appreciate that we represent different committees to an extent. We have members of the Equal Opportunities Committee, the Local Government and Regeneration Committee and the Justice Committee.
Of course.
My question is about scrutiny. Under the previous set-up, we had eight boards and eight chief constables, who were held to account. As the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill passed through Parliament, cross-party questions were raised about how local democratic accountability would be delivered in reality. You have explained to us about the 353 policing plans. I understand how they work and I know that Sergeant Blundell and her colleagues will be engaged in that. You have also outlined the system of 14 divisional commanders.
That is interesting. I will speak first, but I know that Julian Innes can illustrate the variance that I will describe. The models of scrutiny that have been adopted across the 32 local authorities can be grouped into four broad groups. One approach is where a full council has adopted the scrutiny mode. That exists in some of the divisions and their subsets. Another model is where an existing council committee, such as a community safety committee, has taken on the scrutiny role. Again, that is a very formal structure. Elsewhere, we find that particular members have come together in a group and work with representatives of other partnership organisations or advisers, although those individuals will not have a voting role in the scrutiny process. In other places, we are scrutinised through a broader partnership model, which might build on a community safety partnership or perhaps the community planning model. In that approach, the scrutiny is conducted by the partnership.
Before we go on to his experience, are you saying that all 14 divisional commanders are democratically accountable to some structure or other and that those structures are in place today in each of the divisions?
They are, indeed.
I see the advantage in having different models, because we are learning how to run a national police service. You will be able to gather evidence of best practice. Will you be able to share that with all the structures so that individual members can accrue the experience from elsewhere? Is that already in place or are you developing that as we go along?
I think that we are all developing, just as each of the models—as I understand it, from my officers’ experience—is developing. However, we are certainly already working with HMI and the Scottish Government to consider how those models are working in practice, where the good practice is and what our experience is of helping to develop them and being held accountable through them.
Would it be feasible for us to get a document that sets out the structure of the 14 models that would show how each of the divisions are currently accountable to their local, democratic structures? That might give us an understanding of where the changes have taken place.
Of course we can provide that to you. I have described it in a clearly defined way, as if each divisional commander is working with one model, but that is not necessarily the case.
It would be useful to see the models set out in that way. We all understand that the previous board arrangements were perceived to be ineffective. Democratic accountability was absent from previous structures. That will be an important lesson to learn in this new settlement, and we must keep an eye on how that develops.
You will also have to tread carefully with regard to the democratic way in which local authorities want to do things. The approach must be very much one of consensus, because some local authorities will be upset if you go along and say, “I don’t think you’ve been doing things very well, by the way.” Would you agree that things have to be done on a mutual basis?
All that I would say is that we are talking about scrutiny of the police service. It is about participation and engagement and ensuring that we can contribute to that scrutiny being as effective as possible. It is not for us to dictate the model.
It is important that the local democratic group should lead in these matters. The police may well advise, but that advice can and will be rejected if it is deemed inappropriate in the local situation. I think that you would accept that it is for locally accountable people to set the principles rather than for you to make demands.
We are here to be scrutinised.
Excellent.
Indeedy.
On that basis, could the divisional commander tell us how he is held to account and what he feels he is entitled to share with the local democratic set-up?
For two years, I was part of the Northern Constabulary executive team that was scrutinised by the northern joint police board. As an operational police officer, I felt that I was well scrutinised.
I have to say that I have just seen Kevin Stewart’s jaw drop.
I am just giving you my experience of the northern joint police board as an operational officer in the Highland context.
Can I just make it clear that that was not the board on which Kevin Stewart served. There is no problem here. Graeme Pearson is being mischievous.
There are four different set-ups with the four local authorities that I deal with. We have engaged with the local authorities from the starting point of being an invited guest to be scrutinised. Although we have had meaningful discussions with local partners about how they are going to construct the scrutiny committees, how they go about that is very much the councils’ business.
You did not mention budget. Are you able to share the budget that is allocated to your division and the financial outcomes of the decisions that you are making?
I have not yet received my budget for the division. That is fairly common practice for the first month or so. However, I am comfortable with being scrutinised about the allocation of money and how I use it to best effect. I will certainly link it to outcomes for the division. My role is clearly to use the money that I have been given to ensure that there is improvement across the Highlands and Islands. I am quite clear on that. If how we are making best use of the money is being scrutinised, I will be comfortable talking about that.
You would be happy to see that, however each of the scrutiny panels Scotland-wide is arranged, divisional commanders will be able to report on their budgets and their use of those budgets.
As I see it, divisional commanders are accountable for the resources that they put towards the priorities that have been identified.
I am grateful. Thank you.
I want to probe further into what Kevin Stewart and Graeme Pearson were asking about, which was the logistics of local authorities holding divisional commanders to account and scrutinising the local plans. How frequently do the scrutiny bodies meet and are the meetings always formal? I know that you deal with four different models but, digging down into that, I would like to know whether the meetings are always held in the council chamber or whether an effort is made to go out into the community to hold scrutiny meetings in public. Has there been any tension between preventative spend and enforcement? I would imagine that, as usual, enforcement always comes high up the agenda, so has there been any tension between that and trying to move forward with preventative policies?
Can we do one question at a time? Margaret Mitchell has asked two questions there, so you can answer them and I will come back to her if she has any more.
The experience so far of Police Scotland and the divisional commanders is that there is a real mix—I was going to say that it is a moveable feast. Work is still developing. We will of course be involved and will participate, whatever decisions are taken on how to develop the scrutiny models and wherever meetings take place, whether the scrutiny bodies decide to meet in a formal or more informal setting, provided that that is practical.
How often do you expect that meetings will have to be held if the scrutiny is to be meaningful? You have said that local plans can change and priorities can change within them so, for example, meeting twice a year might not be best practice. What should be a minimum number of meetings?
Again, that is quite difficult for me to say in some ways because we are the scrutinised not the scrutineers. Provided that these things are done in a practical way and we are able to come and provide information and data in a meaningful way at a meaningful level, those issues will find their level and we will find our way over time.
I think that Margaret Mitchell’s other question was on preventative versus enforcement spend.
Yes.
Looking across the plans is very interesting. I hope that I am not about to be tested on this, but I have looked at all 353 ward plans and I think that there is a tendency towards preventative work at the ward level and a real interest from communities in our being engaged with partners to work towards resolving problems as opposed to focusing only on enforcement. I am very heartened to see that.
I am sure that you will be invited back.
Crime prevention panels have always been a very good source of local intelligence and have been good for community liaison. I understand that there is no longer police secretarial support for the panels and that their nominal budget of £200 has been cut. Is that the case? Would you like to comment on that? Do local authorities still give some direct funding for additional police officers? I know that it is early days, but have they indicated that they are prepared to continue with that?
On the first point, I think that there is quite a mixed picture across Scotland. We want to move to the position of having consistency across Scotland in how we work in those areas and perhaps in how we define our terms of reference and our participation in panels and so on. That will take us a little bit of time to do.
Has the funding and the police secretarial support been withdrawn from all the crime prevention panels or only from those in certain areas?
We are trying to move to a position that is consistent. I cannot give you information for each particular case, but I can provide information later on the picture across Scotland. However, it is important that people are clear that we have a consistent approach and that they know what the expectation is, so that we are clear about who has which role in relation to areas such as crime prevention panels.
Is direct funding for additional police officers still coming from local authorities? Have they indicated that they are keen to keep that going?
Yes. We have for this year had a commitment to additional funding from a number of local authorities. Obviously, we have built that into our planning for the year.
Thank you.
Margaret Mitchell has already touched on what I wanted to explore further around the softer crime prevention work, in its broadest sense. Ms Fitzpatrick, you said that in community planning terms you were only one partner. To what extent are there areas in the softer pieces of work where you have completely disengaged from delivering them and where you think that community planning partners should deliver them? Are there any examples of that at the moment?
I am nervous about the use of the phrase “completely disengaged from”. In my answer to the last but one question, I do not think that I explained that aspect particularly well. Over a period of time, we are trying to achieve an approach particularly to our partnership working across Scotland that is more consistent and as effective as possible—in good practice terms. That does not mean that we are in a position to say that we will completely stop doing particular pieces of work, because where that is partnership work, that would not be the sensible thing for us to do. We would want to work with partners to redefine our role, if we think that that needs to be done, in a way that plays to partners’ strength and to our strength, as the professional policing partner, in any particular relationship.
What may be important for local communities is where they see a change from a situation in which the local police service headed and provided staff and resources for something to one in which the bulk of the work has been passed over to the local authority or another community planning partner and the police are a junior partner. That will be a difficult manoeuvre to make. How will you negotiate that? What tensions exist?
The word “negotiate” is a strong word to use in relation to such circumstances. In every partnership that we have, we all bring something different to the table. We must ensure that, in policing terms, we are doing only those things that the police can do—we certainly bring enforcement to the party, for example. We must also enable partnerships to work effectively by doing the things that increase public confidence, for example. We can share data and information and target locations and individuals who may be vulnerable in more than one area and not only in relation to crime or disorder.
Do you have any local examples that you can talk about, Chief Superintendent Innes?
If anything, we have breathed new energy into the partnerships that are out there. Indeed, a good example is the community safety, public engagement and equalities committee, which is a scrutiny board for Highland. We have taken some joint partnership reports that an individual has led on on behalf of the group. The first report that we put to the committee was on what we do on road safety across the partnership. We were scrutinised as a partnership on how we deliver road safety. That was led by the Highland Council and the police and fire services also played a part. We also looked at hate crime, which I led on, setting out what we were doing locally. The committee scrutinised the delivery of that.
I have one more question—
Parliament is sitting at 2.30pm and the committee must stop before then and we have other business to deal with. I will therefore stop the evidence session at 2.10pm so that members can be released to go to the chamber. I remind members that this is our first stab at the evidence. Alison McInnes can certainly ask her question, but I will stop the evidence session in six minutes.
In the Aberdeenshire local policing plan in my region, there is an interesting section on public protection and quite a change in the way that public protection will be delivered in relation to domestic abuse, for example. It would be useful to have more information about whether that is happening across Scotland.
Julian Innes can come in on the specifics of how that works in an individual division, but the investigation of domestic abuse is an example of an area in which I have made a structural requirement for each of the divisions to devote specific resources. In all the police plans that we have consulted on across Scotland the protection of vulnerable people—including the victims of domestic abuse and children in households where domestic abuse takes place—comes through as one of the golden threads. That is a concern for people across Scotland and they want us to deal with it effectively.
Does Chief Superintendent Innes want to come in on that point?
As a force, we made a heavy investment in the investigation of crimes against vulnerable people and in protecting people. As a divisional commander, I am right behind the investment of time, effort and resources to protect people. It is the second key priority in our local plan, so I am not surprised that it appears in the Aberdeenshire local policing plan as well.
That is good to hear. Thank you.
I know that there are other questions members want to ask, but I will bring the session to an end. I ask members to let the clerks know and, if we may, we will send you the questions so that you can give us the answers in a letter. The questions and the answers will be public. The session has been a bit curtailed as we have another bit of housekeeping to do, but I thank you very much for your evidence and members who did not get to ask their questions can do so later.
Of course. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you. I will move on quickly as the committee has work to do and I want us to be ready for the Parliament sitting.
As the DCC said, we are just two and a half weeks in; it may be best to leave anything else in that area until after recess.
I think that that is right.
I think that that is the case, but a lot of our questions were questions that ought to have been addressed to local authorities. I would like to hear from local authorities some time after the summer recess about how they feel they are scrutinising local policing.
That is certainly possible. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has already indicated that it will be considering the local policing arrangements. We had a taste of the various models in that evidence session. There seem to be models for everything these days. We could see how the models are bedding in after two or three months.
It was remiss of me not to mention something earlier—I see that it is listed in the note by the clerk as a short-term and a long-term objective. Would it be possible to get some sort of report from the appropriate authorities on how they are dealing with the continuity of contracts and the termination of contracts? There must be a multitude of relationships and it would be helpful to know about the situation.
I note that—we can write and ask about that when we send the supplementary questions.
I commend exploring the possibility of visiting the police station because that draws in both the support staff and the police operational element that we have heard referred to by the cabinet secretary and by Unison. I am keen that we explore that possibility rather than be shown around a shiny lab in the first instance.
You talk about shiny labs—we will be putting on our boots and protective headgear when we go to Gartcosh as far I know. We have been asked our shoe size—or maybe it was just me who was asked my shoe size.
From my experience of late—I do not know whether Margaret Mitchell would agree—going out and about, you get the real nitty-gritty of what is going on. We can have as many formal evidence sessions as we like in some regards, but you get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when you go on site and speak to folk, particularly when you speak to them informally. That is what I really want to do.
We are only weeks into this new arrangement—there will be a deal of confusion about what is happening immediately and it will be very difficult out there in the sticks to get the information that we need now. It is more important to find out what the current arrangements are on scrutiny and accountability and how they are structuring things, because it is accepted that the service will continue as it was in March in its current set-up in April. It is the plans that people are putting together just now that will affect the service later on.
Right.
We could marry the two things—we could combine looking at the SPA rationale on independent complaints handling and custody visiting—
That is one of the recommendations in the note by the clerk.
We could combine looking at that rationale with that visit because, as Kevin Stewart said, it is vital that we get out there and talk to people.
I am looking at the note by the clerk, which states on IT provision:
So at least we have something pinned down for 2 May. [Interruption.] I think that we want to do that, I do not care what the SPA has said. The committee has said what it wants to do. The SPA may be saying otherwise, but we are not here to take—how can I put this delicately—
That is what we want to do.
Yes. Sometimes when people tell you that it is not a good idea to do something, it is a very good idea to do it. I am not suggesting for one minute that the SPA is being—
There were a few things that were just operational and I do not think that we are inclined to do that, necessarily.
The other thing—I do not want to delay you—
It is all right, we have four minutes.
The other thing is about the “scheme of arrangements”, as it is described in the letter from the SPA. It is about the arrangement of delegation of powers and so forth. It would appear that the SPA agreed a scheme of arrangements at the end of March. It would be interesting, given the controversy, to understand what that means.
I have no doubt that the SPA is listening attentively to what we are saying, so that is three topics at least—you are not confined to them—that we will raise with the SPA. Have we got the transport arrangements for Gartcosh? [Interruption.] I am trying to get transport arranged for us so that we are not all going separately to Gartcosh. Did you all get asked your shoe size, by the way, not just me?
We did.
Excellent. I was beginning to feel a bit strange.
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