Official Report 581KB pdf
09:04
Agenda item 3 is on front-line policing and non-criminal demands, which is part of our series of scene-setting evidence sessions for the new committee. We have two panels of witnesses, which are intended to explore the operational and strategic challenges that are associated with non-criminal demands on policing.
I warmly welcome our first panel of witnesses: Derek Cree, chief superintendent, Police Scotland; Catriona Paton, assistant chief constable for policing together, Police Scotland; and Alasdair Hay, chair, Scottish Police Authority.
I will kick us off with the first question, which I direct to the ACC. Will you tell those of us who are new to the Parliament how it came to pass that Police Scotland spends more than 775,000 policing hours, an average of 5.3 hours per incident and about £34 million of the policing budget on mental health incidents? How did we end up in this situation?
Thank you for your question, which I will come on to, but, first, for the benefit of the new members, I will say a couple of things to set the scene on my role in policing, which is in the policing together portfolio.
I have been in policing for 37 years. In many ways, the answer in relation to our mental health response links to the changing dynamics across society more broadly. I highlight that, when the chief constable came into post in 2023, her first commitment was that policing needed to redefine its responsibilities as they relate to mental health, in terms of both how we respond to mental health calls and how long we remain—because the challenge is that, at times, although we should be there in the first instance, we remain longer than necessary. She was clear on that commitment right from the outset.
I emphasise that it is really important for us not to lose sight of the practical progress that we have made, which I am sure we will get a chance to explore through some of your questions, when I will touch on specifics. We are required to have the patience and perseverance to see that work through, anchored in a number of areas.
You are absolutely right that the work that we have done over the past three years—Pauline McNeill will know that this is my third time at the committee speaking to this—has had a modest impact. You have just highlighted some of the figures, and we had just under 60,000 concern for person calls last year, which, as you will see from our written submission, is a significant drain on officers and in terms of the number of officer hours that are spent in that area. As I said, the impact of our work has been modest.
It matters that we get this right for the public, because people in mental health distress, or after their crisis is over, need community-led care or compassionate clinical support. They do not need to be criminally condemned, they do not need the police and they certainly do not need custody or convictions.
It is also important that we get this right for the police—this comes back to your question—because, although our purpose might be to improve safety and wellbeing, our core role is to prevent and detect crime, protect life, maintain order and bring offenders to justice. It is not to remain with people who are in mental health distress or crisis when we could be using that time to support victims.
How did we get into this position? As I have laid out, our purpose is to improve safety and wellbeing, and we have a core role. Ultimately, however, policing is a service that is available. It is not always the appropriate service, but we are available, and, in a time of need, who do people turn to? They turn to the police. In many ways, that is positive, but it has become a challenge because of what we have ended up doing. That is why, back in 2023, the chief constable was clear that we needed to reset our priorities and to say that we need to be the appropriate service. Delivering trauma-informed support to people in mental health distress or crisis requires other services with a health-led or community-led approach. Policing still has a role in that, but the response has to be broader than that, which is why we have been working in partnership over the past years.
That was very helpful. You touched on mental health, and I want to drill down into alcohol abuse. In a previous life, when I was a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, I undertook an exercise with Police Scotland in which we went out into Glasgow city centre of an evening. I was shocked and appalled at the number of officers who had to go to Stobhill and other hospitals to, in essence, babysit people who had had too much to drink. Please talk to me about substance misuse and how that contributes to what is, essentially, the babysitting that your officers are having to do at hospitals.
We are not taking people to hospital because they have had too much to drink. Officers will assess whether the person who they are interacting with might need other appropriate health and care.
One example of substance misuse is that it can be a driver of mental health distress or a cause of challenge. Of course, the police will encounter individuals who routinely have, say, alcohol or drugs in their system; that is a societal issue, which is why our organisation works very closely with Public Health Scotland. Indeed, we co-locate with Public Health Scotland in our Scottish prevention hub to support our ability to tackle some of the root causes that manifest themselves in the behaviours that you have described. Our officers and staff are coming into contact with people who are not just under the influence of alcohol but are, as a result, behaving in a way that gives officers an additional concern about what they might need, and they will want to look at how they can support that person and ensure that they stay safe.
I have another question either for you, Assistant Chief Constable Paton, or for Chief Superintendent Cree. I was struck to read in the summary section of your written submission to the committee your comment that
“we have been unable to generate the momentum and pace of system change required”.
Why is that? What does that mean?
I referred earlier to the chief constable’s commitment to having, all the way through our organisation, the patience and perseverance to do everything in our gift, and also to work in collaboration across the board.
Who is not working with you? Can you give us an example? Who is the block?
With regard to the pace of change, I would highlight the Scottish Institute of Policing Research’s report on the transfer of care, which was published last November. It found that crisis response teams, one of which is the police, cannot compensate for insufficient community mental health capacity. Where such follow-on services are unavailable, the benefits of crisis response teams are often short-lived, and that can result in repeat demand.
From my perspective, I think that we need to change from the current reactive model that we have across society to a preventative model. There need to be opportunities for people to be connected to services at community level that can then be escalated, when necessary, to a clinical setting, avoiding the involvement of the police if there is no criminality or immediate risk of harm or if children are not involved.
We have some good examples of that. In your own research, you will have probably come across the nook; since it opened its premises in Glasgow and, more recently, in Aberdeen, 9,000 people have gone through its front doors. It has been really positive, and it shows that people are actually seeking that sort of support, with 96 per cent saying that there has been an improvement in their circumstances.
All of those opportunities for community-led and health-led clinical support will enable us to start to shift from a system that, up to this point, has been based on a reactive model towards one that is based on a preventative model. The question is: how do we take an upstream approach to this? The framework for collaboration is designed to get our partners to take that sort of approach and to support our moves in that direction.
I want to direct a question to Mr Hay. Mr Hay, are you familiar with the right care, right person framework that exists in England?
That depends on what you mean by familiar. I am familiar with it, but I would not be able to comment hugely on the detail of it.
It might be a question for Assistant Chief Constable Paton, then, but my understanding is that it is a national partnership that was born out of a pilot in, I think, Northumberland. Does that model work? The Scottish Ambulance Service, for example, is telling us, “The police just want to dump this on us,” and I am sure that you would push back on that and say that that is not the approach that you are taking. However, silo working is the age-old problem in Scotland’s public services. Should we look at the right care, right person model?
09:15
I have a couple of points. You did not mean it this way, but I dispel any notion that we would dump a problem on to somebody else. Right from the outset, I will say that our approach is very much to deal with individuals who need help and support in a trauma-informed way.
At Police Scotland, we are absolutely aligned with the principle of providing the right care at the right time. We sent staff from our mental health task force down to England to look at the model, see its benefits and consider what we can take from it and bring to our approach here in Scotland. We have prioritised safety over speed here. We want to readdress and reset our parameters but do so in a collaborative way so that any gap in service provision is not significant. We are reducing that gap so that the person in crisis still has an alternative. That is why we have collaborated to develop an alternative pathway.
The principle is absolutely right care, right person, right time, but what does that look like in practice? In the past three years, we have taken a progressive approach to tackling the different opportunities that we face along the journey of someone who is in mental health distress or crisis, bringing our partners with us and developing alternatives for that care, rather than making a definitive decision. However, the practicalities of that can come at a cost when it comes to the support that that individual gets.
That is helpful. I suspect that my colleague Ms Chapman might touch on some of the issues around decision making and risk.
Good morning. To follow up the convener, we are grappling with this question: are we using the police effectively to deal with failures that are upstream in the system?
You have alluded to the issue, Assistant Chief Constable. The more starkly you can put it, the more we can press forward with a different approach.
It goes back to the point that I made right at the outset about policing being available 24/7. People culturally understand that the police will be there in their time of need. We become available rather than appropriate. With the best of intentions, we step in to provide support and help people, but we now recognise that the impact of that is cumulative. By default, rather than design, it means that the service provides responses to issues that should be much more community led or health led rather than police led.
I want to emphasise that this is not only about policing demand. That is relevant because we need to do our core role, which is to protect victims and deter crime. However, it is really important that we take the right approach, because police involvement in such situations can be very stigmatising. If we are taking a trauma-informed approach, we should not be doing that.
The best example that I can draw a parallel with is our approach to missing children and care-experienced children, for example, where we used to send police officers. That further stigmatised the presence of a uniform, which is why we brought into play our not at home protocol. We had become the service that came and responded, but our presence was not relevant. We have found that that protocol being in place has reduced stigma, reduced the number of care-experienced children going missing and led to positive outcomes.
We need to get to the same point with mental health and distress. I mentioned to a previous criminal justice committee that success comes, for example, when the public know to call 111 or to seek alternative pathways and not to phone the police if there is not an immediate threat to life, significant danger or criminality.
Would you like us to reach a situation in which the police are not, for instance, the people who carry through welfare checks? Is that very clearly your position?
There has to be real, clear evidence. Every day, officers make assessments about risk, but where there is no evidence of an immediate threat to life, significant harm, ongoing criminality or a child under 18 with safeguarding and vulnerability issues, policing should not be the first point of call.
The Scottish framework talks about a police response being used
“only … when … appropriate and necessary.”
Are officers empowered to make those decisions about what is “appropriate and necessary”, and how do you monitor and assess that?
That is a really good question, and we have grappled with it in this committee previously. The short answer is yes. Officers have not only the power but the responsibility. However, translating that into practice is challenging, because it is difficult to walk away from a person in their time of need. We have, therefore, done a lot of work to emphasise our policy position.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland’s inspection was clear about our being able to articulate that more easily because, when we are dealing with aspects of mental health distress, it is really difficult. It is not definitive—it can be expressed in a whole range of ways—and, of course, our police officers cannot make any sort of medical assessment of that individual. However, we have been clear on our policy, the guidance that supports it and some of the work that we have done.
All of that has been accumulated into an operating procedure, which is out for consultation at the moment. We are giving our staff those anchor points and the opportunity to understand that they are doing everything that we have asked them to do, in the way that we asked them to do it, so it is okay then for them to transfer that care into being community and/or health led. We are continuing to develop the confidence of our staff because, to go back to the point that I mentioned, it is also about culture, not just the practicalities of a process. It is about a culture that says, that is best for the individual and for policing, so that we can go back and continue to support the victims of crime and maintain order.
Given what you have said, it sounds as though you have in place the right supports for and empowerment of your officers, but how do you ensure that people who are experiencing mental distress are not automatically subjected to a police response that may do more damage to them in the long term? How do your officers make those assessments?
When a situation comes to police attention, our first opportunity is through our C3—contact, command and control—division. Within that, we have done extensive work in training and guidance to our staff—again, in partnership with NHS 24—so that, at that point, through the risk assessment that I spoke about, if there is not a policing purpose, we are able to refer that person into the mental health pathway. Since the introduction of that, roughly 15,000 calls have been transferred—calls that we would have gone to.
However, to go back to two things that I mentioned—resetting our role when it comes to how we respond and whether we remain—there will be some occasions on which C3 will make an assessment that it is still right for police to attend. At that point, our officers may go to a call, whether that is from a mental health caller or otherwise. However, if, when they attend, they recognise that there is a challenge for individuals who are in mental health distress or crisis, they have access to mental health clinicians. Through the mental health index, they can now connect to a mental health clinician in their area and talk through what they are dealing with and what would be the best option for that individual—a referral and/or to be taken to hospital.
The challenge that we have is the consistency of that practice across the country.
I suppose that there is also the consistency of whether a service is there to be used. To move on to that very clear identification of a culture of risk aversion that the HMICS report identified, does that risk-averse system inadvertently take choice away from police officers? If there is not a hospital place or community mental health support, how does the police officer make the decision whether to stay or walk away?
That is part of the work that we have been doing, as I said, on the policy and the guidance. Our position is that we will not remain if there is no longer a policing purpose. Officers have body-worn video now, and are able to explain to the person that they are leaving them with family or a friend, or whatever the circumstances are—it can be a whole range of circumstances. We are empowering them with the confidence to say that there is no longer a policing purpose and therefore it is no longer relevant for police to remain there. Of course, when it comes to taking someone to accident and emergency, we do not have the powers to detain someone from their home and take them to hospital. If anyone goes from private premises, they go voluntarily.
We are building knowledge and confidence within our staff so that they can say, “We have done what we need to do, there is no longer a threat and we can step away.” The chief constable made it clear in March that we are coming to the end of the line in terms of the various touchpoints that allow us to be connected and the work that we are doing to ensure that the person is getting the response and support that they need, which means that policing do not need to remain. To go back to a point that I know you made, if we stay with someone in mental health crisis for 5.34 hours because of a concern for that person, that is 5.34 hours that we are not spending with someone who is a victim of a crime or who needs protecting.
I have a final question for Alasdair Hay about the consistency of that assessment across the country. Given the desire to reduce the amount of time that officers spend on that, does the SPA have the required evidence to make an assessment about consistency across the country and to know where the gaps are? Where has that culture shift been effective and where has it not been? How do you grapple with the data that you have to hand?
The first thing that I want to say on behalf of the SPA is that we recognise the people at the heart of that question. It takes a whole system to support people who may be at one of the most vulnerable points in their lives. They may be in mental distress or in mental health crisis or, as the convener said earlier, may be impaired because of the abuse of substances such as alcohol, but there is always a person at the centre.
We fully recognise something that is recognised by all services and partners, which is that those who are in distress and crisis are not currently receiving, or accessing, the right services at the right time and in the right way. There is substantial academic evidence to suggest that. Our policing performance committee scrutinises direct indicators such as how police officers are being deployed and how much time is being taken up in doing that, then tries to get behind the data to get useful information about why that is happening—why are officers being tied up for 5.3 hours dealing with mental health crisis?
We have a collective understanding of where the challenges are and, as you suggest, part of that is because of cultural issues. Another challenge comes from being risk averse, which absolutely comes from a good place.
I recognise that.
Police officers are absolutely programmed to help people, but there is a significant opportunity cost to having police officers tied up in doing that when they are not necessarily the right people to help an individual. As the ACC said, Police Scotland should be focusing on preventing crime, maintaining public order, protecting life and property and bringing offenders to justice, but the challenge is that 481 full-time-equivalent officers are tied up in supporting people who are in mental health crisis when those officers may not be the most appropriate people to do that.
We are leaning into the academic research and the data. It takes a whole system and there is recognition from key partners. There is good evidence about what works well, but if we are really going to help people we need to scale that up and do it at pace.
You do not have to provide it now, but if you have information about the postcode lottery or postcode inconsistency, it would be useful for that to be sent to us.
09:30
I ask that that be sent to the committee, as Ms Chapman has asked for it.
Could I come in there, convener?
I will move on, because a number of questions need to be answered, and then we will come back to it, if we can.
I will continue that line of questioning, so I am sure that you will get a chance to answer.
The backdrop to my lines of questioning is twofold. First, I am trying to understand how many police officers are actually available for front-line duties. Given what you have mentioned so far, and all the other issues pertaining to attendance at court, do you agree that it is time to start talking about the number of police officers who are available for front-line duties, rather than the overall police numbers that we always talk about?
My position is that it is not just about the numbers. Although numbers are important because they give us an indication as to resource levels and availability, how we use the resources is more important. That takes me back to my original point, which is that, first and foremost, our police officers and staff need to be in the communities doing their core roles. I do not need to repeat that, because I know that you know what I mean by that. For me, that is the most important thing.
You asked about resource levels. We consider resource levels day by day, week by week and month by month, depending on what we know about routine and expected demand versus spontaneous matters and, at times, as you will have seen this year, the significant impact of pre-planned events such as protests or sporting events—a whole host of things. Through our resource deployment unit, we continuously consider the resources that are available to us, which is why we continue to want to ensure that the resources that we do have and are available are not responding to issues that should not be police led. We have done work that I highlighted to the committee in relation to that.
You agree that the resource that is available to you is more important than what we have heard about for a few years now, which is the top police numbers—the 16,000 or 17,000 police officers in total. Is that fair? What is important is the number of available police officers.
I agree, personally, but it depends. The ask around our numbers is an ask that comes into our organisation. Of course, resource levels matter to us. I have been in policing for 37 years, and resource levels have fluctuated at various stages. The most important thing is whether the resources that we have are sufficient to meet the increasing demand and the complexity of demand that comes with our core role first and foremost.
Are you able to give us any data on the officers who are genuinely available for front-line work in communities once you strip out officers who are dealing with mental health cases or attending court? Is that data available across the country?
If I was sitting in a local area command—I used to be a divisional commander—I would be able to see the resource availability every day. A lot of demand that comes into policing has no crime linked to it, but that is not just issues relating to mental health distress. A good example is missing persons cases. There is no crime linked to such cases, but it is still right that police attend to such cases as part of our core role. Every day, our divisional commanders have access to information on the resources that they have available to them.
Could the committee get some insight into that? That is what the committee is interested in, and that is why I made the point that it is not about the overall numbers. Although I am a sinner because I will have said, “We need 17,000 police officers,” I realise now that we need to know the number of officers who are available for front-line policing duties. Is there anything that you could share with the committee to give us a snapshot of what that looks like?
The Scottish Police Authority scrutiny committee—our people committee—considers whether we have people with the right skills, and we consider that as part of our workforce planning. It is not just about the numbers. It is about the skills and the specialisms that we have available to us to meet the demand.
It is important to say that, of course, resource levels give us an indication and they need to match demand levels, but you are right that it is about how we use the resources. We use those resources on a daily basis, not just in our communities but online—
Sorry, but that is not what I am asking about. The committee is interested in the situation once we strip out non-policing duties. You know what the chief constable told our predecessor committee in March, because you have referred to it. She said:
“I have reached the conclusion that we will … do something quite significant about our level of response, because our priority cannot be to care for those who find themselves in vulnerable positions.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 4 March 2026; c 4-5.]
I took that to be the chief constable putting her neck on the line and saying that we need officers out of those roles and on the front line. I know that you cannot tell us today, but I am trying to ascertain what the picture is when you take out those other duties. Mental health is the biggest issue, but there are also issues such as court, the number of officers who are off sick and the pressure that officers are under. I am aware, through the work of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and the Scottish Police Federation, that the pressures are taking people out of the job. Do you see what I mean? That is what I am interested in.
One hundred per cent. We have that information and, as I say, we use it every day to understand the demand that is coming in to C3 and our deployments. There is also the unseen demand. A lot of work goes on in the background, particularly on public protection, cyber, countering state threat and a range of other requirements in meeting our core role. Your point is right, and I agree on how we are using our resources.
It would be great if we could get an insight into that, as I am trying to understand it. Are there any duties or jobs that are not done because of policing pressures?
The reality is that we have a finite resource. There are things that we would want to spend more time on and things that we would want to respond to more swiftly. We see response levels across the board. That is not only directly linked to mental health; it is directly linked to the needs of broader society that ultimately impact on policing, whether that relates to violence against women and girls or online activities. There is a policing purpose in all of those, so we should still be attending to them. However, if the demand goes up, our resource levels need to match that so that—to go back to the original point—rather than being a service that continues to react, we can become a service that is in the preventative space because we have our officers and staff where we need them.
Derek Cree or Alasdair Hay might want to answer this next question. I quoted the chief constable. I took her to mean that a slightly different approach would be taken. I suppose that this is the line of questioning that Maggie Chapman alluded to. We were told by HMICS that officers live in fear of prosecution if they do not act—that is the space that we are in. The chief constable alluded to the fact that you have changed your approach because you cannot sustain that. Has anything changed since she said that in March?
Yes. We have developed very clearly the policy and the guidance on our transfer of care, and the approach that we are taking is going through formal consultation. Officers will start their training specifically in relation to that element in October. That is the key and definitive progress that has been made since I was at the committee in February and since the chief constable made that comment in March.
There will be training in October—so nothing has happened between then and now.
There was the pilot on the transfer of care and the evaluation of that. You mentioned the fear—that is a real experience for our officers and staff. We have been engaging with the Crown, the Police Investigation and Review Commissioner and others to set out the approach that we are taking and why—it is so that we continue to give our officers and staff the best opportunity to step away. You have rightly highlighted that the issue has an impact on the wellbeing of our officers and staff, and the chief constable has been equally clear that a thriving workforce is her priority.
Ultimately, the police should do the job that they are employed to do, which is to be on the front line for communities, fighting crime.
Absolutely.
I will quickly add a point, although it is perhaps more appropriate to Pauline McNeill’s earlier question. One key thing that the authority is encouraging and working with Police Scotland to develop is a strategic workforce plan, to understand what the policing needs are, what impacts on those policing needs and how that feeds into the training and welfare needs of officers. That is very near completion, and it will be an ongoing piece of work for the strategic workforce plan to feed into Police Scotland’s resource ask.
I always go back to the point that, when someone is in a mental health crisis, people in the whole system need to look at that. Policing will play a part, but it is playing too big a part at the moment. The chief constable wants to pivot that by strengthening policing for our communities. There is no doubt about that, because it allows the core duties of Police Scotland to be addressed better and in the way that the public rightly expect.
To highlight some of the benefits, if Police Scotland can pivot in the way that the chief constable wants, free up resource and understand where that resource is being used through the strategic workforce plan, it can invest in community investigation hubs and improve community policing, which would include two dedicated and known officers for each multimember ward. That would also increase visibility through the response policing element. There is a lot that is interconnected, and the strategic workforce plan is key to that, but we should never forget that it is always about meeting people’s needs.
That is all pie in the sky, is it not, Mr Hay?
It is a worthy ambition. I have had—
But we are not making any progress towards any of that, as things stand.
With respect, the model has been piloted and rolled out across five local policing divisions, and we are monitoring the progress and intended benefits. I have had a conversation on the issue with the Scottish Police Federation, which is absolutely in touch with what is happening on the ground and what is impacting front-line officers.
The federation is in touch, and I will tell you what it says.
Can I just tell you what the federation has said to me?
No. I am going to ask another question. I want to keep this going.
Okay.
The federation says that 50 to 80 per cent of the resources that are deployed on shifts are tied up almost immediately in non-core policing activities. The SPA has allowed that to happen. Why?
That is why we are having this conversation today and hence—
It has been going on for years.
That is why we have the strong focus on the issue at the moment. There is a recognition that, if we can get the whole system to work collectively to support people and can pivot the use of the 481 officers who I mentioned earlier towards the policing for our communities model, it will succeed. What—
I have heard all that—you have said it a couple of times now. However, the reality is that you are not speaking plain English. The plain English response to all this is that the national health service needs to step up, do more of its function and let the police get on with their role. As the SPA chair, it is your job to ensure that the police have the resources to be able to do that.
I am absolutely focused on making sure that Police Scotland plays its part in the collective public service here in Scotland, and that it focuses predominantly on its statutory duties and what the public expect of it.
Is that a yes?
A yes to what?
That it is your responsibility to ensure that the police have the resources.
I will always advocate for that for policing. I will ensure that we have the evidence to support that, and that we play a full part not just in advocating for Police Scotland but in holding it to account for the best use of those resources.
09:45
That is exactly the role of the SPA, but it is a role that I feel the SPA does not fulfil well. This is not the first time you have heard me say that, although it is the first time I have said it in public. The SPA’s performance to date in those areas is evidenced by the performance that the police have delivered.
Assistant chief constable, you wrote—
Could I make—
Of course you can.
I do not want to get into a defensive position about that, and I value your commentary, but if you look at what HMICS and Audit Scotland have said, you will see that the evidence suggests that the Scottish Police Authority has been an effective oversight body. The challenge comes from the complexity and the ever-increasing pace of change, and we have to reflect on our approaches to ensure that we continue being as effective as we possibly can.
I have a different position, as do many others who observe the SPA’s performance.
Assistant chief constable, you recently wrote, in an interesting document that was addressed to all your colleagues:
“Justice in action first requires that truth is told, not just thought or believed but spoken.”
That is a bold statement and it is an interesting document. I wish we had more time to talk about it. If that is the case and you really believe that—and I do not doubt that you do—why are you not able to be more precise in the language that you are using today to talk about the problems that Police Scotland has because of the demands placed on the police by mental health calls?
How many mental health calls did you get last year?
More than 170,000 calls and 140,000 deployments.
There is huge demand on the police but, in relation to your statement, you said in your evidence to us today and in your answer to Pauline McNeill that it is not just about numbers. It is about numbers, is it not? You are running shifts across Scotland right now that are below any kind of recognisable safety level.
No, we are not.
Are you sure about that?
The whole point of our resource deployment unit, or RDU, is to ensure that we have resources based on the demand that we anticipate and the levels that we have. Policing is an emergency service that responds spontaneously and is not just based on an average. Our resource levels—
Just answer my questions, though. Are you sure that you are not running shifts across Scotland that are below a recognisable level of safety for the officers involved in those front-line duties?
The role of our supervisors, supported by the RDU, is to ensure that we have the resource levels to deal with risk. If there is risk, as a national service we have an opportunity to surge that resource.
I want to touch on your point on the truth about use of resources.
Yes. I am trying to get you to tell us what is really happening. We all have meetings with bodies representing police officers, and with officers themselves, so we already know the answer to that question. I am asking you to live up to the statement that you made in the document I am holding and to tell us exactly what is happening. You are regularly running Police Scotland shifts where you do not have adequate numbers of officers available for front-line duties, which means officers are not working at what could be described as safe levels.
It is important to set the truth in context, and the context of what I am saying is that we have resource levels that are designed to match the risk that we are facing or that we anticipate. Do we have enough resources to deal with every element of demand as we would want to? We have never had those in my 37 years in policing.
I go back to what I said earlier about the police being there for the public in their time of need. That is why I go back to the important truth about how we use those resources. We want precision, focus and understanding so that we have the greatest opportunity to make an impact in carrying out our core role.
I go back, too, to what the chief constable said about not finding ourselves responding to, or remaining in, situations where there is no longer a policing purpose. That is the first thing.
To go back to your comments about the letter, it was designed and sent specifically to relate to—
Which letter? This one of yours?
The letter that you referred to. It was linked to community tension, misinformation and the challenges that our officers and staff can experience.
I return to my point that truth needs to be based on and set in the context of the evidence that is available. We have worked hard to have our resource numbers and dashboards in place so that we can make informed decisions that are based on facts and information, which will allow us to then consider how we use our resources.
All that I am asking is for you to acknowledge that there is a shortage. I do not think that I am asking for much—this is actually the same question that Pauline McNeill asked. At any given moment in time, shifts in various parts of Scotland will be staffed below the safety levels because you do not have enough front-line officers. That is all that I am asking about; I am trying to be helpful.
I understand. If you are asking whether we want more resources, the answer is that we of course want more resources, because then we would be able—
But do you have shortages on shifts just now?
Risk-based decisions will be made. I cannot tell you right now—
You do not know. Can you find out for us, then, whether there are shifts happening in Scotland that do not have adequate numbers of front-line officers—
Where we deploy our resources involves hour-by-hour, day-by-day and week-by-week assessment. I return to my point that the role of a supervisor, with the support of our resource deployment unit, is to ensure that we have the resources that we need from a safety and risk perspective—
I understand the theory and the policy, but I want to know what the practice and delivery are, and you have not been able to tell me that. Because we do not have time, would you consider writing to us to let us know what the position is? You must have the data. The police have all kinds of performance measurements and dashboards; you have said so, and I do not doubt any of that. You will know what the readouts are of those dashboards and performance indicators. All that I am asking, so that we can do our work in order to be supportive of policing in Scotland, is for you to tell us where the shortfalls are and how frequently you run shifts that are staffed below the safety level.
Part of the work that Mr Hay has already alluded to is to ensure that we have officers in our communities. We want to be able to have officers who are dedicated to—
Will you be able to give us that information?
We can absolutely give you the information on policing for our communities.
All right.
Thank you, assistant chief constable. Mr Kerr, I will move on and come back to you if time allows.
Yes; I have a few more questions.
I will hand over to Ms Bland.
My question is for Chief Superintendent Cree. Your submission stated:
“During the 2025/26 financial year, Police Scotland received 234,952 mental health-related calls, representing 18.2% of all calls received.”
That is a huge figure—when I read that, I think, “Wow, what an impact.” Let us cut to the chase: what needs to happen to make a positive change?
The chief constable has been clear that the level of demand is unsustainable for us to be able to carry on. We have taken significant steps, which can be broken down into two aspects. A lot of our work just now is reactive. As we have already touched on, we are keen to avoid the right care, right person model, because we do not think that it has a trauma-informed approach. We are keen to put the person who is in distress or having a crisis at the centre and to make sure that they are treated in an appropriate manner.
We have also taken several approaches to reduce the level of demand, many of which have already been commented on, such as the mental health task force and the work that has been done with HMICS. We have taken steps, even since the last time that the chief constable gave evidence to the Parliament. For example, in relation to the mental health pathway, we have moved away from what would previously have been called a warm transfer, which is when we relied on somebody in NHS 24’s mental health hub to take the call and be there live to try to pass it over. We are now able to put the mental health hub into the queue and pass the call over to try to reduce demand and free up our officers—
Is that working?
It is all working now and in place; a lot of it became live in June and some in August. Our submission to the committee touched on how that has moved forward with regard to declined support, which we have put in place—
If I were to ask front-line police officers, would they say, “Yep, it is definitely working”?
No. I do not think that they will feel the effect as yet. We are extensively tied in with the Scottish Police Federation and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents on that.
You will see from the figures that there has been a minimal effect; I think that it has decreased by 2 per cent. The best that can be said is that we have flattened the curve with the amount of work that we are doing. We have taken part in a number of governance groups and partnership delivery groups—
What would a front-line police officer tell me?
They would be looking for the demand to be reduced as quickly as possible, or for it to be broken into two different aspects.
The best support, which I am trying to give to officers who are on the front line, is support to deal with the incidents that they have to attend. For example, we are moving ahead with a needs assessment to allow them to free up time and return to their core duties more quickly.
You are trying to support them with that, but if we had three front-line-duty police officers on the panel what would they say to me? I am trying to understand the reality of their day-to-day situation.
It would depend where they are in the country and what provision is offered to them. We have almost exhausted many of our options. I do not know whether we will go on to talk about the joint commission that has been set up with the chief executives of the NHS.
Officers have a range of provisions available to them, including distress brief intervention and the mental health index. Some areas have good provision, such as the nook that we spoke about, and there is Woodland View, in Ayrshire, which is brilliant.
I ask because, recently, I phoned the police and I waited for 25 minutes on the line. I needed help. The police said to me that a police officer would come out in four days’ time. I said, “I don’t understand what you are talking about.” They said, “We just don’t have police officers.” Because I made a fuss, two police officers turned up. They said, “You were number 40 out of 41 incidents in the area. There are four of us on duty, and we double up.” They sat and criticised Police Scotland. I have never heard that from members of the police force.
I think that is a sign that the situation has reached absolute crisis point. They took an opportunity to tell me how bad it was, which is why I am telling you. As a victim of a crime, I felt sorry for the police officers. They did their best and were professional—I have no criticism of them—but they said, “We do not have the capacity.” When I asked about the 25 minutes that I had to wait, they said, “You’re lucky—it normally takes an hour.”
You might know that I used to be a police officer, and that was such a dramatic change, because I know for a fact that I would never have had a conversation such as that with a member of the public, but that is how the officers felt at that moment. There needs to be a reality check between what we hear in committee and what is happening on the ground. I think that Pauline McNeill was trying to understand the reality of it, because the reality can be painful.
Nobody has mentioned section 32 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, which requires policing to have regard to the prevention of harm and the promotion of wellbeing. Is that the core legislation that has caused the crisis?
At the previous committee meeting, I mentioned that our purpose is to improve safety and wellbeing, which comes from that legislation. However, I go back to the point that I made to Stephen Kerr about the context. The legislation is clear that our role is to improve safety and wellbeing, but that is applied through the lens of our role. Our role is to do the things that we have described, which, as a former police officer, you will know are: preventing and detecting crime, maintaining order, protecting life and bringing offenders to justice.
If we take that out of context, safety and wellbeing are two massive issues. Although they are two small words, they are multifaceted. That becomes relevant for policing because of our role. The 2012 act is clear on what the role of policing is. That is why the chief has been clear about the need to reset the parameters.
First and foremost, we need to carry out our core role and have the resources to do it. Because we have more data available to us, we are able to have conversations and say what is and what is not within our role.
10:00
But is this piece of legislation inhibiting you? That is what I am getting at. Is that the problem?
From my point of view, the answer is no. I am really clear on what our role has been.
I do not think that a lot of other people in your organisation would agree with that.
Yes, and that might be an individual view.
So, is it the executive team who have said that this is a good piece of legislation and it does not need to be repealed or looked at, while the rank and file feel very differently about that?
There are two parts to that. First, what do people feel about the legislation? Secondly, is it a barrier or is it the cause of our finding ourselves in this position? That, at a practical level, brings me back to what I said earlier about availability. As the finite resources across all of the public sector and broader society have become a challenge, the police, as an organisation, have become more available. However, the impact of the good intent that Mr Hay mentioned—that is, the culture of trying to help people in their time of need—is such that we have stepped into a space that we should not be in.
But you do not have the resources—
That is right.
And I agree. In that case, at what point does Police Scotland say, “Enough is enough”, draw a line and say, “This is how it’s going to be”?
The chief constable has said as much, and that is why Derek Cree highlighted the issue of transfer of care. However, I go back to my earlier point. Such a shift in culture and society will take time, and there are people in need at the moment. I would not want us to lose sight of the fact that there are still people in mental health distress or crisis.
But is it a matter of culture and society, or is the public sector failing to provide its own services, and you are having to prop it up, because everybody thinks, “Well, the police will just turn up”?
Policing is at the end of the queue when it comes to the reality of the behaviours that are expressed by individuals in society. At the start of the session, we mentioned substance misuse, or challenges in that respect, and how they relate to some of the societal issues that we are seeing play out, day in, day out.
It is why, more broadly, we as a country need to look at an approach that begins way upstream with prevention. What we experience are the behaviours, but it is what drives those behaviours that really matters.
Yes, our witnesses have talked about that in some detail.
Chief Superintendent Cree, can you talk me through body-worn cameras? Does everybody have them?
Yes, they have now been rolled out across Scotland. That has obviously required significant investment, but, as well as the officer safety and evidential benefits that they bring, we are looking to utilise them to try to reduce the demand on us in dealing with mental health matters. As has been said, it is unsustainable for us to keep dealing with that demand, although we still need to do so to ensure, for example, that individuals are getting the support that they need. We are ensuring that our partners are stepping up in that respect, too; indeed, that is what we are pushing just now.
A lot of this is about trying, first of all, to reduce demand on the officers on the front line. We would like the calls to go to the right agency in the first place instead of to the police, and I think that that is all about the education and communications piece that we are asking our partners to engage with. Although we have put a number of measures in place at our command and control centres, calls do load up there—indeed, you have said that you found it difficult to get through—and we want to ensure that calls for core policing duties come through and can be dealt with as and when, while the other calls are directed elsewhere.
What timescales are we looking at with regard to our seeing the impact of real change? When is this change going to happen? When will the next police officer I meet on the street be able to say—
Well, I would say that it is not going to happen immediately. I am hoping that they will feel the difference in the next three to six months.
We tried to do this through engagement with partners, but we have now pushed on what you might call the next level and are taking those measures that the chief discussed at a previous evidence session. The first aspect is the mental health pathway, by which we are seeking to reduce and redirect the calls that are coming in. We should see a significant increase in the number of calls dealt with in that way, and we need to ensure that we turn that into felt experience for our front-line officers. Thereafter, we have to equip them properly, because those provisions are not in place across the board just now.
I hope that, with the joint commission that we have in place, we can get more equity of provision of services across the various local health boards and local authorities, so that it does not matter whether somebody is in Aberdeen or Ayrshire and they will have the same opportunity to return to their core duties.
Thank you.
I know that Ms Bland is a tenacious MSP and that she will hold your feet to the fire on that timeline of three to six months. I have no doubt that she will want to follow that up in future.
I will now hand over to my colleague Mr Macpherson.
I want to follow up some of the questions that colleagues have asked. However, first of all, I want to thank you, and any front-line officers who are listening, for all that you do in communities to meet the various strains of demand. I know from my constituency work how challenging it is and how much time is taken up by non-criminal demands. That has been made clear today, and those of us who represent constituencies and regions in this Parliament know that things are really challenging out there.
ACC Paton, you mentioned the update that you gave in February 2026, but a lot of this goes back to February 2025, when the distress framework for collaboration—that multi-agency partnership approach—was agreed along with the collaborative commitments plan. Thinking about all the issues that others around the committee table have probed you on, which you have helpfully addressed, I wonder how we can help you to find solutions.
Obviously, our job is to hold to account not only services such as yours but the Government. I note that the health and social care budget for 2026-27 is nearly £22 billion, that the local government budget is nearly £12 billion and that the justice system as a whole is getting £4 billion. If we can utilise some of the resource in those other portfolios to reduce the demands on you, we will get better utilisation and productivity from our police service on the ground and, I hope, fewer officers feeling the way that my colleague has described.
If there is anything that you have not been able to say about how we can help you and those in your organisation to press for solutions, please tell us now. How can we press other agencies, other services and other ministers in this place?
First of all, thank you for your thanks and your acknowledgement of the work that officers and staff are doing, day in and day out, in really challenging circumstances.
You are right. When I gave evidence back in January 2025, we were just launching the framework for collaboration and I spoke very optimistically about the real collaborative approach that had been taken and the progress that I was hoping I would see the following year. As members might remember, I set my own deadline—foolishly, in some ways—and, the following year, I made it really clear that progress had not happened at the expected scale and pace. Again, all the principles behind the framework—communication, capability and capacity, data, transfer of care and strengthening of local provision—are important, and they form the space that we need to be in to drive forward whole-system change and the shift towards being much more upstream with early intervention.
I gave that evidence and update in February. Here I am, just seven months later, and the question is what has changed and/or happened? The challenge—this is why the chief constable made it really clear that enough was enough, as it were, in her March comment—was that, despite having all the partners and commitments in place, we did not have a definitive plan, with timelines attached, in each of those areas so that we could say, “We know what we have, and here’s the timeline for building this and reducing the variations”—that is, the variations that Derek Cree has talked about.
Looking at what is available is part of the work that we are doing with NHS board chief executives through the joint commission. Of course, this is about not just health but community-led interventions, and, in that respect, my ask of the committee would be twofold. First, we must continue to ensure that the principles that we need to change the system take effect in a practical way, at scale and at pace. That is where the support needs to be. Secondly, policing must continue to be resourced at a level that enables us to do the job that the community want us to do. Of course, our job is not just about dealing with criminality; it links with so many other areas. Ultimately, we want to build relationships with our communities, because everything that we do is built on the public having trust in us.
My ask is that partners are very clear that that is a priority, that there is joint ownership and that the funding is in place. Irrespective of whether that funding is for community-led interventions or for the NHS, the system should be designed to ensure that the person in distress or crisis gets the support that they need at the right time. That will reduce demand on policing, allowing officers to focus on protecting victims and preventing crime.
You said that it is not just about health, but what more do we need from the NHS at the board level, noting, of course, the changes that are proposed in the programme for government? We are likely to be going through a period of significant change. What do you need from other partners? Their resources are more significant than yours. Do not get me wrong: the demands that are placed on them are high, but if we, as a nation, are serious about investing to save, enabling the police service to deliver at its fullest capacity and reducing demand that, in effect, it does not want and should not have, we need to do these things together.
Absolutely. I am grateful for those reflections. I guess that I could go all the way back to the Christie commission and make the point that, if we were designing services right now to tackle the issue, we would not design them as they are at the moment. That is because the police often encounter people at a time when other services are not available. It goes back to the point that we made at the outset: we would ask that the services that support people experiencing mental health distress and crisis be available 24/7, in the same way as policing is, because people go into crisis 24/7. When that happens, opportunities exist—I say this as a former negotiator—to de-escalate a situation if you are able to connect with an individual and have the time and space to listen to them in that moment. There is an opportunity to look at that provision across the country.
When you say that, as convincingly as you just did, to NHS boards, what is their response?
There are a couple of points to note in relation to mental health distress and crisis, which are issues that we have explored with some of my health colleagues. They would say that much of the provision is available through A and E, but that is not the right place for somebody in mental health distress. Only 20 per cent of those who present require clinical admission. We have to cater for the other 80 per cent. We must have alternative places for people to go where they can receive support 24/7 from trained staff who can listen and offer advice, whether that is, for example, Scottish Action for Mental Health’s nook, Hope Point or the Beacon. We need services that can provide an environment in which alcohol or drugs can leave a person’s system, allowing an assessment to be made. We do not have that provision across the country.
It is not consistent.
In relation to those places being secure, I know, from my constituency work in Edinburgh, of officers who have to stay on site because other members of the public sector do not feel safe without an officer there. How do we deal with that?
That is part of the work that we continue to support with NHS board chief executives, alongside the work that Derek Cree described in relation to the transfer of care. We are saying that, where it is safe to do so and there is no longer a policing purpose, it is not a trauma-informed approach to have uniformed officers sitting with an individual in any setting when they no longer need to be there.
Finally, I hand over to my colleague Ms McNair.
I really appreciate the witnesses’ time this morning. The session has been very informative.
I will raise an issue that you have touched on: the impact on the workforce. The role of the police officer has changed over the years, but what evidence do you have of the effect that non-criminal demand has on officer wellbeing, morale and job satisfaction?
10:15
There are a couple of things that I would like to say, and I am grateful for the committee’s focus on our staff. The chief constable has been clear about the importance of having a thriving workforce, and we have a very specific portfolio area that is about improving wellbeing and welfare.
I have some figures that might give you an understanding of that. With regard to suicide intervention, for example, our officers have in the past year attended 657 suicides and, according to our data on vulnerable persons, they have engaged with just under 4,000 people in relation to attempted suicide. Obviously, there is a lot more that we deal with when it comes to vulnerable people and suicide.
I mention suicide because the available research shows that those who are directly impacted by suicide—which can include our officers and staff—have a 15 per cent increased lifetime risk in that respect. Therefore, we, as an organisation, have a real responsibility to ensure that we have support measures in place, and we are absolutely committed to providing our staff with a range of options for dealing with trauma risk. The approach is called trauma risk management—or TRiM—and it allows us to understand levels of trauma. We also have an employee assistance programme, which has allowed staff to access more than 2,000 counselling sessions and more than 7,000 clinical support sessions.
We also have specialist interventions to support our staff, such as eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, or EMDR, and cognitive behavioural therapy, and intensive trauma therapy is provided by Phoenix Trauma Solutions, which gives staff with complex needs opportunities for residential support. We have training from Lifelines Scotland, and we also have what you might call a mental health MOT.
It is all about resilience. We are, as I have said, trying to get upstream to identify any wellbeing needs early on, and particularly in certain roles. I have mentioned some already, but I am thinking of those tackling cybercrime, our negotiators and others who are likely to have to deal with trauma much more often. We are also aligned with the rest of the public sector in having a trauma-informed plan.
We are doing all that we can, as an organisation, to understand this, but the sad fact is that our officers are encountering trauma as a matter of routine. Have we got sufficient support in place, and is it having a positive impact? I can give you the figures for the impact that it is having, but I hope that what I have said will give you a degree of reassurance that we are absolutely committed to this and to having a thriving workforce.
Alasdair, do you want to come in, too?
We have lots of indicators telling us that Police Scotland is an organisation that is under stress. When I talk about “the organisation”, what we should really be thinking about is the people in the organisation. You cannot deny the lived experience that people have been telling MSPs, me, their representative bodies and the chief constable about. We see absence rates increasing, we are seeing a challenge around re-rostered rest days, and we are seeing an increase in the number of police officers and staff who are moving into more modified roles within Police Scotland. As the ACC has just described, a lot is being done to focus on those areas and to ensure the workforce’s wellbeing. Indeed, wellbeing has been a real focus for the SPA’s people committee this year.
However, part of the theme of today’s discussion has, I think, been about whether Police Scotland has sufficient resource and whether it is focusing its resource on the right things. I must stress again that this is about people, and there is no doubt that, if 481 full-time-equivalent officers are being deployed across the year to support those in mental health distress—something that they will always play a part in—that is putting pressure on the organisation. We are trying to use all the data and information available to understand that, but, as an organisation, we absolutely must move much more towards our vision for 2030, implement the plan to deliver that and focus on policing for our communities.
Ultimately, what will really help police officers, if we get that right, is having a better work-life balance and being able to take time off without constantly being recalled because of the increasing demand on policing that comes from challenges within the whole justice system. All the evidence shows that people who get the right work-life balance are far more likely to be part of a thriving workforce, so we have a strong focus on that.
Some officers have told me about being called in on what should have been an annual leave day to attend court. It is good to see that the supports are in place, because you cannot care for others if you do not look after yourself.
Is non-criminal demand affecting your recruitment and retention levels? You commented on the impact on your sickness levels. I know of folk who have left the police because the job was not what they had signed up for. Is there proper training for crisis support? I note from your earlier briefing that 2,000 officers out of a total of 16,000 have had specialist training. Is it likely that the training will be rolled out on a phased basis?
Are you asking about the specialist training?
Yes.
Is that the figure for counselling? What figure are you quoting?
The one about mental health training.
That is the mental health training for our officers and staff on the front line. That takes me back to the question about the level of non-crime demand and its impact on recruitment and retention. We do a lot of work to understand that, and our work on recruitment shows us that policing is still a popular option, which is good to see. You are right to say that we also consider what retention looks like and whether we are seeing patterns.
We have spoken today about a lot of the data that sits on our mental health dashboard, but we also have a culture dashboard, which is important in letting us know whether we are a welcoming and inclusive organisation that people want to remain part of. If someone thinks they came into policing to do X but ends up doing Y, that could have an impact. We are really alive to understanding whether that is having an effect, which it does not at the moment. However, that does not mean that people do not experience frustration when they are focusing on doing good in one area while a challenge or need somewhere else still has to be addressed.
The data does not suggest that that is having an impact on recruitment and retention. I personally visited every local policing division last year, and the single most important topic that was discussed was what our policing of mental health looks like. I have spoken openly about all the things that I think need to happen so that we can move at scale and pace, but it is also important that we continue to identify the indicators of progress, because hope is really important. If there is a negative narrative about policing not having enough resources or if there are comments about its being in crisis, that, in itself, can have an impact on officers and staff who turn up every day trying to do the very best that they can.
We have laid out what sort of non-police provision is needed across the country 24/7 and what that should look like in the future, but we can also articulate the progress that has been made and some of the work that will be done. It goes back to the point about culture and system change requiring patience and perseverance. When do I want all those changes? Tomorrow. Realistically, when will they happen? We are holding the line and continuing our collective and consistent commitment to answering that.
Before I allow you to go, assistant chief constable, I have a question about culture. This is moving more into the criminal space, but, as you referenced earlier, we are increasingly seeing challenges related to protests. In the city of Glasgow and elsewhere, I am increasingly seeing protests taking place with folks wearing balaclavas and masks. Do the police have the powers that they require to deal with that issue? It must cause particular difficulties for policing.
We have powers to deal with it.
Are they adequate?
You will have seen another protest at the weekend. Thankfully, we did not see the level of follow-through that we have seen with some other protests that have rightly caused concern—those were the reason for some of the letters that I have sent to community members. We have the powers. We know that the broader question of face coverings is being considered by our colleagues across England and Wales, and we are watching that with interest.
As things stand, we feel that we have the powers that are needed, but, as an organisation, we continue to adapt to the challenging ways in which criminality or other elements of risk present themselves. I assure you that we would be the first to say it if we needed more to help us. However, under our section 60 powers on public order, we can respond if we feel that there is a need to do so in those moments.
The Scottish Police Federation does not think that you have enough powers. Is it wrong?
It thinks that we do not have powers?
That is my understanding.
It would be wrong, then, because we do have powers.
So, you think that the police absolutely have enough powers to deal with the issue. My question, then, is this. Why do I routinely see, on Buchanan Street and in other parts of Glasgow, masked gangs congregating and being allowed to continue wearing masks and terrifying people in the city? If you have the powers, why are you not doing more to deal with that issue?
The powers are linked to elements of public order, and particularly to protests. If you are asking a broader question about individuals wearing face coverings, then, no, we do not have powers related to that. An individual can choose whether they want to cover their face, whether that is for religious reasons and whether it is with a scarf or a balaclava—that is different.
It goes back to the point that our focus, as an organisation, is to police in a way that puts people at the centre, which is a human rights approach. Therefore, we continue to consider what is in the best interests of individuals in the context of rising community tension and community concern. We continue to understand that and then make determinations as to whether we need to use additional powers, particularly in relation to the policing of protests.
You can rest assured that I will come back to that issue, assistant chief constable.
I will end by saying a very sincere thank you to you and your fellow officers for the work that you do, day in and day out. We have heard about the immense challenges that you face in picking up work that, frankly, is not police related. There have been some robust questions this morning, as is right—that is our job as parliamentarians, and we will not apologise for it. However, please, as you leave here, know that you have our thanks for the work that you do to protect our constituents and communities every day. It is much appreciated.
I suspend the meeting for three minutes, to allow a brief comfort break.
10:28
Meeting suspended.
10:35
On resuming—
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Deputy Convener