Justice
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-09133, in the name of Graeme Pearson, on justice. I call Graeme Pearson to speak to and move the motion.
14:40
I am grateful for the opportunity to move the motion and speak in support of it. I note that the rather wordy amendment from the Government focuses on what we in the chamber have come to know as “operational outcomes” rather than the business of Government. I am sure that we will come on to that during the debate.
I acknowledge the sterling work that is performed on behalf of Scotland’s communities by the staff of Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and all the emergency services. However, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice has changed the very essence of policing in Scotland. He has abandoned his responsibility for oversight of the exercise of police powers and services and has allowed an undemocratic authority, selected by him, to implement a change from a focus on local policing to a metrocentric approach. Policing by consent as a basic principle appears to have become an archaic rule. Accountability and transparency within the decision-making processes of the justice system have been all but eroded, making the notion of consent redundant.
The public consultation exercises that were undertaken on public counter closures, traffic wardens and the police and fire services’ control room rationalisations were farcical exercises. They were hurried and confused, and they lacked any real opportunity for meaningful consideration of important local views and local priorities, which were reduced to an afterthought as national teams for firearms, road policing, football policing and ports policing and national air support and mounted sections were deemed to be of greater import.
Key performance indicators have become the language of Mr MacAskill’s new force. Stop and search, the subsuming of crimes into single reports, the downgrading of reports to avoid the realities of crime in our communities and reports from police officers themselves of the fiddling of crime reports all contribute the creation of a service that is focused on headlines, good-news stories and information management instead of public protection and victim-centred services.
The widespread changes, together with worsening conditions for our police officers, have been widely reported to cause morale to reach new depths among our front-line officers and staff. A recent poll showed that only one staff member in 10 feels valued, with backroom cuts causing mounting workloads for civilian staff and almost 300,000 hours of extra duties for front-line officers, reducing the time that they have available to patrol our streets. A recent Unison survey also found that two thirds of staff believe that their workload has increased with the advent of Police Scotland, and morale among support staff appears to be even lower, with almost 1,200 jobs already lost and hundreds more to go.
Many people fear for their jobs, having seen colleagues sacrificed at the altar of the Scottish National Party pledge to deliver 1,000 additional officers at a cost of £50 million, which overlooks the need to scalp another £60 million a year from police budgets, no matter what. Simple mathematics shows that 1,000 more officers minus 1,200 support staff leaves a staff deficit in the service.
The recently announced executive-level pay hikes of more than £20,000 for some staff have left many in the police feeling let down and disappointed. The police family looks to be on the verge of breakdown. A vocation has been reduced to a job, and a mission has been replaced by a form of Taylorism time management previously unknown in the emergency services.
The closure of public counter services and the abandonment of control rooms have been predicated on Government efficiencies. The truth is that the need to rid Police Scotland of low-paid staff to meet Government cuts ensured that the services, once reduced, could be maintained thereafter only—
Will the member give way?
I am happy to give way.
Like many other members, I have made representations about the service control centre that is based in my constituency. Given that the member backed the creation of the single force and the Government budget that allocates the money to the police force, what would he do differently within that envelope, based on his voting record?
I am very grateful for that question. I hope that it is meant in the good faith in which it is received. We have a different approach to what is being delivered, and I promise to come on to that.
The rush to close the Dumfries control room a matter of weeks after a total absence of meaningful consultation and the subsequent closures in Stirling, Glenrothes and Aberdeen ahead of any effective information and communication technology strategy or new contracts to replace what is described as the very expensive Airwave provision all smack of crisis management that is driving towards an announcement of the great success of a £60 million saving for the public. In the meantime, the true cost to the police and, to an extent, the fire and rescue service in terms of front-line, public-facing services is denied. Where is the evidence of any true reform of control rooms in the past seven years? There has been no attempt to rationalise emergency services across boundaries. Shared control rooms for police, fire and ambulance services, or even—
Will the member take an intervention?
I am happy to do so.
Is the member aware that, in 2004, the previous Labour-Liberal Executive moved from eight to three ambulance command-and-control centres? Was that wrong?
I do not know whether that was wrong or right at the time; I am suggesting to the cabinet secretary that the past couple of years presented Scotland with a real opportunity to move its emergency services into the 21st century. The cross-boundary provision of control rooms would have been the opportunity for the next 50 years.
The co-location of services on sites across the country would have ensured savings in relation to buildings, heating, facilities and support. It would have been an opportunity for the services to share control rooms across the country at a cost that they could have afforded, while delivering a more effective service. What has happened to genuine consultations with local communities on their expectations, priorities and service needs before decisions are taken at headquarters? Instead, we have HQ talking about what is good for communities from a distance.
Recently, the cabinet secretary attended the Dumfries control room, shortly after it was visited by the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing. He failed to speak to the control room staff who stood on the pavement waiting to talk to him. Furthermore, in response to all the local concerns that have been raised, in media reports thereafter he focused heavily on firearms teams, helicopter support and mounted officers. All those services are highly valued, but he failed to demonstrate his understanding of communities’ need to feel confident in their local emergency services with regard to everyday calls such as those about antisocial behaviour related to drunks, dogs fouling in public areas, shoplifters and vandals, all of which destroy quality of life.
If recent reports about the subsuming of crimes into one report are accurate, if the reports on negative stop and searches are true, and if the feedback that MSPs from right across the chamber have received from their constituents is anything to go by, there are concerns about how the police and fire services are being delivered.
The Police Service is insufficiently accountable and it needs to be subject to proper governance, because if it is not properly governed, there is a danger that it will become merely an army of occupation that is maintained at public expense. Police and staff did not join the service to be party to that ethos, and they did not expect to be abandoned to enable such an approach to be taken.
It is time for a change in approach; it is time for openness on what is going on across our services; and it is time for SNP policy to deliver not merely announcements, but quality services in and for our communities—services for which it is accountable to those communities.
This week, the chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Ross McEwan, announced a commitment to rebuild his bank from the ground floor up.
I need to get you to wind up, Mr Pearson.
I will.
He committed to getting the bank to deliver services that are important to its customers. The cabinet secretary needs to focus on locally based services. He needs to ensure that the Scottish Police Authority is linked to the local boards, and that those local boards are heard with some clarity.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that the Scottish Government should better support community and staff involvement in policing and fire service decisions.
14:51
I welcome the opportunity to respond to Graeme Pearson in this Labour debate.
At a time when we are 11 months into the historic reform of our police and fire services, we can reflect on and take pride in the positive achievements that have been made and the legislative change that was overwhelmingly supported by the Scottish Parliament following detailed scrutiny by four parliamentary committees. Collectively, the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority are committed to protecting and supporting front-line services.
Let us consider what has been achieved at a time when crime is at a 39-year low, supported by an extra 1,000 officers in our communities in comparison with 2007. The reform of the police and fire services aimed to strengthen the connection between those services and communities, and it has done that. Local policing remains the bedrock, and police and fire services are positively engaged in community planning. Local police plans are in place across the country, local fire plans are being finalised, and communities and councillors have more access than ever before—
If the SPA and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are so engaged in community planning, how come there was no consultation with local communities before the control centres were all closed?
There are procedures that have been agreed by the unions and management on how consultation should be carried out, given the legal requirements on redundancy. That consultation process has begun. No one should have been in any doubt—Unison certainly was not—that discussions were under way about where matters were heading. The appropriate consultation period is being followed, as is statutorily required. Indeed, that is not just a statutory requirement—it is good practice.
There are designated local police commanders for each of the 14 divisions, and there are 17 local senior fire officers.
Does the cabinet secretary not appreciate that Elaine Murray’s question, rather than being about consultation with staff regarding redundancy, which is clearly appropriate, was about consultation with community planning partners regarding the closure of local services?
Those consultations and discussions are on-going. The whole purpose of community planning is that people get together in the same room. Indeed, that is why we have local police plans.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
I will make some progress and then I will come back to the member.
What is more, the SPA and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board have designated board members who engage with all 32 local authorities, which ensures that they have a direct way of influencing the governing bodies. That has been done.
Would the cabinet secretary at least acknowledge that consultation normally means having the ability to have some impact on a decision before it is made, as opposed to being informed of it once it has been made and having to deal with the consequences?
The consultation is on-going and the police will discuss and debate the issue. At this point, however, I want to put on record that the police are most certainly not an army of occupation. Those who wear the police uniform do so with grace and dignity as they face daily difficulties and challenges in such an outstanding way.
The aim of police reform was to create more equal access to specialist support and national capacity, and that is what it has done. Our national resources—the air support unit, the marine and underwater unit, the mounted branch and specialist crime teams, to name but a few—have supported a range of incidents across the country. We need think only of our emergency services’ outstanding response to the tragedy at the Clutha bar, the co-ordinated search for young Mikaeel Kular or the Willowbrae shooting.
The divisional domestic abuse investigation unit has proved effective in investigating prolific and high-risk offenders, leading to arrests of people who might otherwise have escaped prosecution. In the Highlands and Islands, officers from the organised crime and counterterrorism unit have been effectively deployed on an operation in the Shetland Isles aimed at disrupting the availability of drugs in that community. In Tayside, a total of 137 officers from across the service were deployed in operation amaranth to manage a Scottish Defence League demonstration and ensure limited disruption to local communities, while in Dumfries and Galloway the smooth running of the Wickerman music festival was supported by a total of 56 officers deployed from national and regional resources to detect and prevent any antisocial behaviour and related crimes.
Does the cabinet secretary accept that the Wickerman festival has run very smoothly ever since it was first brought into being and before it had the so-called benefit of Police Scotland?
It has run smoothly but I think that the additional officers were welcome. I also remember meeting officers in the area when Annan was playing Rangers. I understood the significant disruption that the match would have caused the Annan community had the matter been left simply to officers from Dumfries and Galloway. People were delighted and welcomed the fact that the football unit and other officers from Glasgow were able to come down to ensure an appropriate level of policing.
The cabinet secretary will be aware of concern in Dumfries about how members of staff can realistically benefit from any relocation opportunities that arise from the closure of the Dumfries control room, given the town’s remoteness from such opportunities. What efforts are being made to address such concerns?
The chief constable is making every effort to engage; indeed, when I met him last week, we discussed the matter. Discussions are on-going and everyone is happy to continue that process. Indeed, I myself have met the council’s leader and deputy leader to continue the discussions.
In comparison, almost as many officers as serve here in Scotland have been lost south of the border. What is more, we now hear that Labour is promoting the idea of merging police forces and axing elected crime commissioners down there. It is clear, therefore, that Scotland is leading the way.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
The cabinet secretary is in his last 30 seconds.
Eleven months on, we have already successfully delivered the £42 million of savings that were identified for year 1. We can look forward to Scotland’s outstanding police force continuing. We have a 39-year low in recorded crime; we have the lowest homicide rates since we started recording them; violence has dropped by 60 per cent; and crimes of carrying and handling offensive weapons are down by two thirds in Glasgow. That is all down to our outstanding police service.
I move amendment S4M-09133.1, to leave out from “believes” to end and insert:
“recognises the excellent work done by the officers and staff in Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) in keeping the people of Scotland safe with an unprecedented level of engagement with communities and local authorities, which is complemented by a process of engagement with staff; further recognises that crime is at a 39-year low and welcomes the 1,000 extra officers that the Scottish Government has delivered in communities since 2007; welcomes the lowest number of fires recorded in Scotland in the last 10 years; acknowledges the positive impacts of reform; recognises the value of national governance provided by the Scottish Police Authority and the SFRS Board; acknowledges that more locally elected members than ever are having their say on local policing matters as a result of local scrutiny arrangements, and agrees that significant progress has been made on the reform journey that began with the legislation that received the overwhelming support of the Parliament.”
14:58
I rise to support Graeme Pearson’s motion. I do so because of my own experience.
When I was listening to the minister, I became slightly worried that he was going to come to that wonderful conclusion reached by many a minister before him, which is that those of us who are concerned about the structures of a public service are somehow levying direct criticism at those who provide it. At the outset, I make it absolutely clear that my sympathies lie with those who provide the police and fire and rescue services and that my criticisms are directly targeted at this Government and minister. In my experience, our police and firemen are members of our community. I have cause to talk to them about many things, not only the provision of their service, and they are often all too willing to volunteer their experiences.
As a Conservative, I make it quite clear that when we considered the original proposals for streamlining our fire and rescue service and police service we were quite convinced that there was a case to be made for such a move.
Will the member give way?
I will carry on for the moment—I have only five minutes.
However, during that process, it became increasingly clear to us that there was no accountability in the new proposals. That is why I, as a Conservative, was happy to vote against the proposals at the end of the process.
We have seen many things happen. We have seen radical decisions being taken with the police counter closures, which have impacted on many areas across Scotland—I am sure that individual members will bring forward cases in their particular areas. The closure of the control rooms has caused a great deal of concern. The loss of both fire and rescue and police control rooms in Aberdeen is seen as creating a vacuum in an extremely important area of the country that requires a foot on the bedrock of control in our services. Can anyone imagine what would happen if—heaven forbid—another Piper Alpha incident happened and there was no control facility available in the north-east of Scotland? I am very concerned that that was not taken into account.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will carry on, given the limited time that is available to me.
I want to bring the consultation process to the fore in the debate, because we have heard quite clearly from the minister that consultation has acquired an entirely new meaning. It seems that, in this fine new world of ours, consultation starts with an irreversible decision and is then about discussing that decision with the people whom it directly affects. There has been no proper consultation in the process. No discussion has taken place with those who should have some influence over the process or with those who work in the services. Worse still, we have seen no effective business case to demonstrate that the approach will save us much money.
The fact is that we have been presented with a fait accompli, and we have no decision-making process that can be taken into account. Worse still, we have the minister’s amendment, which he has just moved and which deserves to be printed in large type, framed and hung on a wall somewhere in this building, because it has no grip whatsoever on reality.
When I was thinking about what I would say in my speech, I was reminded of something that happened during the Gulf war. I do not want to make light of the Gulf war, which was a serious event that we should all consider carefully, alongside the lessons from it. However, there was one light moment in it: the emergence of a character who became known to us all as comical Ali. Comical Ali was the man who, during an interview, stood and claimed that an American soldier would never set foot in Baghdad as a line of American tanks drove up the street behind him. I was concerned about comical Ali and was worried about where he was. Having read the amendment, I am convinced that he is alive and well and working as an SNP press officer somewhere in Holyrood.
We move to the open debate. I remind members that they have four minutes.
15:03
I thank Graeme Pearson for bringing this debate to the chamber and giving me the opportunity to talk about locally delivered police and fire services. However, I do not recognise the picture that he has drawn. This month, I got all the updates that I needed from the local police force when I attended the community council of my wee town of Westhill in Aberdeenshire. We can see in all those communities that strong local engagement, which is getting better and better.
Over the years in my community, we made it clear where we wanted our police officers to be. We told them to leave the counter and get on their bikes. In fact, the counter in my wee town of Westhill is manned by Aberdeenshire Council and is shared with a small police station to minimise costs. Perhaps a previous Administration failed to do that. It is most important to keep our police officers on the beat.
What brought me to the idea of single police and fire services was the example of our Grampian fire chief, who lives locally in Westhill. Over the years, he made some incredible statements. Believe you me, I was very surprised when I read in the Press and Journal on 1 April 2002 that new fire engines would be white from then on. I did not get any consultation papers and nobody asked me whether I thought that it was a good idea to have fire engines painted white. However, Mr David Dalziel, the firemaster, decided that it would be a good idea.
Mr Dalziel hit the news again in the Daily Record in April 2010, when it emerged that that same Grampian fire chief was offered a £350,000 payout for agreeing to stay in the same job. David Dalziel was meant to retire, but Grampian fire brigade rehired him on a new contract after he got a lump sum from his pension. Do we want to go back to those levels of regional payout? That is perhaps the alternative that some of the political parties here would like us to go back to.
I think that the member is making the point for our motion. We voted for centralisation of the police, but the major criticism of that from outside was localisation would be lost. The decisions on control centres and traffic wardens have been taken in a dictatorial manner and without consultation. In the case of Stirling, it shares an out-of-hours service with Clackmannanshire Council, but it was not even consulted. That is an SNP council, so the member is making our point for us.
Mr Allard, you now have 45 seconds.
What I was trying—and managing—to explain is that we had a dictatorial situation beforehand. We also had the problem of political intervention. I can remind a Lib Dem MSP who is present today—Alison McInnes—that she had to say sorry to the fire service because she had used a picture of the fire chief on her election leaflet. I think that such political interference is not acceptable. Thank goodness that the police service is now away from the politicians and is a single force, which is a lot better.
15:07
As we said at the time, the creation of single police and fire services has brought both opportunities and risks. The biggest risk was that those services would fail to get the balance right among Scotland’s regions, and we are here today precisely because they have already failed that test. The other big risk was that concentrating power in the hands of ministers and their appointees would mean an end to any meaningful local accountability. The decisions to close police and fire control rooms and the way in which they were taken have confirmed all the worst fears about that lack of accountability to local people.
Ministerial appointments to the police and fire boards included not a single individual from the area served by the former Grampian police and fire services. There was no one from the Grampian area to speak up for local services when the police and fire boards decided last month to close the police and fire control rooms in Aberdeen, and the police service centre at Bucksburn. There was no discussion with community planning partners such as Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council, which rely on police staff and pay the police for a number of out-of-hours services.
The fire control closures were forced through against the wishes of board members from regions outwith the central belt. The police closures were nodded through without a business case, a meaningful debate or even a show of hands on the SPA board. It was claimed that there was no need to consult the public, because the public were not fit to make such complicated decisions. Unions representing staff in both services made a powerful case against the scale of cuts and closures, but what we got instead were mirror-image decisions from the two boards to concentrate resources and services in Tayside, Lothian and Strathclyde and to discard all the technology, expertise and experience that had built up in the other regions of Scotland.
The anger of local people in and around Aberdeen has been palpable. The Evening Express has mounted a strong campaign to “stop 999 cuts”. A poll of Press and Journal readers found that more than 90 per cent wanted the closure decisions reversed. A petition to this Parliament called for a parliamentary inquiry into closures planned across the north and north-east, and it very quickly attracted over 1,000 signatures.
The people who work in those services are angry, too, and some have already walked away. Skilled and highly trained people whose services are no longer wanted will go elsewhere, and public services will be poorer as a result. A worker whose job in Aberdeen is scrapped when there is no comparable post anywhere north of Dundee has no choice about being made redundant. There is nothing voluntary about these redundancies. That is the situation that control room and service centre staff now face.
In the eyes of many people in the north and north-east, the police and fire services have shown the worst kind of central belt bias, forcing through their plans without even a pretence of consulting local people or their community planning partners in local government. Staff have had no chance to make their case. This week, the Scottish Cabinet ventured north to Portlethen, and some ministers heard directly from local police staff. It is a pity that the First Minister felt that he had more important things to do than to engage with his constituents who came to talk to him about these issues.
What people in the north-east see is Government agencies that act as if Scotland stopped somewhere south of Stonehaven, and a Scottish Government that sees nothing wrong in concentrating public services in the central belt.
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is in his last 30 seconds.
The police and fire boards, by their actions, have lost the confidence of whole regions of Scotland, and ministers are in danger of doing the same. It is time that they stopped telling each other how well it is all going and started actually listening.
15:11
In this debate, we should keep it clear in our minds that the role of the police and fire services is to protect the public. Police Scotland’s purpose is
“to improve the safety and wellbeing of people, places and communities in Scotland”,
and the SFRS protects communities by responding to incidents, but also helping to prevent them from happening in the first place.
Statistics, including a near 40-year low in recorded crime and significantly reduced incidences of fire, show the levels of success that the new police and fire services have had in recent months, building on past improvements. There is no room for complacency, and the Government, Police Scotland and other agencies still have a lot of work to do, but overall the picture is one of crime dropping and Scotland becoming a safer place.
Graeme Pearson mentioned the SNP Government’s manifesto commitment to deliver 1,000 extra police officers. Let us never forget that, at the same time, officer numbers in England and Wales are falling. The commitment by the SNP Government is central, but it is clear that, at a time of austerity, it is imperative to deliver both police and fire services more efficiently. That is the background to police and fire reform.
One of the overriding principles of the recent reform is to ensure that local involvement in policing is maintained. That is why every single one of the 353 council wards in Scotland has a local policing plan based on feedback that local officers receive from the community, and it is why, despite the unification of Scotland’s eight former police forces into a single force, there are local commanders in each of the 14 divisions.
Decisions on police and fire control rooms were made by the SPA and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board. Surely the Opposition recognises the need to minimise political interference. I do not wish to sound flippant, but it is fair to point out that Graeme Pearson himself said on the BBC’s “Sunday Politics Scotland” on 2 February:
“It doesn’t matter where the telephone is answered.”
That is patently true in operational terms, and it is why the SPA and the SFRS boards took the decision to reduce the number of control rooms.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am tight for time. No offence is meant.
Chief Superintendent Val Thomson said:
“I am personally convinced that what we are proposing provides the best means for us to improve service levels to the public, to enhance our operational response and realise efficiencies.”
In the fire service, Chief Officer Alasdair Hay said:
“I’ve been in the fire service for over 30 years, and my sole professional purpose is to make the communities of Scotland safer. I would not bring forward a proposal that would compromise the safety of the people of Scotland.”
It is clear that the geographical location of a control room has absolutely nothing to do with the provision of local policing or indeed fire services. Having a smaller number of larger control rooms allows the services to rationalise and consolidate their resources without compromising their ability to protect the public and local communities.
Recently, I visited the police control room in Glenrothes, which is a fine control room with room for expansion. To me, as a local member in Fife, it is galling that, as a result of a sensible policy to reduce the number of control rooms, that facility is closing, but I respect the board’s right to take that decision.
It is clear that talk of consolidation and efficiencies will always cause concerns about job security, but let us not forget that control room staff are protected by the Scottish Government’s policy of no compulsory redundancies. There has been a lot of interest in the voluntary redundancy scheme. I take on board Aileen McLeod’s comments about Dumfries and Galloway, but we must recognise that offers of relocation and travel expenses have been made.
That all allows Police Scotland to protect the number of officers who are working in local communities.
Please draw to a close.
In all the criticism of the decision, I accept that there are concerns about how the decision was announced. Could the Government do better? I have no doubt that, like all Governments, it could. However, the proposals are now the subject of consultation with staff and unions. I hope that, at the end of the process, at least some of the concerns that have been expressed today will be allayed.
I call Alison McInnes, who has a precise four minutes.
15:15
The Scottish Liberal Democrats are deeply concerned, too, about the dismantling of local services across Scotland and the manner in which that is occurring. Sixty police public counters are set to close; road safety units and the police traffic warden service have been scrapped; and the network of police and fire control rooms and service centres is to shrink, to the extent that 999 and 101 calls that are made anywhere in Scotland will be diverted to the central belt.
In my region, Aberdeen will be among the hardest hit places, as three facilities are condemned to closure. As I noted in yesterday’s debate on the traffic warden service, a worrying pattern has emerged since the nationwide services became operational last April. The approach to each significant reform has been characterised by a lack of proper public engagement and community partner consultation. Even when public-facing local provision is at stake, the predilection is for unilateral decision making. Community planning partners, which were once central to the decision-making process, are being sidelined and left to find out about developments on the news.
The staff involved, such as those whom I met in the Aberdeen fire control room, often have decades of experience, but they are typically consulted only after a decision has been all but made. The only genuine discussion is about whether to accept voluntary redundancy, take early retirement or be redeployed elsewhere, perhaps many miles away. The discharge of many will therefore in effect be compulsory.
I have been contacted by a wealth of people, not just from my region—North East Scotland—but from the Borders to the northern isles. Every one of them is concerned that crucial knowledge of their area will be lost. Every one believes that the service that they receive will be poorer for the reforms. Every one of them—from the north and the south of Scotland—argues that their needs have been ignored.
Communities and newspapers across the country have launched campaigns to protect locally delivered services. Petitions have been lodged in the Parliament, and others that are circulating on social media have gathered the support of thousands. The new nationwide Police Service is keen to increase its profile online and on social media, but I doubt that that is what it intended.
There is genuine anger about the democratic deficit and a formidable appetite for wider participation in decision making. The frequency with which deficiencies are raised in the chamber by members of all parties highlights that. In that context, the justice secretary’s amendment is nothing short of ludicrous. I do not know whether he has been transported to Airstrip One or whether he has stepped through the looking glass, but whatever—his words mean the opposite of what everybody else understands.
For example, the explanation that the police gave the SPA for not holding a consultation on control room closures was extraordinary. They claimed that the closures would lead to an enhanced service, so there was no need to ask the public about them. The police claimed that the issues were too complex to expect people to come to an informed opinion on them. They also claimed that the public would naively want to protect jobs in their areas, so any consultation would not be meaningful.
SNP members may decry the closures in their areas, but I am sure that their constituents will remember that they backed the justice secretary to the hilt when the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill was passed in Parliament. At that time, 125 amendments that were aimed at improving accountability, reasserting local authorities’ roles and creating greater transparency were rejected—without exception.
The manner in which the reforms are being undertaken leaves a great deal to be desired. Inevitably, people are asking themselves what is next and when they will be informed.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Alison McInnes suggested that the cabinet secretary has been transported to Airstrip One. Presiding Officer, will you advise whether it is in order for Mr MacAskill to move an amendment and be missing for as much of the debate as he appears to have been absent for?
What Mr MacAskill does during the debate is a matter for him. Like Mr Macdonald, I would have expected him to be in the chamber. However, that is not a point of order.
15:19
I welcome the debate on this issue. I acknowledge that the changes that have driven the motion are not without their challenges, but it is interesting that the essence of the motion calls for the Scottish Government to become more directly involved in the decision process.
We should reflect on the fact that the final decisions on police and fire control rooms and police station counters were made by the boards of the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. They are matters for the boards, not the Scottish Government. I seem to recall that during the passage of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill, Opposition members repeatedly emphasised the need for the avoidance of political interference. Indeed, Alison McInnes spoke at that time of protecting the independence of the chief constable and Scotland’s police.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am afraid that I do not have time today; I apologise.
Willie Rennie said:
“People want police and fire services to be laser-focused on local needs, not subject to political control from ministerial offices.”
Call me cynical, but if we had the reverse situation and saw the Scottish Government exerting the level of political control that members were concerned about, today we would be debating a Labour motion slamming that.
We have established the structure of Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Services, supported by the Labour Party. Surely it is right to let them make operational decisions.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am afraid not, for the same reason I gave before.
I turn to the specific changes that have been raised in the debate. The changes to control rooms do not directly affect my constituency, as there is no control room in it. However, I am somewhat intrigued by the concern about the loss of local knowledge. The Johnstone control room demonstrates that that should not be a huge concern, because it serves the whole of the Strathclyde area, including islands, and handles more than 50 per cent of Scottish Fire and Rescue Service calls. That area includes my Cumbernauld and Kilsyth constituency and it stretches from its boundaries with Ardnamurchan in the north to its border with Galloway in the south. It is an enormous area.
It was somewhat before my time, but during the last reorganisation in the 1970s there would have been a reduction in the number of control rooms and I do not doubt that the issue of a lack of local knowledge would have been raised then. Not once has a constituent contacted me regarding a problem with the control room in Strathclyde having a lack of local knowledge.
I turn to the issue of police station counters, which has affected my constituency. The chief constable said that the changes were being made because he and the police force
“want police officers out on the streets and responding operationally to the public.”
I agree with that; surely we all do.
That has not been a big issue in my constituency. Two constituents have contacted me about the change, neither of whom had ever visited the police counters at the time when their closure was proposed and neither of whom was concerned. They and, I suspect, most people are more concerned about how the community will be policed properly and safely.
I am regularly in touch with the local chief inspector; I meet him regularly. He and his inspector are assiduous in engaging with local communities. As Christian Allard said, the police are always at community councils. I also engage regularly with Cumbernauld fire station, which is also engaged with its community.
Please draw to a close.
I do not recognise the suggestions that we do not have a locally responsive police force or a locally responsive fire service. Frankly, such suggestions are insults to those who work day in, day out to protect us and our communities.
15:23
The US president, Harry S Truman, famously had a sign on his desk that said, “The buck stops here.” I am not sure whether that sign could be found on the desk of the cabinet secretary—
Pull your microphone up and point it at your mouth, please. It is a directional microphone.
There is every chance that I may swallow it, Presiding Officer.
Although we accept that the chief constable should have responsibility for operational matters, should that mean that the cabinet secretary escapes responsibility for his actions or is allowed to pretend that his inaction is simply an avoidance of being political?
It is clear to me and the public that the cabinet secretary’s chosen role on this reform journey is to sit back and watch the decline and destruction, and wash his hands of the consequences. The public have the right to answers from the cabinet secretary. Does he support the cuts and the closures of police stations and control rooms? Does he support thousands of civilian jobs being axed? Does he really believe that those are purely operational matters?
As we have already heard, the cabinet secretary does not even insist on proper consultation with staff and communities before decisions are made. Further, let us be honest: consultation after decisions have been taken is not really consultation. It is just letting people say what they think and then ignoring them.
Members of the SPA may complain about a lack of consultation and a lack of evidence but, at the end of the day, that looks like posturing when they accept closure plans without amendment or delay.
Next month, we will see the publication of the corporate business strategy for 2013 to 2016. Presumably, that will retrospectively seek to justify last year’s cuts alongside future financial savings. Never mind the quality, feel the cuts. Has the cabinet secretary had any say in the next £60 million that will be cut from the budget, or will it be dismissed as just another operational matter?
I believe that, whatever is in the document, the continued demolition of Scottish policing is a direct consequence of Scottish Government policy. The inevitable result will be that public confidence in the police will be undermined.
The good will of civilian staff is being severely strained by their treatment. Do not take my word for it. We now have a Unison survey that shows that staff cuts are leading to heavier workloads and increased bitterness. Some 86 per cent of the 1,300 staff who were surveyed felt undervalued; almost three quarters complained that senior management neither knows nor cares about their contribution to policing; and two thirds reported an increase in workload. Meanwhile, others stated that they had less work because some duties had already been taken on by police officers, perhaps in anticipation of the future lay-offs.
It has been calculated that front-line officers are looking at more than 250,000 hours of extra duties. Does the cabinet secretary really believe that that will not reduce the time that they spend patrolling the streets? Why does he pretend that that has nothing at all to do with him?
The Scottish Government’s cuts have created this festering sore. When will the cabinet secretary accept that it is his responsibility to deal with the situation? He needs to stop passing the buck for the problems and putting Harry Truman’s sign on the chief constable’s desk.
15:27
I will pick up on a point that John Pentland made about the thousands of jobs that he said were being axed. Given that there are no compulsory redundancies, that is not really the case, is it? [Interruption.] So it is? Is it the same thing, then? The claim is scaremongering, as is the motion.
Will the member take an intervention?
There will be no interventions. Not one of the member’s colleagues took an intervention.
That is not the case.
Mr Macdonald, the member is not taking an intervention.
As everybody knows, I represent a Glasgow constituency, which, like Jamie Hepburn’s constituency, is not affected to a great degree by the control room closures. However, even with regard to the counter closures, which have an impact on my constituency, I have not had one complaint. The reason is that the people of Castlemilk and the other areas of my constituency recognise that it is much more important to them that antisocial behaviour and low-level and high-level crime are dealt with more effectively by having policemen on the beat.
Earlier, Graeme Pearson complained about police not being on the street. However, in the next breath, he said that he wanted the counters to stay open, with a police officer standing behind a desk when they should be out on the street. I think that it is clear that this is a politically motivated motion that has got no reason to be debated except to allow an opportunity to have a go at the Scottish Government.
We live in difficult financial times. The move will save £1.1 billion over 15 years. That important saving will be made by reducing duplication. We know that duplication takes place. We live in a world in which technology means that we do not have to continue to do things the same way as we always did them.
I did two things before I came in to the chamber. One was to ask my staff whether we had ever received any complaints about the counters, and I was told that we had received none.
The other thing I did was to look at the history of Glasgow city police. In 1886, all police stations and fire stations were connected by telephone, and I have no doubt that the Labour politicians of the day were up in arms that the common touch was being lost because people would not be able to walk from here to there to make their complaint.
In 1931, the police force was reorganised and fingerprint and photographic evidence was introduced. That probably took officers off the street and, again, a Graeme Pearson of the day probably had a go at the police for that. The first radio patrol car was introduced in 1936 and the police information room was set up in the central police office in 1957. Those changes were all driven by technology. It changes the way that we police. It changes the way that we do everything.
You are saying that we should keep all the control rooms that we had because some people will be upset about losing them. I understand the concerns of people who are affected by any change—people do not like change; that is its nature—but the Government must consider things in the round and think about how to improve services. If you had been in power—I am sorry, you were in power; I forgot because it is such a long time ago—you would have made similar changes if you had had the courage to take on the vested interests. The restructuring is an important thing to do and the right thing to do.
In 1960, the regional crime squad was formed. That would have meant taking officers from all the different local areas, and I have no doubt that we would have heard some of the complaints then that we hear now.
The restructuring is a good and sensible move. It will make life safer for the people of Scotland.
Graeme Pearson said that the important thing about the police force was the quality of service. There is no greater quality of service than having the lowest crime figures in 39 years.
I remind members that all remarks should be addressed through the chair.
I call Alex Fergusson. You have four minutes.
15:31
Given that I have only four minutes, I make no apology for being entirely parochial and concentrating on the closure of the police and fire control rooms in Dumfries—a decision that has caused, and continues to cause, a level of anger and frustration the like of which I have rarely witnessed in my constituency since I became a member of the Parliament in 1999.
Local people are absolutely furious. Many of them voted for the Parliament—some, indeed, for the Government—in the belief and expectation that their communities would be protected, that services would be delivered as locally as possible and that, when change, which inevitably comes, was proposed, they would be fully consulted on the outcome and consequences of it. That fairly accurately sums up most people’s aspirations for devolution, so no wonder they feel angry and let down.
In the justice portfolio alone, those hopes and aspirations have been well and truly shattered. First, we lost our local police force, then we lost our local courthouses, then the ability to access our police officers face to face across the counter and now, as well as losing our traffic wardens, we are to lose our local police and fire control centres. No ifs, no buts and no consultation: the centres in Dumfries are to close and close soon.
My constituents and those of Dr Elaine Murray are totally justified in asking what, if any, options were considered before the decision was taken. Did anyone consider the possibility of Inverness and Dumfries sharing the workload of the proposed police national computer, given that Dumfries already possesses the technology, training and licences and already provides a service to officers on the beat? That solution would have provided a degree of geographic balance in the restructuring.
Did anyone consider the possibility of locating one of the remaining control rooms in Dumfries or combining the Dumfries control room technologically with, perhaps, the one in Motherwell? Did anyone consider the possibility of a joint police and fire control room?
Did anyone, in fact, consider anything other than closure and redundancy for Dumfries? It certainly does not look that way. I hope that the cabinet secretary does not hide behind the cloak of no compulsory redundancies because, as has been stated, for someone who lives in or around Dumfries, being offered alternative employment in Govan or Motherwell is compulsory redundancy by another name.
The day after the police control centre in Stranraer was closed in 2004, a constituent of mine phoned the control room to report that her uncle had gone missing late at night, having last been seen near “the Port”. The control room, which was newly transferred to Dumfries, sent police officers to search the ferry port in Stranraer—logically—but found nothing. The next morning, the missing person was sadly found dead in a field near Portpatrick—the village that anyone living in the west of the region knows as the Port.
The lack of local knowledge might not have cost a life on that occasion, but it certainly did nothing to save one. That situation was brought about by centralisation within the region and suggests to me that it does matter where the telephone is answered.
Just last week, in response to a question from my colleague Margaret Mitchell at the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing meeting about the potential of retaining the existing control room sites, Stevie Diamond, the chair of Unison police staff Scotland, said:
“The service has gone for centralisation of control rooms ... It is as if there has been a need to dispense with people—that is certainly the case in Dumfries, where there has been obscene haste in trying to close the control room by the end of April”
just to save money. He added that they were in
“the first part of a consultation process around the C3 proposal”
but that, in essence, local knowledge would be lost because no other options were being consulted on.
That is no way to run a consultation, but then, as the motion suggests, this is no way to deliver any decision, least of all one that throws good people out of work in an area in which they have little hope of finding an alternative. It is no way to run a consultation and I suggest that this is no way to run a country.
15:35
In summing up, I want to say something about the fire service, for which I have responsibility. It is crucial to acknowledge the clear and shared passion that is reflected in the chamber for delivering safer and stronger communities across Scotland. In respect of the fire service, that is a Scotland in which fires are already at their lowest level in a decade.
In any change programme, decisions will be made that cannot please all of the people. We could exchange opinions at length about how best to involve and consult communities and staff around the services designed to keep them safe. Graeme Pearson, however, does himself and his argument no favours at all by applying phrases such as “army of occupation” to Scotland’s police.
For the record, I said that there was a danger in future that the Police Service could become an army of occupation—not that it currently was.
I see that Graeme Pearson is already wishing that he had not said what he did.
To build on the cabinet secretary’s remarks about policing in Scotland, I will highlight the significant progress since the inception of our national fire service last year. I will look at progress against each aim of the reform.
One key aim is to strengthen the connection between services and communities. That has been ensured by making the fire service a statutory partner in community planning and by designating a local senior officer for every local authority. What impact has that had? Public consultation on the first local plans that were prepared by local senior officers has recently concluded. The overwhelming message from local partners is that information flow and engagement has never been stronger. The result will be tailored, action-focused plans with prevention and partnership embedded in them that reflect risks affecting individual communities across Scotland.
Another aim is to improve access to specialist resources. Progress in the past eleven months has delivered a Scotland in which access to national capacity, when and where it is needed, is already enhanced. I shall simply highlight the fire investigation unit in Aberdeen, now covering the whole of the north, which has mobilised to work with police in Orkney to investigate a fire at a children’s home there; the Clutha bar tragedy, during which specialist resources and crews from across Scotland were deployed, either to the scene or to provide back up at affected stations, without the previous bureaucracy; and the state of the art Clydesmill training centre, which is now available to all firefighters across Scotland.
The aim of protecting and improving front-line outcomes is a true success story, so Rod Campbell’s intervention was timely. Have any communities in Scotland noticed a drop in service provision? No, it has been seamless. Has the fire service been unable to respond to the call to protect our communities? No, it has met that challenge head on, even in its early days, when Scotland was hit by wildfires and when the threat of industrial action was very real.
Facing Westminster cuts, we are improving local services and placing community participation at their heart, not simply closing fire stations, as has recently been seen in London. I notice that Alex Johnstone did not mention that inconvenient fact.
I will say, returning to the subject of consultation and engagement, that I simply did not recognise Graeme Pearson’s sweepingly apocalyptic description of a failure of consultation in the fire service.
Will the minister take an intervention?
The feedback that we have had from the local planning process highlights the improvements that have been felt locally. The process is supported by board members who are each taking responsibility for strategic engagement in a specific service delivery area in Scotland. Alison McInnes should know who the relevant board member is for the area that she covers, as should other members if they are doing their jobs.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I mean, of course, if the MSPs are doing their jobs, because I know that the board members are.
Will the minister take an intervention? No? Why not?
Mr Macdonald, it appears that Ms Cunningham is not taking an intervention.
On the recent discussions about the rationalisation of the fire service estate, including control rooms, I can point to a programme of engagement that chairs, chief officers and members undertook throughout Scotland. That engagement ranged from visiting local authority chairs and chief executives to one-to-one meetings with affected staff to discuss the range of change management options that were open to them.
Will the minister take an intervention?
Lewis Macdonald’s characterisation of the SFRS board position was ridiculous, given that there were two separate board discussions months apart, the first of which certainly did not accept the recommendations that were put to it.
Will the minister take an intervention now?
Indeed, the discussions included members in the chamber, not least—as I understand it—Lewis Macdonald himself. I hope that he has taken the time to visit Johnstone control room, which Jamie Hepburn rightly mentioned.
The way in which Alex Fergusson described the situation in his area suggests that he is arguing for a control room in every single community in Scotland. He must know that that is wildly impractical.
With regard to relationships with staff, we should not forget that retraining is an option. All 18 of the first cohort of trainee firefighters who are graduating under the new service are former support and control room staff, so it is clear that the service is presenting a real retraining and redeployment opportunity to staff.
The service has established the “Working together for a safer Scotland” framework with the Fire Brigades Union and is actively involved in partnership working to consider how best to deliver the benefits of reform.
The minister should draw to a close.
Just today, the service and the FBU published a joint statement that outlined an agreement on future standardised crewing arrangements. That demonstrates the partnership in action, and stands in contrast to the misrepresentations in today’s debate.
The minister must close, please.
Presiding Officer, we should jointly celebrate the significant successes that police and fire reforms are already delivering on the ground. Frankly, Opposition parties need to decide whether they want political interference in the police and fire services or not.
The minister must close, please.
On today’s evidence, it sounds as if they do.
15:42
Like other members, I make no apologies for being parochial, because in Dumfries and Galloway 34 civilian staff in the Dumfries police control room and 15 staff in the Dumfries fire and rescue emergency centre face an uncertain future. They are well-trained, experienced and dedicated workers—the vast majority of whom are female—with many years of service, and their local knowledge and professionalism have provided help and reassurance and have on many occasions saved lives. Their loyalty has now been rewarded by the jettisoning of their jobs.
The chief constable told the Justice Committee during our budget scrutiny that civilian staff are queueing up for voluntary redundancy. Well, I have spoken personally to one member of police staff who wanted the redundancy package; the rest who have applied have told me that they did so because they felt that they had no choice. That is, as Lewis Macdonald said, compulsory redundancy in all but name.
Commuting to Glasgow or Motherwell in the case of police staff, or to Johnstone in the case of fire control staff, is not a viable option. Relocation for workers with families and partners with jobs in Dumfries and Galloway is not an option for most staff. Despite receiving assurances from C3 management in Police Scotland that no closures of police control rooms would happen in advance of the Commonwealth games, police control room staff learned on 30 January that their jobs were to go in April and May.
Those were not the only assurances that proved to be hollow. Staff were told that there would be full consultation with Dumfries and Galloway Council before any proposals were put forward, but that turned out to be a conversation between David Hume and the chief executive and the convener of the police and fire sub-committee prior to the SPA meeting on 30 January. That hardly fulfils the statutory duty to participate in community planning.
The minister spoke about fire staff, but fire and rescue emergency control staff in Dumfries have been treated no better. They were advised almost a year ago that the fire and rescue service emergency control room in Dumfries was likely to go, but they still await details of when it will go, as well as details of redundancy terms and any redeployment and retraining opportunities.
There has been a degree of misinformation about fire and rescue emergency control staff. They are classified as firefighters (control), but they do not, and never have, ridden fire appliances. Therefore, their opportunities for redeployment are limited. They could retrain on fire safety, but there is no indication of how many community safety posts might be available or what the mix of uniformed and support staff posts will be. Control staff might be expected to apply for administrative posts at considerably lower salaries than they currently command.
This is the same question that I asked of Mr Pearson. In 2004, under the Labour Executive, in which the member served, the number of ambulance control rooms went from eight to three. Was Labour wrong?
I will touch on that at the end of my speech, because there are lessons that have to be learned from that experience in Dumfries and Galloway.
As Alex Fergusson, Alison McInnes and Lewis Macdonald said, there has been no meaningful consultation about the closures with staff, police and fire officers or local people. No serious consideration has been given to whether to bring control rooms together or to sit police and fire control with control rooms that are provided by health boards or councils. No such possibility has been explored and there has been little interest in retaining the expertise of staff.
The leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council was told that Police Scotland would seek opportunities to locate other business functions in Dumfries, to support employment, but there has been no indication of how that might be achieved. As Alex Fergusson said, it has been proposed locally that the PNC bureau be split between Inverness and Dumfries, thereby retaining some of the staff expertise, but there has been no indication that the approach will be considered.
In Dumfries and Galloway, as in other parts of Scotland, the cuts come hard on the heels of court closures. Annan and Kirkcudbright courts closed only in November, and next week we can look forward to police counter closures at Kirkcudbright and Dalbeattie, and reductions in opening hours at Cornwall Mount, Annan, Sanquhar and Lockerbie, to name just a few. We are losing experienced police civilian staff in large numbers and we are losing experienced firefighter control staff.
There is a strong and enduring perception that services are being centralised. The First Minister likes to quote Vince Cable on services being sucked into the maw of London. From the point of view of my constituents, services are being sucked into the maw of the central belt.
The minister mentioned Unison. I can tell him what Unison has been doing in my constituency: Unison has collected nearly 7,000 signatures on a local petition against the closure of the police control room. Local people are worried that safety will be compromised when control functions are centralised. The IT systems will not be in place. I understand that the SPA has announced that the i6 contract is running late and has achieved only one of its five targets, which are to be met by 31 March.
People are right to be worried. We do not know what sort of technology will be used to locate callers. Will location depend on the caller knowing the postcode of the place where the fire or incident is? Will it depend on there being a good GPS signal? In parts of my constituency it is not possible to get a GPS signal—in some parts we cannot even get a mobile signal. How will the information get to the new centre?
Our local staff know the area and are familiar with the landmarks. What happens if staff in the central control rooms are unfamiliar with local names and landmarks? Will they have to phone police officers in the area to check exactly where callers are before they send out the police?
Let us remember what happened when NHS 24 was formed, with two call centres, one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh—and yes, that happened under the Labour-Liberal Government. It was not long before a call centre at Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary had to be re-established. We know that there have been problems when patients have had to wait for a seriously long time to get an ambulance or an ambulance has taken far too long to get someone from Stranraer, for example, to DGRI. There have been problems for the Scottish Ambulance Service, but the Scottish Government has failed to learn from the experience.
John Pentland was right to say that there is a lack of accountability. The cabinet secretary, as always, tries to wash his hands of all responsibility, this time by lodging an arrogant amendment, which Alex Johnstone said has no grip on reality and which led Alison McInnes to ask whether the cabinet secretary is on Airstrip One. Alex Johnstone mentioned comical Ali, but, to be frank, I am not laughing at comical Kenny and my constituents are not laughing. The Government passed legislation that was supposed to ensure community planning involvement with new service providers. That has not happened. There has not been consultation. What is this Government going to do about that?