Question reference: S6W-26109
- Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 12 March 2024
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Current status: Answered by Angela Constance on 26 March 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of police officers in rural and remote communities such as Dumfries and Galloway.
Answer
Thanks to an additional £80 million of funding from the Scottish Government in 2023-24, Police Scotland have invested in their workforce - recruiting almost 600 officers in 2023 alone and around 1,480 new officers since the beginning of 2022.
Police Scotland will be welcoming an additional 200 officers in March with further intakes planned throughout the year.
Police Scotland statistics indicate that 355 officers were in the Dumfries and Galloway Divisional area on 31 December 2023 an increase of seven officers on the same point in 2022.
The recruitment and deployment of resources is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority, and it is for Police Scotland to determine recruitment and retention approaches both locally and nationally. I am pleased that the Chief Constable has confirmed that the 2024-25 budget will enable Police Scotland to retain numbers in the region of 16,500 to 16,600 officers.