Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime.This funding will support the formation of a Retail Crime Taskforce which will provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime and will deliver on the following objectives:Prevent: Stop people from becoming perpetrators of Retail crime by developing and implementing intervention and diversion mechanisms with partners.Pursue: Target retail crime by bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals.Protect: Strengthen the collective protections against Retail Crime by engaging directly with retailers on crime prevention and training.Prepare: Mitigate against the impact of Retail Crime by exploring innovate opportunities for direct reporting systems.New technologies will also be utilised to explore ways to make it easier for retail staff to directly report crimes to police, as well as capitalising on Police Scotland’s existing Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC), to secure early criminal justice outcomes.This builds on a successful proof of concept within Fife Division and will aim to provide an efficient and effective direct reporting system to retailers. S6W...