Police chiefs slam merger proposals as 'too focused on savings'

Published on Wednesday 1 December 2010 17:36

SENIOR police and council officials have heavily criticised a report into the future of policing, which recommended merging to a single force.

The report, revealed exclusively in our sister paper Scotland on Sunday, said merging all eight forces would save 194 million a year and would "provide the greatest platform to enable investment in front-line policing".

The Scottish Policing Board, which is chaired by justice secretary Kenny MacAskill and features the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpos) and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), set up a working group to imagine policing beyond 2013 to 2014, and will read the report on Monday. However, members of Acpos and Cosla have been horrified by the findings of the group of police officers, civil servants, and consultants. They believe the findings are based on flimsy evidence and focus too much on saving money rather than delivering better policing.

Chief Constable David Strang, the Acpos lead on criminal justice and head of Lothian and Borders, said: "It would be wholly mistaken to think that, just by merging all eight forces, we would save nearly 200m. That view is dangerous. To reduce by 200m, we would have to reduce police officers by several thousand."

He added: "The Scottish Policing Board would fail if it acted on this report."

Cosla chief executive Rory Mair said: "We don't believe there is any robust evidence in favour of a single police force."

When Acpos first began the process of looking at mergers, forces were facing cuts of up to 25 per cent over four years, and 10 per cent in the next year alone. After the UK government's spending review and the Scottish Government's subsequent budget, they now face a cut of just 2.6 per cent next year, although the longer-term picture is less clear.

Mr Mair said: "This report is too focused simply on the issue of saving money. As the money situation has eased slightly, other considerations, such as what sort of police force do we want to see in future, need to have more consideration."

Colin Mair, chief executive of The Improvement Service, which like Mr Strang is a member of the Sustainable Policing Sub-Group, which is overseeing the process, said: "I don't know if the report that goes to the Scottish Policing Board will be substantially modified in light of these comments. We would certainly hope so."The report was also criticised by the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (Asps), for its suggestion that the Northern area could be run by someone of chief superintendent rank.

Asps president Chief Superintendent David O'Connor said: "In my view, this part of the report is ill-informed, misleading, unsustainable."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Work is now underway to appraise options for reform to ensure we can continue to deliver effective front-line policing in the face of reduced budgets. An interim report of that work will be considered on 6 December."