We are better prepared

The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, of which I am president, in consultation with many other agencies and emergency planners, has been addressing contingency planning matters for a considerable period of time, and major exercises involving police and all other agencies have been held across the country to put strategic staff through their paces and to identify areas which need further improvement. In the event of a terrorist attack or catastrophic incident, the police service would co-ordinate the response.

The most senior offices in Scotland are planning responses to the threat of a terrorist attack and are doing so in conjunction with planners in the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, the Metropolitan Police and many other agencies across the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world.

The attack on the World Trade Centre, in New York, was evidence that the nature of the terrorist threat had changed. As a consequence, the need to make new arrangements or amend existing ones has been inevitable.

Work has been taking place since then, much of it including training of staff and ordering essential equipment, and it will be a continuing process for some time. However, it would not make sense for the detail of specific plans to be published or broadcast since that would strengthen the terrorist position and make communities more vulnerable.

It is a pity your report should infer negligence; it may create fear and alarm when it is not justified. We still have much to do, but your report was not based on any comments from those most closely involved. There can be no doubt that, as a country, we are much better prepared than we were three years ago.

DAVID STRANG

Cornwall Mount

Dumfries

In your report, "Anti-terror plans ‘a shambles’", you say that anti-terrorism arrests in Edinburgh and Glasgow show that Scotland is "not immune" to a terror attack.

Apart from a handful of convictions for belonging to banned Ulster loyalist groups or displaying their insignia, all terrorism charges brought recently in Scotland have been dropped. They show nothing about the danger of a terrorist incident, and everything about the dangers of allowing policing to be driven by the needs of the government’s spin machine.

That is why Kenny Ross, of the Fire Brigades Union, was happy to share a platform with several so-called "terror suspects" - in fact, innocent Algerian asylum-seekers - at a public meeting he chaired in Glasgow, on 26 February.

RICHARD HALEY

Scotland Against Criminalising Communities

Pitt Street

Edinburgh