Mass exodus of veteran police officers ‘concealed by government’

A “MASS exodus” of experienced police officers has been “masked” in official figures from the Scottish Government, it has been claimed.

Figures obtained from all Scotland’s eight forces revealed that they have lost a total of 2,601 officers between 2008-9 and 2010-11.

The SNP’s pledge to deliver 1,000 additional police officers was achieved by a recruitment drive in 2008-9, which created 1,974 new officers, nearly double the annual average.

However, this was accompanied by a record loss of 937 experienced officers, nearly a third more than the annual average.

The following year saw a new record of 949 officers lost, but this figure was not reported. In 2010-11, that figure fell to 715.

Official figures switched from “officer wastage” – the actual number of officers lost – to “officer turnover”, which expresses losses as a percentage of the total officer payroll.

Consequently, when the losses increased from 937 to 949, total turnover decreased from 5.5 per cent to 4.7 per cent due to the high number of recruits.

The now defunct “officer wastage” publication, which ceased in 2008-9, recorded the number of officers lost through resignation, retirement, ill-health, dismissal, transfer or death.

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes said: “It is disappointing that the detailed figures on the number of police officers lost in Scotland are no longer being published.

“There is a real worry that a mass exodus of experienced officers or of officers from a certain demographic could be masked by such an omission.

“I hope that the Scottish Government will move to rectify this in future publications.”

Most forces now only provide raw recruitment and wastage figures through freedom of information (FoI) requests.

Additional FoI figures show that officer losses returned to an average level (715) in 2010-11, but the number of recruits hit a 15-year low (592).

Scottish Tory justice spokesman John Lamont said: “Scottish Conservatives were proud to have delivered 1,000 extra police on the streets of Scotland as a means of providing a more visible force.

“However, this measure would be totally undermined if it led a large number of more experienced officers to leave the force and it is important to find out whether this was the case.

“If there are, in fact, far fewer additional police than at first promised, then they [the Scottish ministers] must answer as to why this was allowed to happen.”

However, a Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The real issue is that the Scottish Government has recruited to deliver 1,000 additional police officers on the streets and communities of Scotland, and there are now 17,265 police officers in Scotland.

“We have also secured agreement with Cosla [the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities] that individual local authorities will pass on their full share of funding to police boards as their contribution to maintaining the number of police officers at least at 17,234.”