Police Scotland ‘may be forced to make cuts’ due to hate crime burden

The Scottish Police Federation warned there will be ‘consequences’

Police have received thousands of reports following the introduction of new hate crime legislation

Police Scotland may be forced to reduce services or make cuts due to the burden of dealing with controversial new hate crime legislation, it has been claimed.

David Threadgold, chair of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), said overtime payments for control room staff will have "consequences".

He told The Scotsman: "At some point in the next financial year the police service will not do something because of the demand that it's being placed under now."

He added: "That will have an impact later on in the year, there's no doubt about it."

The SPF previously said overtime and other knock-on costs relating to the hate crime legislation could amount to "hundreds of thousands" of pounds.

Police have been inundated with thousands of reports since the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into effect on Monday. As of Thursday afternoon, it is understood more than 6,000 calls had been logged, although the force has not released official figures.

Police Scotland previously pledged to investigate every complaint, with the Tories warning the legislation is “placing the biggest ever burden on Scotland’s police officers”.

Mr Threadgold warned officers had received inadequate training, adding: "What we have been told is confusion is the word that reigns here."

He said overtime payments will not have been budgeted for, and this will have consequences later in the year.

Calum Steele, the long-serving general secretary of the SPF until last year, said the estimated additional cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds “is probably conservative”.

He said the force will need to "salami slice" its budgets across the board or make more specific cuts.

Mr Steele said Police Scotland had been "negligent", adding: "Was the service unprepared? Yes, but it was negligently unprepared."

He said the additional burden created by the Act was "entirely foreseeable", adding: "They just did not prepare."

Tory MSP Russell Findlay said: “Humza Yousaf arrogantly refused to listen to anyone who warned that his hate crime law would put extreme pressure on Scotland’s police officers.

“The SNP, backed by Labour, still voted for this terrible legislation despite these practical concerns and freedom of speech fears. It is utterly disgraceful if this results in preventing the police from being unable to fulfil their duties.”

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “While we have seen a substantial increase in the number of online reports being received since 1 April, these have been managed within our contact centres and have not impacted frontline policing.”

Mr Steele said the burden created by the new legislation will also have a "very, very long tail" in other ways. He predicted Police Scotland will soon find itself inundated with subject access requests from individuals seeking to discover if so-called non-crime hate incidents have been logged against them.

Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has complained to the police after a tweet he posted last year was logged as a hate incident. He accused the force of “bias” after it confirmed complaints made against First Minister Humza Yousaf and JK Rowling were not recorded in a similar manner.

A non-crime hate incident is logged when an incident does not meet the threshold for a crime but is perceived by the victim or anyone else to be “motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group”, according to Police Scotland guidance.

The practice of recording such incidents pre-dates the new law. However, there are concerns the number of hate incidents will increase as a result of it.

The new Hate Crime Act consolidates existing hate crime legislation and creates a new offence of stirring up hatred against protected characteristics, including age, sexual orientation and transgender identity. A stirring-up offence on the basis of race has been on the statute book in Scotland since 1986, but the new legislation has sparked concerns about a potential chilling effect on free speech.

Mr Fraser raised fears there could be a “deluge” of spurious and vexatious complaints on the back of the Old Firm game on Sunday.

He pointed to the huge number of complaints earlier in the week, adding: “I suspect and fear we will see the same after this weekend’s round of football, when we will see lots of complaints made to police. I suspect very few, if any, will ever lead to prosecutions but police will need to spend their time looking into this matter when, in my view, they should be dealing with much more serious offences.”

He added: “The concern is the vast majority, perhaps all complaints that are generated at a football match will be motivated by fans’ enmity towards one another as opposed to any genuine concern that a crime has been committed.”

Mr Yousaf said he had “every confidence” in Police Scotland. He added: “We know police have been able to police Old Firm matches and other football matches very well, very appropriately and proportionately over the years and I have every confidence they will be able to do that at this weekend’s Old Firm game.

“The Hate Crime Act is already well understood by Police Scotland, they have the training, they have an increase in budget this year.”

The First Minister previously said he was “very concerned” but not surprised by the number of “vexatious” complaints.

He said: “It’s not a huge surprise that when legislation is first introduced there can sometimes be a flurry of vexatious complaints. We’ve obviously seen that and I would say to people don’t make vexatious complaints – you should desist – because what you’re doing is wasting precious police resources and time.

“But I am very, very concerned about the fact that we have seen those complaints, but at the same time I know that police are very adept at dealing with vexatious complaints, they do it every day and they know how to treat them.”