Chris Marshall: Police cuts target could prove too ambitious

Since its creation the nascent police force has been embroiled in a series of controversies. Picture: John Devlin

DESPITE its undoubted successes in the two years since it was formed, there is no getting away from the fact that Police Scotland’s raison d’être is cost-cutting.

While senior officers have rightly emphasised the strengths that have come from delivering a uniform service across the country as a whole, the reason the eight regional forces were merged into one was about saving £1.1 billion by 2026.

Since its creation on 1 April, 2013, the nascent police force has been embroiled in a series of controversies of its own making, particularly armed policing and stop-and-search.

But the feeling within the force is that reform has delivered stronger, more consistent policing across Scotland, which allows for a sharing of resources which wasn’t there under the old set-up.

However, senior figures within Police Scotland have begun voicing serious concerns about the financial bind the force finds itself in.

Chief Constable Sir Stephen House said “extreme measures” were needed to balance the books, while Janet Murray, Police Scotland’s director of finance, said the delivery of savings represented a “significant challenge”.

The force has found £46.5 million of the £57.5m in savings it must make to break even in 2015-16, but that still leaves a £11m gap.

With the Scottish Government’s ongoing commitment to maintaining officer numbers above the 17,000 mark, the force will continue to see more than 90 per cent of its budget go on staff costs.

But those working hard to keep our streets safe are unlikely to see any improvement in their terms and conditions and will continue to feel the pinch experienced by workers across the public sector.

It remains to be seen exactly where the drastic cuts hinted at by the chief constable are to be made.

Members of the Scottish Police Federation used their conference early this month to warn that cuts are already having an impact across the whole service, from successfully answering non-emergency 101 calls to securing crime scenes for under-resourced forensic teams.

There was also a warning that Police Scotland’s laudable new emphasis on areas such as domestic abuse and missing persons has seen officers pulled away from frontline duties to help staff the new specialist units.

At some point, both the Scottish Government and the Police Scotland hierarchy may yet be forced to admit the £1.1bn saving is too ambitious.

Until then, there can be no deterioration in a service which has made a promising start, despite everything it has been forced to endure.