General Policing Issues

Justice Minister's Reply to Chairman's Address to Annual Conference 2005

Thank you for your welcome Mr Chairman, and indeed, I am delighted to be able to join you today in what you correctly refer to as my first “live” appearance. As you know, pressing Parliamentary commitments prevented me from attending in person last year and I provided you with a pre-recorded video instead – although I understand that on the day, not many copies were sold. At least this year, I shall have the opportunity to hear for myself the rapturous applause that I am told traditionally follows the Minister's speech.

 

Over the next 20 minutes or so, I want to respond to the issues that you have raised and to talk about the progress that we have been making together in dealing with crime in Scotland . I would also like to talk about what the future holds for us, particularly in terms of how we meet the expectations placed on us by our communities.

 

But let me start with your last point by stating unequivocally that the Scottish Police Service has my full backing and support. Not only that - although sometimes I am sure it might not feel like it, I also know that the Service has the full backing and support of the vast majority of the Scottish public.

 

And it is not hard to see why. Ours is a Police service of which we can be justifiably proud. It is a service which puts into practice the highest standards in public office, it is a service which embraces the diversity of the Scottish people, and it is a service which above all, promotes fairness.

 

I suppose in some senses this is where the service is almost at risk of becoming a victim of its own success. Fear of crime is generally accepted as being out of proportion to the actual risk of becoming a victim - which in itself is down to the good work undertaken by the Police. And although the actual risk is being successfully managed, this exaggerated fear of becoming a victim persists.

 

So what do the Scottish people want to see? Well of course they want to see more of the Police service that they firmly believe will make their communities safer places to live in.

 

The challenge for all of us is to meet this expectation, but without undermining any of the excellent work that goes on elsewhere. Because as we all realise, it is this work that delivers the large gap between incidence and perception in relation to crimes committed.

 

It was mentioned earlier that the Police service needs resources. I fully agree with that. An early priority for this Executive was to deliver record resources for the Police service and this we have done. The outcome of the Spending Review in 2004 was a good result for the service. The current strength – over 16,000 officers – is the highest ever. In Scotland today we are spending over £1 billion per annum on the Police – again, the highest figure ever.

 

But I don't have to explain to you that the public purse can only stretch so far. Within the resources available to us, we have a number of competing priorities in Scotland, not least dealing with our poor health record and providing for our future by ensuring the best system of education for our children.

 

The challenge before us all is clear. It is to ensure that the record level of resources is being used efficiently and to best effect and to demonstrate that this is the case. Because let me be absolutely clear. This will be my starting point when Ministers return to the issue of funding in next year's spending review.

 

Resources will always represent part of the solution, but we can all agree that there is much more to optimising delivery than simply increasing officer numbers and budgets year on year. For example, it has been mentioned that more resources are needed so that Police officers can attend calls more quickly. In that context, it is interesting to reflect on the recent experience within the Lothian & Borders force area. Officer numbers in Lothian & Borders have increased by 240 or nearly 10% since 1999. Likewise, there have been above inflation increases in Grant Aided Expenditure for Lothian & Borders in every year since the Scottish Parliament was established. In that context, the force moved to a new call handling system in 2004 which actually saw response times fall. My point in using this example is simply to illustrate that there is clearly much more to improving performance than routinely applying year-on-year increases in officer numbers and budgets. And when we return to the question of resources in 2006, Ministers will want to be fully satisfied that these other aspects are delivering best value from the resources that are currently available.

 

I want to turn now to how we give the public the reassurance that it wants through visibility while at the same time maintaining our excellent performance on the things that hit crime hardest such as detections and clear-ups.

 

The number of officers available for deployment in high visibility roles is clearly important. But we recognise too that there is much more to police work that providing a reassuring visible presence. The fact is, officers walking beats are restricted in their mobility and if we also expect them to answer calls more quickly then frankly we are putting them in an impossible position.

 

So how do we provide the visible presence that the public demands while ensuring that professional police officers are free to actually do what they are trained to do and tackle crime.

 

I can still recall the controversy that raged when we initially made proposals to introduce community wardens. Concerns that wardens would be ill-trained vigilantes or “policing on the cheap” were widely aired. My clear view today is that not only have these concerns been proven to be groundless, they actually missed the point. Put simply, the wardens are the visible presence which the public finds more reassuring than no visible presence at all. At the same time, the wardens feed back intelligence which Police officers can use to improve the quality of the professional work that they do on detections and clear ups. And I am pleased to note that despite initial opposition from some quarters, we are finding that on the ground wardens and police officers have been working extremely well together to the benefit and satisfaction of their local communities.

 

A good example of a modernising, organisational change that has delivered benefits to both members of the public and the Police service alike.

 

Continuing on the community theme and visibility, earlier this year I announced additional funding for Special Constables whom I know you represent. In terms of Police – Community relations, there is tremendous value in being able to afford members of the public an opportunity to demonstrate their support for the Police service through membership of the Special Constabulary. Again, I know that some attitudes towards Specials have been influenced in the past by suspicions that they were also “policing on the cheap”, but I am under no illusions and neither should anybody else be – Special Constables are not Regular Police officers, rather they are members of the public who are willing to take on some of the responsibility for the policing of their own communities.

 

In the context of good Police Community relations, it would be complete folly if we failed to embrace and make the most of that willingness to join in and assist, hence the Reward schemes. And again, where better visibility is concerned there is a role waiting for these officers in the form of providing the sort of presence that the public keep telling us they want. That is why, in announcing the funding for the Reward schemes, I specifically tied the money in to the work that I want these officers to do reassuring their communities. I want to see them working alongside the wardens to meet the public's demand for visibility - demands that would otherwise fall to the Regular Service to the detriment of your ability to deal with wider-ranging and more challenging crime management issues.

 

Given your representative role, I will of course look to the Scottish Police Federation to keep me apprised of the impact of the Reward schemes on these officers – this sort of public support, after all, is something that we need to nurture.

 

I want to stay with the theme of reassuring our communities, and to touch upon another of the modernising initiatives that we have introduced.

 

I am particularly pleased to note the progress that we are making with the Anti Social Behaviour provisions and the way that this is being supported by the Police and received by the public. Visibility aside, the public also need to see that blatant low-level criminality can and is being tackled, and these provisions were introduced to deliver just that. I cannot overstate the importance of the contribution that dealing firmly with anti-social behaviour is making towards the feeling of security within a community. Two weeks ago I visited an area of Glasgow and spoke with front line police officers who expressed to me their clear support for the way that the Orders are working in practice, how anti-social elements are being targeted and disrupted, and how justice is essentially being seen to be done by long suffering communities.

 

It was a very reassuring message.

 

The public need to be reassured that the Police can and will deal with anti-social behaviour. Because as well as the things that they can actually see happening in their communities, there are disproportionate fears about serious crime - largely attributable to coverage in the media. Through the application of the Anti Social Behaviour provisions the public can be reassured that low-level crime can and is being tackled, thus bolstering the confidence that they have in the Police service to tackle other sorts of crime that they rarely see but which nonetheless contributes to their fear of crime.

 

In this way, this initiative is reassuring the public on a number of levels by dealing firmly and effectively with anti social behaviour.

 

Again though, in any consideration of the Anti Social Behaviour provisions and the success that we are having with them we ought to reflect on the way that these modernising proposals were first greeted by some quarters, particularly the claim that the service was not resourced to cope with the implications.

 

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see now that they are working, that the service is coping, and that both the service and communities across Scotland are benefiting.

 

For one thing, these Orders are handled as civil matters and although the Police are consulted, the burden of initial case preparation is led by the Local Authority rather than the Service. Conditions attached to Orders can mean that the ability to deal with an offender is clear cut and immediate. There's no hanging about waiting for an individual to commit an offence within an area if the individual is excluded from that area in the first place. Likewise, we can prohibit association with known accomplices such that if they are seen together, the power of arrest is there. You don't need to circle an area waiting for them to go house breaking for example.

 

Taken together, the improved visibility that I have talked about along with the modernising agenda illustrated by the ASBO provisions are making a real difference to the quality of life in Scottish communities and represent an excellent basis for moving forward.

 

We are making progress, but there is more to do and I am determined to build on our success. So how do we maintain the momentum?

One of the principal instruments will be our forthcoming Police Bill. The main consultation is currently underway and it will end in early May.

 

It will be a big Bill and reflects the fact that I and my colleagues in the Executive are committed to giving police officers the tools you need to solve crimes, catch criminals and protect our communities.

 

We have worked closely with the Federation and others in developing the proposals contained within it, and there will be more to do before the Bill finally becomes law.

 

However, I want to place on record here today my sincere appreciation for the support that you have given for many of the provisions, and which your Chairman articulated earlier.

 

I will just touch briefly on some of these.

 

Violent crime and knife crime are particular problems in Scotland . Far too many young men view the carrying of knives as acceptable, as a status symbol, when it clearly is not. We are proposing to give police officers an “unconditional” power of arrest for carrying a knife, raise the age at which a person can buy a knife from 16 to 18 and double the maximum penalty for possession of a knife from 2 to 4 years.

 

Football-related violence has been a scourge on our society for far too long. The vast majority of fans are decent, law-abiding people but there is a persistent violent minority who care nothing about football and who are determined to ruin our national game. In dealing with this you have used the tools you have well, but we want to strengthen your hand. That is why we are proposing to introduce Football Banning Orders to stop hooligans going to games and other places where they are known to cause trouble. These have worked well down south, and I expect them to make a real difference in reducing the amount of football disorder in Scotland .

 

I am also committed to freeing up police time, enabling officers to focus on core duties. I believe we should use new technology where it can help us achieve this. The Police Information Technology Organisation is developing mobile fingerprint readers, which should enable officers to carry out a fingerprint check on a person they stop within three minutes. I believe this will radically reduce the amount of time officers currently spend trying to positively identify a person they stop in the street. This technology is still being developed, it is not yet ready, but when it is I want all officers to be able to use it.

 

And our second consultation document for the Police Bill deals with an important issue which was mentioned earlier and which you brought to our attention – the proposal to give assaulted officers, and other victims of crime, the right to know whether they are at risk of contracting HIV or hepatitis from their assailant. Your petition gave details of a number of violent incidents over recent years, which have given Federation members real and grave anxiety. I applaud all these officers for their bravery and for their commitment to policing and I am determined to help officers who are similarly affected in future.

 

The risks of actually getting these infections from an incident on duty are thankfully very low, but even so an officer at potential risk faces several weeks of anxiety, and in some cases unpleasant precautionary treatment. My predecessor as Justice Minister acknowledged these concerns at this conference in 2002, and I should now like to pay tribute to Jim McDonald and Doug Keil for the help they have given us since in taking this forward.

 

Our consultation document proposes a dual solution: the person at risk would be able to get information about the health risks they face, either from the procurator fiscal or through an application to a sheriff in a new civil procedure.

 

In developing these proposals we have been determined to hold together three key concerns: the need for fairness for the victim; the need for safeguards for the rights of suspects; and above all the need for a speedy process which can yield a decision quickly. I look forward to continuing our dialogue with the Federation over this important matter.

 

Mandatory drug testing is another area where we want to make progress, and this too has been mentioned in the context of requiring more resources at the front end to implement the testing regime. I will certainly consider that, but I would also encourage you to look at what is being proposed in a much wider context.

 

Drug abuse is a factor in much of the crime that you have to contend with. If we can compel those who are dependent to seek treatment for their addiction then we will have an opportunity to remove them from the vicious circle of offending to feed a habit. Clearly, if the dependency can be treated then that offending behaviour will be curtailed and the implications for the Police service and potential future victims are clear.

 

The other significant piece of legislation that has now received Royal Assent is the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.

 

The Scottish Parliament voted to extend to Scotland many of the provisions contained within the Bill, and as you will be aware, the Act provides for the creation of the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

 

I do not support the view that SOCA will be politically controlled and directed, and I have gone on record along with my Home Office colleagues and the Chairman of the new Agency to confirm that no-one – not politicians, government officials or anyone else – will be able to undermine SOCA's operational independence. I am happy to give you that assurance again here today.

 

Nor do I believe that the power of direction given to the Scottish Ministers will impinge on the independence of Chief Constable s. Scottish Ministers already have a similar power to direct the chief constable of any Scottish force to provide assistance to any other force should those forces be unable to reach agreement on their own. The new Act simply creates an equivalent power in relation to SOCA.

 

To date, Ministers have never used the existing power to direct Scottish forces. Similarly, I can only envisage the new power being used in the most rare and specific of circumstances – where it would, in effect, give Ministers a role as impartial arbiters, ensuring that police forces and SOCA were able to continue working together effectively – something I think we would all agree is clearly in the public interest.

 

Turning now to the number of retirements that will take place to 2010, let me reassure you that we have been doing a lot of work with the Police Service to ensure that we will be well placed to cope with the implications. I keep mentioning the fact that we have record police numbers in place and you will no doubt be getting tired of hearing it. Well bear with me one more time, because in the context of this issue what this means is that we are approaching the retirement bulge from a position of strength. And to improve on this even further, we have earmarked money to bring forward recruitment over the next two years.

 

In the face of some lurid stories about large proportions of the service retiring over a relatively short period, we all need to maintain a sense of perspective. On average, just over 3% of the current strength – or around 550 officers - should retire each year anyway, so by 2010 we might expect nearly 20% of the current strength to be sitting on a Mediterranean beach as a matter of course. Our predictions show that over the next 4 years retirements will actually be at or below average in every year except 2008-09 when we expect it to touch 4% - representing an additional loss of 90 officers distributed throughout Scotland .

 

This is something that we will have to manage, and we will do it through changes in recruitment patterns and initiatives such as the 30 plus scheme. All things considered, my firm view is that the bulge does not represent any sort of threat to service delivery.

 

Finally, I want to touch on the most significant policing event to face us in Scotland for many years – the G8 summit.

 

As one Police Constable said to me the other day, “who'd have thought that eight people meeting in a room would have meant such a fuss”.

 

I do not need to tell you that the planning behind this summit is of an order that we have never seen before in Scotland . I have ensured that all the necessary resources have been provided to allow you to train and equip yourselves and we are making arrangements now to ensure that sufficient resources will be in place to Police the event itself, including support from colleagues south of the border.

 

The summit will represent an opportunity to showcase everything that is good about our country, including our first class police service. We have highly trained police officers who work in a culture where respect for people's rights is to the fore, including the right to engage in peaceful protest.

 

That is why I have shared your disappointment with some of the remarks made in recent months about the manner in which we are preparing for this.

 

The pressures on you will be immense, and we know that some of those who are coming to Scotland may be intent on causing harm. But nobody should be under any illusions - the Scottish Police service is not a soft touch and anybody who steps out of line will be made to face the consequences.

 

Others will simply come to protest peacefully about causes they feel deeply about. I believe we have police officers – indeed a policing culture – that can deal effectively with all the challenges ahead.

 

A police force that is drawn from – and reflective of – the best small country in the world. Modern and professional. Fair-minded and tolerant. Flexible and sensitive to the needs of the law-abiding many – as well as firm and decisive with the law-breaking few.

 

I hope and believe that those who come to our country this summer – world leaders, visiting media, or legitimate protestors – will return to their own country with a real sense of the kind of country we are developing here. A country worth visiting, and a country worthy of respect. I believe you will make a major contribution to that reputation – and you will have the full backing of the Government in doing so.

 

Finally, I am aware that this will be the last conference for your General Secretary and your Deputy General Secretary, both of whom have given many years service to the Federation and policing in general.

 

On behalf of the Scottish Ministers, I would like to place on record our appreciation for the excellent working relationship that we have enjoyed with you both since Devolution and I wish you a long and happy retirement.

Thank you.