SCOTTISH
POLICE FEDERATION
5 Woodside Place, Glasgow, G3 7QF
MEDIA
RELEASE
The Scottish Police Federation represents all police officers in the
ranks of chief inspector and below, about 15,000 people, over 98%
of all police officers in Scotland.
To:
Date:
Subject: |
4
November 2004
Shortage of officers |
The
public has sometimes far too long to wait for the police attending
their calls for assistance the General Secretary of the Scottish
Police Federation has admitted. In response to a story of a man
who failed to have the police attend a call for assistance in Kilmarnock,
Doug Keil said, "Unfortunately this is not an unusual story - we
cannot always get there quick enough. We have a record number
of police officers in Scotland - 15,741, and the Scottish Executive
has provided increases in funding recently, but we simply have too
many calls on our services to meet the demand. We also have
a range of new duties which we must do, many of them take officers
away from the frontline. But these duties, such as setting
up the structures to deal with anti-social behaviour, need
to be done. We need to increase numbers still further but it is
doubtful we have sufficient new funds to do that to any great extent.
All sorts of efficiencies are underway, we are trying to reduce
bureacracy, trying to put as many officers on the street as we can,
but we cannot keep up with demand and provide officers as quick
as the public want them."
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