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Meeting of the Parliament 26 February 2014

26 Feb 2014 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Justice

Pearson, Graeme Lab South Scotland Watch on SPTV

I am grateful for the opportunity to move the motion and speak in support of it. I note that the rather wordy amendment from the Government focuses on what we in the chamber have come to know as “operational outcomes” rather than the business of Government. I am sure that we will come on to that during the debate.

I acknowledge the sterling work that is performed on behalf of Scotland’s communities by the staff of Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and all the emergency services. However, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice has changed the very essence of policing in Scotland. He has abandoned his responsibility for oversight of the exercise of police powers and services and has allowed an undemocratic authority, selected by him, to implement a change from a focus on local policing to a metrocentric approach. Policing by consent as a basic principle appears to have become an archaic rule. Accountability and transparency within the decision-making processes of the justice system have been all but eroded, making the notion of consent redundant.

The public consultation exercises that were undertaken on public counter closures, traffic wardens and the police and fire services’ control room rationalisations were farcical exercises. They were hurried and confused, and they lacked any real opportunity for meaningful consideration of important local views and local priorities, which were reduced to an afterthought as national teams for firearms, road policing, football policing and ports policing and national air support and mounted sections were deemed to be of greater import.

Key performance indicators have become the language of Mr MacAskill’s new force. Stop and search, the subsuming of crimes into single reports, the downgrading of reports to avoid the realities of crime in our communities and reports from police officers themselves of the fiddling of crime reports all contribute the creation of a service that is focused on headlines, good-news stories and information management instead of public protection and victim-centred services.

The widespread changes, together with worsening conditions for our police officers, have been widely reported to cause morale to reach new depths among our front-line officers and staff. A recent poll showed that only one staff member in 10 feels valued, with backroom cuts causing mounting workloads for civilian staff and almost 300,000 hours of extra duties for front-line officers, reducing the time that they have available to patrol our streets. A recent Unison survey also found that two thirds of staff believe that their workload has increased with the advent of Police Scotland, and morale among support staff appears to be even lower, with almost 1,200 jobs already lost and hundreds more to go.

Many people fear for their jobs, having seen colleagues sacrificed at the altar of the Scottish National Party pledge to deliver 1,000 additional officers at a cost of £50 million, which overlooks the need to scalp another £60 million a year from police budgets, no matter what. Simple mathematics shows that 1,000 more officers minus 1,200 support staff leaves a staff deficit in the service.

The recently announced executive-level pay hikes of more than £20,000 for some staff have left many in the police feeling let down and disappointed. The police family looks to be on the verge of breakdown. A vocation has been reduced to a job, and a mission has been replaced by a form of Taylorism time management previously unknown in the emergency services.

The closure of public counter services and the abandonment of control rooms have been predicated on Government efficiencies. The truth is that the need to rid Police Scotland of low-paid staff to meet Government cuts ensured that the services, once reduced, could be maintained thereafter only—

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Meeting of the Parliament 26 February 2014

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