Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
We know that people want to feel safe in their communities. They want to know that, when they call the police, they will come, and they want visible officers on their streets who know their neighbourhoods, know the issues and can act early to prevent harm.
When people tell us that they no longer feel comfortable walking after dark, and when surveys show that the sense of safety is at its lowest recorded level, we must listen. The issues that are raised in our motion today are the concerns that people are bringing to us: local shops are being repeatedly targeted; parks and community centres are being damaged by vandalism; and there is a sense that visible policing in their communities has thinned out. We know that officer numbers have fallen and that in many areas stations have been closed or had their hours restricted, eroding the visible local footprint that is a key part of community reassurance and confidence in policing.
The reality is that reductions have fallen hardest on local divisions, leaving fewer officers available for front-line roles. Although benefits from the centralisation of policing exist, we cannot ignore the impact on people’s confidence and on the prevention of crime. Officers are expected to cover far more than core policing work. They respond to mental health crises, spend hours in A and E—because other services are simply not available—and backfill gaps that are caused by systematic delays elsewhere in our justice and health systems. In 2024, Chief Superintendent Derek McEwan, former divisional commander of Fife, said to local councillors that most of the work was now non-crime related. Every hour that is spent on such duties is an hour not spent on preventing crime, building relationships or reassuring communities.
I hear regularly from constituents about persistent antisocial behaviour, including in bus stations, on high streets and in parks. Local community safety partnerships are working hard with Police Scotland, but the scale of demand remains acute. Vandalism, deliberate fires and hostile behaviour are not minor nuisances but the daily lived reality for many families and businesses, and they come with clean-up and repair costs.
Shoplifting and retail theft are another source of concern. They have a particular impact on small and local retailers. It is no comfort to victims to be told that a crime is low level when it affects their livelihood and contributes to a wider sense of disorder. I am a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and during USDAW’s freedom from fear week, I spoke to retail workers in my local co-operative and heard about the daily challenges that they face.
In Mid Scotland and Fife, there is also the long-standing issue of off-road bikes and quad bikes, which I have raised many times with the Government. The vehicles are used in ways that threaten pedestrians, intimidate families in their local parks and disrupt daily life. Unfortunately, that is a persistent issue in Fife, and it has recently been raised with me again in Methil. Good local work is taking place, but police simply do not have the capacity to respond as quickly or as consistently as they would like, leaving people who report those activities frustrated at a perceived lack of response.
Community policing—where officers are embedded in their wards, know the people in those places and work with partners to intervene early—is one of the most effective tools that we have to reduce harm before it escalates. A new divisional commander, John Anderson, recently took up post in Fife. He has spoken of the shift to an operating model that moves away
“from reactive policing to prevention and problem solving”.
Having dedicated community and crime prevention officers would make that shift. Community policing works when officers are visible, accessible and able to act early. It is about prevention and enforcement, knowing who the repeat offenders are and knowing the young people who might be diverted from trouble.
We must also look beyond policing to improve the justice system, so that officers are not tied up in court for extended periods, and ensure that our mental health services have the capacity to respond effectively, so that responsibility does not always fall on police officers.
Our police officers work extremely hard. They want to be out in communities, preventing crime and keeping people safe. We owe it to them and to the public to make sure that that is where their time is spent.