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Public Audit Committee 11 March 2026 [Draft]

11 Mar 2026 · S6 · Public Audit Committee

Item of business

“Best Value in policing: Joint Best Value audit of policing in Scotland”

Chief Constable Jo Farrell KPM (Police Scotland) Watch on SPTV

Good morning. The principles of best value resonate powerfully with me. I believe deeply in the value that policing provides to the public and to the public purse. Communities need, deserve and rightly demand effective public services that are delivered in the most efficient way. As a public leader, I have a duty to use resources responsibly and to work with other agencies to share resources and improve outcomes for the people who we serve.My leadership principles align with those of best value. I provide vision, direction and trust, and I want policing to be high performing. A focus on sustainability and equality enhances those principles and also flows from them. As we entered the best value audit, we believed that policing had a good story to tell that was built on reform achieved, financial responsibility and strong collaboration. Since my appointment, I have set a vision of safer communities, less crime, supported victims, a thriving workforce and prioritising the front line for support. We are delivering on that vision, including the roll-out of body-worn video and the development of a strengthened community policing model, and the audit highlighted those strengths.I record my thanks to Audit Scotland and HMICS for the quality of their work and their approach. As part of the audit, we made a detailed self-assessment, and the themes that we identified for improvement chime with those that are outlined in the audit. I am equally grateful to the audit team for the constructive approach to bring clarity and focus to the areas where I know policing can make improvements, such as workforce planning, supporting more people back to work and measuring performance.The rapidly changing world, growing online harms, poverty, civil unrest, geopolitics and heightened assessment of counter-state and terrorism threats underline policing’s duty to deploy dynamically to respond to threat, risk and harm as they emerge. We will work with the Scottish Government and across the public sector to ensure that policing continues to be a good partner and that we are in good partnerships. For example, in relation to mental health-related demand, we will help to ensure that more people get help from the agency that is best able to provide it.Although the audit reflects genuine barriers, such as annual budgets and an inability to borrow or hold reserves, we are already taking forward the recommendations. More deeply, we embrace the culture and mindset of best value, organisational learning and continuous improvement. I know the acute public finance pressures that we are all facing, and that a best value ethos will be essential to support good-quality services to our communities. That is the right thing for policing, our partners and the public that we serve. Thank you.

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Public Audit Committee 11 March 2026 [Draft]

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