Safeguards for frontline
Police pledge on services
One of the region’s most senior police chiefs has pledged to protect frontline services as Police Scotland makes “hard choices” with its current budget.
Chief Inspector Tom Leonard assured councillors of the commitment from Police Scotland’s new chief constable, Jo Farrell, to “preserving and maintaining our community policing teams”.
The high- ranking officer gave the reassurance to councillors at a meeting of Perth and Kinross Council’s housing and social wellbeing committee on Wednesday, October 25.
A Police Scotland statement issued last month revealed the planned intake of 200 probationary constables due to join the service in January 2024 had been postponed due to budget pressures.
It stated: “Police Scotland has been clear about hard choices being taken to maintain effective policing within the funding available. The service has already been required to reduce the budgeted officer establishment this year from 17,234 to 16,600.”
At this stage, it is unclear what the impact will be locally in Perth and Kinross.
The discussion came as councillors were updated on the partnership approach to tackling anti-social behaviour at the meeting.
Conservative Blairgowrie and Glens ward councillor Bob Brawn asked if cuts would impact police response times to people suffering anti-social behaviour.
Local area commander Ch Insp Leonard said: “I think we have been quite clear that what we are seeing – in terms of the budget – is a real-term cut in officer numbers.
“Exactly how that will impact on Perth and Kinross is still to be established.
“We’re obviously going through a period of national service redesign and we’re doing that at a local level as well just now.
“Very much our commitment is to protect frontline services. Our new chief constable has provided a commitment to preserving and maintaining our community policing teams.
“We will very much look – once we fully understand what that real-terms cut in officer numbers looks like – at our local model in terms of how we deliver policing in Perth and Kinross.
“But we will very much focus on that frontline delivery and I’m confident that we will still be able to respond to concerns within the community in line with the policing plan we presented to the committee earlier this year.
“Hopefully that will provide some reassurance.”
He pointed to the “strength in the partnership approach which brings in additional resources”.
During the meeting, police officers shared how they were working alongside a wide range of partners – from Perth and Kinross Council to Street Pastors – to tackle antisocial behaviour in the area.
During a later presentation on tackling violence against women and girls, Labour Perth City North councillor Brian Leishman asked Detective Chief Inspector Jennifer Reid if her unit would be affected by cuts.
He asked: “How many staff do you have in your unit? Are you under-staffed or are you well enough staffed at the moment?”
DCI Reid responded: “Like anything in policing I don’t think we’re ever going to have sufficient resource to deal with what we’ve got.
“We have a number of officers focused on investigation, and a number of officers in my department focussed on safeguarding. I would happily have more resource and everyone would continue to keep busy.
“Like everywhere at the moment we are facing challenges in terms of capacity and demand. As Tom [Ch Insp Leonard] said we are aligning and trying to realign so that we can continue to respond where we need to, which is obviously front-facing very much so that we can continue to give people in Perth and Kinross the service that they deserve.
“Do I have enough? Probably not. Do I want more? Absolutely – but that could be said across a number of the teams that are under my portfolio.”
She added: “There will never be a quiet day for the police in terms of the calls that we get.”