Policing numbers safe for this year, says SPA

SCOTTISH police numbers will not fall this year, despite financial pressures.

The national force’s main police watchdog is currently looking into the long-term shape of policing after the SNP earlier this year dropped its pledge to keep a minimum of 17,234 officers.

But Andrew Flanagan, chairman of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), has dismissed reports hundreds of officers will be axed as the force struggles to balance its books as “hyperbole”.

Mr Flanagan said no decision on police numbers had been made – and that even if it had, it would take years to implement.

Speaking to The Herald, he said: “I don’t see a situation where the 17,234 would change this financial year.

“I don’t know whether 17,234 is the right number or not because we have no demand and capacity model.”

The SPA expects to have completed a study of how many officers it needs by the end of 2016, in time to launch a consultation to take it to the end of this financial year.

Ahead of this year’s Holyrood elections the SNP dropped the 17,234 commitment, a nine-year-old pledge it introduced to keep officer numbers 1,000 above the figure it inherited when it first came to office.

Police had lobbied the party that the pledge was tying the hands of the force, making it harder to spend scarce resources on other types of workers, such as civilian cybercrime investigators.

Mr Flanagan said: “It’s unlikely we are not going to resource cyber. Does that mean you have to have fewer police officers? Possibly. But there may be other issues that we need to deal with.”