Police chief’s ‘remorse’ at treatment of officers

The officer leading Police Scotland has said he feels “remorse” over the way his staff were treated in the early days of the force.

Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said the national force was “too focussed” on procedures and not people immediately after its creation in 2013.

He was speaking at conference hosted by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research in Edinburgh, which also heard from justice secretary Michael Matheson that criticism of Police Scotland’s leadership was “ill-judged”.

Mr Livingstone: “We were very focussed on service delivery. I feel, quite genuinely, remorse around that because we have young emerging leaders who didn’t get the advantages I had.”

New Scottish Police Authority chair Susan Deacon told the conference she would work to improve the organisation’s openness.