Failure to investigate is scandalous
Last week in parliament, I challenged Humza Yousaf’s justice secretary over Police Scotland plans in which not every crime reported to them will be investigated.
I told Angela Constance what frontline police officers made of the decision to extend the scheme across Scotland after being piloted in the north-east.
The Scottish Police Federation, representing the majority of police officers, are clearer about the impact.
Chairman David Threadgold said the strategy “is being driven purely by finance and not by basic policing principles – and that’s a problem”. He is right.
General secretary David Kennedy said that along with a drop in officer numbers it will be “catastrophic for the people of Scotland”. He too is right. But when I put their concerns to the SNP government minister in charge of policing, she said “the narrative from some misconstrues the pilot”.
In other words, those speaking for Scotland’s hardworking police officers are wrong.
It seems that the SNP only listens to senior management who have a duty to work with whatever budget they are given – but not those speaking for frontline officers.
Constance told me that every crime will be “subject to an individual assessment” and “if there is no risk and no threat, a report will be filed and a crime reference number issued, but, unless there is further evidence or information, there will be no further action”.
Which is a long-winded way of confirming that not every crime will be investigated.
We still don’t know how initial assessments will be made.
The assumption is that they will be conducted by 101 civilian call handlers armed with a list of tick-box questions.
As any police officer will attest, turning up to speak with a complainer is absolutely critical. The initial call may not be the main or only issue at hand. While engaging with people, it is common for other serious matters to emerge.
We still don’t know how many crimes were not reported in the pilot nor how many the government expects won’t be reported when it is rolled out nationwide. The SNP refused to say – and also won’t publish the supposedly “successful” evaluation report into the pilot.
The SNP love reeling off selective ‘recorded crime’ stats – yet it’s estimated that around 60 per cent of crimes are not even reported.
This will surely get even worse once the public realise that non-investigation is official policy.
Officer numbers are already at their lowest in 16 years. The SNP have been in charge for this entire period.
Around 140 police offices have been closed in that time with dozens more earmarked for closure – including those in Ferguslie Park and the Paisley HQ.
Exhausted officers are run ragged. They continue to waste valuable time waiting in courts, which remain chronically inefficient.
Then there are the countless hours dealing with people in need of medical help, with officers being forced to act as an unqualified mental health service.
The failure to investigate is scandalous, no matter how it is spun by the SNP.