Shameful betrayal of our police service

IT was intended to be a modern police service with a ‘unique opportunity to become truly world-class’.

But six years after the single force was launched, policing is mired in financial turmoil and locked in a state of perpetual crisis. According to the police watchdog, the ‘current situation is unsustainable’, with massive bills for building repairs and vehicle maintenance.

Damningly, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) also warns of creaking technology which ‘does not reflect that of a single national police service in the 21st century’. Against this troubling backdrop, the SPA raised alarm over escalating violent crime and a fall in detection rates, urging ‘focused action’ to tackle the problem.

There could hardly be a bigger gulf between SNP rhetoric about low crime rates and the bleak reality revealed by the figures in the SPA’s annual report.

Only two weeks ago, Nicola Sturgeon claimed crime in Scotland was at a historic low, despite official statistics showing that it was on the rise.

For years, the SNP has boasted about reductions in violent crime – a claim that is impossible to reconcile with an increase of nearly 30 per cent in the past five years. Evidence of a service that is being run into the ground is piling up, from clapped-out patrol cars to police stations that are falling apart (if they haven’t already shut down).

Audit Scotland has sounded a warning over police finances after an overspend of more than £35million but, as ever, ministers appear to have buried their heads firmly in the sand.

The degradation of the police service following the amalgamation of the eight territorial forces in 2013 is one of the greatest scandals of devolved politics.

Former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill – newly elected MP for East Lothian – once defended the creation of the single force as making a ‘virtue out of a necessity’. But there was never any ‘necessity’ to take the axe to policing, when so much waste in other areas has never been addressed.

It is little wonder that serious crime has surged when the police force has at least one hand tied behind its back in the form of massive budgetary constraints.

How entirely predictable that in the midst of these appalling revelations, Nicola Sturgeon was on familiar terrain yesterday as she told MSPs that her party’s electoral success last week should pave the way for another Scexit vote. It was yet more proof – if any were needed – that this is a poor excuse for a government that appears to have abdicated all responsibility for the job it was elected to do.