Police spend £950 a day on accountant as debts spiral
SPA chief reveals force still using ‘17 or 18’ different payroll systems
POLICE Scotland has still not integrated any of its back office functions almost four years after the single force was meant to bring cost savings, it has emerged.
John Foley, chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), said the force was still using “17 or 18” different payroll systems, despite Scotland’s eight regional forces merging in 2013.
He also admitted the SPA had been paying a PwC accountant £950 a day since June in an attempt to get to grips with Police Scotland’s runaway £1.1 billion budget.
The Auditor General for Scotland, who has issued three annual reports criticising the force’s “weak” financial management, recently warned the force faced a £188 million deficit by 2020/21. Taking evidence from the SPA and Chief Constable Phil Gormley in light of the warnings, Holyrood’s Public Audit Committee heard the failure to streamline the legacy systems of the eight former forces had contributed to the financial problems.
SNP MSP Colin Beattie asked if there was “any back office function that has been successfully integrated since the police merger?”
Mr Foley said: “In terms of a function being completely integrated, in my view, no they haven’t.” He denied it was an “act of desperation” to bring in a £950-aday accountant when the force’s own budget was under such strain.
He said: “We’re getting good value from the point of view that we need to have someone who is experienced and knows what they’re doing. The risk of not having that is much greater.
“We’re not pretending that the finance function is anything other than in a difficult place and so we need to have someone with the appropriate skills and experience to lead that.”
He said the force was recruiting a permanent chief financial officer, who should start in April
SPA chair Andrew Flanagan denied the force was in “a state of crisis”, as SNP committee member Alex Neil recently suggested, but admitted the situation was “clearly challenging”. He told MSPs the finance team had been working with legacy systems that had not been streamlined into a single system following merger.
“The issue wasn’t only competency of the staff, it was when we were being asked questions of detail it was very difficult for them to dig down into the legacy information that they had and bring forward sensible consolidated responses,” Mr Flanagan said.
He then insisted the force was “on the right path”, and referred to this week’s publication of a 10-year strategy, which set out plans to slow officer recruitment.