The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Thin blue line stretched
Frontline officers having to tackle challenges in specialist areas
The chronic removal of frontline police officers to tackle acute challenges in specialist areas is stretching the service on a local level, a senior officer has told MSPs.
Chief Superintendent Ivor Marshall, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, said a “lack of clarity” probably exists about where resources need to be.
He was giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee as it began an examination of the creation of Scotland’s single police and fire services more than five years on from the point when they were launched.
The witness spoke in response to Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, who asked whether the creation of specialist divisions within the police force had come at a cost to local divisions.
Mr Marshall said: “I would suggest that there probably is lack of clarity about where the resources need to be in a local level and whether or not those demands are being addressed appropriately, whether we’ve got that right, and whether the withdrawal of perhaps resources that used to be in local policing to support those centralist roles has been the right thing.
“The indications are that there has been a removal of some resources into those centralist roles but there may be a good business case for that.
“Sometimes what you’re fighting against is the acute challenges – perhaps of a sex abuse inquiry that needs to be resourced in the time-critical way, or firearms resources need to be uplifted because of the terror threat – so it’s acute and the strategic commanders have to make that decision and that has to come from somewhere.
“The most obvious place where it all trickles down and comes from is from the front line, operational uniform resources, because you always tend to take people away from there.”
Professor Nick Fyfe, of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, said its research showed local officers can see the benefits of having specialist resources to access.
He said, however, police have been concerned about “the redeployment of officers from local policing into specialist services and not being replaced”.