The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Allegations against police rise by 13%
‘Irregular procedures’ most common cause of complaints
The number of allegations made against police officers increased by 13% last year, according to a report by the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland.
A total of 7,933 allegations, contained within 4,379 complaint cases, were received by the country’s eight forces between April 1, 2011, and March 31 this year, compared to 7,009 during the same period the previous year.
There was also a 4% rise in thenumberof complaint cases, which were up from 4,206 in 2010-11. It should be noted that one complaint case can involve a number of allegations.
The report, Police Complaints: Statistics for Scotland 2011-12, published today, said the most common (36.9%) type of allegations disposed of were in the “irregular procedure” category, where it is thought officers have not carried out their duty well.
Incivility made up 15.3% of the complaint allegations disposed of during the period.
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Afurther 11.6% of the disposed-of allegations were “neglect of duty”.
While the total number of complaints was up, cases referred to the area procurator fiscal fell to 479 last year from 649 the period before, a drop of 26.2%.
Scotland’s largest force, Strathclyde, received almost a third (31.2%) of all complaints, despite serving 42.2% of the population.
It actually had the lowest proportion per head, with 6.1 cases per 10,000 people, comparedtoTaysidePolice, which had 11.4 per 10,000, the highest of all forces.
The average number of cases for Scotland is 8.4 per 10,000 population.
Northern Constabulary had the most (734.9) onduty complaints per 1,000 officers, while Strathclyde again received the fewest, with 225.1, the report said.
Professor John McNeill, Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, said: “While it is disappointing that both cases and allegations increased this year, I am happy that the longerterm picture remains one of declining numbers of complaints about the police in Scotland.” A Commons select committee chairman has written to Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin over the west coast rail line franchise fiasco.
Mr McLoughlin was forced last week to scrap the handover of the London to Scotland line due to Department for Transport (DfT) errors in awarding the new 13-year franchise not to incumbent operator Virgin Trains, but to rival transport company, Aberdeen-based FirstGroup.
Mr McLoughlin laid the blame “fairly and squarely” with the department and three DfT officials have been suspended.
YesterdayHouse ofCommons transport committee chairwoman Louise Ellmansaid shehadwritten to Mr McLoughlin raising a number of questions.
MrMcLoughlin is due to appear before the committee on October 31.
Commenting on her letter, Mrs Ellman said: “The Department for Transport hasmany serious questions to answer about what went wrong with the west coast main line franchise competition and the wider ramifications for the other complex contractual negotiations it is involved in.”
The DfT decision on the west coast came when Justine Greening was transport secretary. After the award she defended the decision, as didMrMcLoughlin when he took over the transport brief last month.
It was in the course of preparing the government’s case against Virgin’s court challenge over the franchise that problems with the way the bids were handled came to light.
The government now has to decide whether to allow Virgin to carry on operating the line after December 9 date or to run it under the DfT, as is the case at the moment with the othermainLondonto Scotland line — East Coast.