Senior Scottish police officers have threatened legal action over what they claim are attempts to protect younger colleagues’ jobs at the expense of older officers when the eight forces are merged next year.
The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents accuses chief constables of pushing through a rush of promotions to inspector level and above ahead of the merger.
Police regulations prevent promoted officers from being forced into redundancy, but Regulation A19 allows those with more than 30 years’ service to be asked to leave on efficiency grounds.
Chief Superintendent David O’Connor, ASPS president, told Public Finance that this ‘really means fiscal efficiency’. With the merger scheduled to deliver savings of £5.4m, he said: ‘Our fear is that they are promoting younger officers just now, and the potential is that the more senior officers will be confronted with Regulation A19.’
He urged chief constables to follow the lead of the fire & rescue service, where a similar merger is taking place, and to impose a moratorium on promotions, except on a temporary basis, until after next April. O’Connor said his association had received a sympathetic hearing on the issue from Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.
The ASPS has also approached the Association of Chief Police Officers of Scotland, which insists that promotions policy must remain a matter for chief constables. In a letter to the chief police officers, the ASPS calls for the new national chief constable to be named, and the main staffing decisions to be made, without further delay.
‘Some chief constables might argue that the absence of clarity regarding the new structures renders any such [moratorium] decision unnecessary at the present time and that existing local procedures should therefore continue,’ the letter to ACPOS says. ‘We would suggest that this would be a short-sighted view.’
O’Connor told PF that his association stood ready to pursue any grievances that arose after next April through the courts.
‘We will consider legal action if, post-April 1 next year, any of our members are deemed to be surplus to requirements in any part of Scotland and if the new chief constable or the new police authority consider using Regulation A19,’ he said.
‘We will pull out the previous correspondence and say to them, we warned you about this.’
