By Keith Aitken in Glasgow | 7 March 2014
Vic Emery, the chair of Scotland’s controversial national police authority, laid claim to a successful first year in operation, but admitted that there was still further to travel.
Outstanding challenges included better public communication, distinguishing governance from operational matters, and delivering innovative service reforms, he told delegates at the CIPFA Scotland conference yesterday.
The Scottish Police Authority came into force last April along with the national police force, Police Scotland, created by merging eight regional and two specialist police forces. A similar merger of fire & rescue services took place at the same time.
Emery said that some decisions – like the closure of police station front desks – had been contentious, but said that for the most part the public hadn’t noticed the change to a national force, which he took as a sign that the transition had been smoothly managed.
This was despite the new structure coming into being just 18 months after the first ministerial announcement, and just six months after the authority’s board first met. By contrast, it had taken three years to set up the National Crime Agency south of the border, he noted.
In its first year, the national force had achieved savings of £60m, drawn up an ambitious investment plan, completed more than 400 voluntary redundancies, and set up effective liaison with local authorities, Emery said. Crime was at a 39-year low, and still falling.
But he wanted to do much more, especially in promoting inter-operability with other services, for example by sharing helicopters and command and control centres with the fire and ambulance services. ‘This kind of facility shouldn’t be news – it should be the norm,’ he said.
