Chief Superintendent Rob Hay, President of The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents

The National Police Chiefs’ Council in England and Wales could learn from Police Scotland in the way that officers are treated in the misconduct system.


The head of the Police Superintendents’ Association in England and Wales, Nick Smart, recently told The Telegraph that police officers fear they are gambling with their career when they use force to tackle criminals. He said his colleagues had so little faith in the misconduct system that they were losing confidence on the streets.


Nick said: “What has happened is there is now a culture of risk aversion because nobody wants to gamble their career, liberty, mortgage and family over a decision, because in the current climate there is no faith in the system.”


I’ve got a lot of sympathy with Nick’s position. Luckily a big difference here in Scotland is that we provide skilled witness testimony on police use of force at the direction and expectation of the Crown Office, whom consider that advice invaluable in assessing the necessity of proceedings. There are additional protections here for officers who are properly trained and who use that training in accordance with policy. English and Welsh officers aren’t afforded that protection, because forces don’t supply officers to provide expert witness testimony around use of force.


We’ve got quite a good working relationship with both the Crown Office and the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC). I think that leads to far fewer cases being brought against police officers in Scotland, as there is a better understanding about what a appropriate use of force looks like and what is a reasonable expectation of a trained officer faced with a violent confrontation.


For example, when Inspector David Bradley, Police Scotland’s Head of Operational Safety Training (OST) and First Aid, provided evidence to the Sheku Bayou inquiry, the level of confidence and depth of expertise he expressed on behalf of the service was really helpful to both the inquiry and any members of the public who were watching. It gave people a much better understanding of what it’s actually like for a police officer to be put in those circumstances, the limitations of the training, and how you react on a physiological & psychological level when you’re faced with an individual who’s using a high level of violence.


While the threat to officers escalates, we should constantly review how we train in this area, both in terms of quality and frequency. Police Scotland are presently 9 months into a 12 month trial of monthly Operational Safety Training, in addition to two day recertification training once a year. There’s some good early data to suggest that higher-frequency training guards against the perishability of training and skills-fade. This training has been shown to increase safety for both officers and arrested persons.


We need to keep asking: what can forces do to stand behind officers who use their training in these situations? And how can we make sure that training is embedded in a way that’s most effective for police officers, when they’re put in a position where de-escalation fails and they have no other option but to an appropriate use of force?