It is vital that senior policing leaders from across the UK are able to share good practice and cautionary tales, especially around reform, the President of The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents has said.
Rob Hay said: “For us it’s really interesting, having been through a process of reform and to look south and see England and Wales on the precipice of moving forward in a similar way.
“I’ve had discussions with colleagues down here about the challenges, the pitfalls, and what might be the unintended consequences of reform. In Scotland, there’s been a one-third reduction in the number of Superintendents and Chief Superintendents. That was never an explicit strategy, but we have sleep-walked into it, over a number of years, because of the attrition.
“When we’ve been trying to hit budgetary targets, people have said: ‘We’ll just drop this post one year’, and over a period of 13 years, that mounts up. Now we turn around and we are one third less than we were at the start of Police Scotland; that takes a toll on people in terms of their health, their wellbeing, and their capacity to absorb the unrelenting demand that is the reality of modern policing.”
Rob said it was important for policing leaders to meet as a group and discuss how they deal with similar issues in different regions: “One of the key aspects is looking at what the challenges are in the UK and seeing how it’s been dealt with elsewhere, what the commonality is.”
He added: “From the Association’s point of view, that is a huge part of what we do, is making sure that people are joined up across the UK so that we can all support each other through peer support.
“At a time when we’re facing a huge amount of demand, pressure and scrutiny, being able to lift up the phone and chat to somebody who’s been through the same stuff and can give you some perspective and a bit of support is absolutely invaluable.”