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rob murray
20-Aug-15, 10:42
Former SNP leader Gordon Wilson has launched a scathing attack on Police Scotland’s failures, and says his party’s ministers must take their share of responsibility for creating the centralised force.
Mr Wilson called for a “root and branch” reform of the service following the succession of crises to have engulfed Police Scotland, claiming the beleaguered single force should be broken up
Abolition of the much-criticised Scottish Police Authority (SPA), which is supposed to hold the force to account, was another of the recommendations made in a paper drawn up by the former SNP MP, who said there had to be a return to community policing, claiming Police Scotland was suffering from “delusions of grandeur”.




He also accused its higher echelons of arrogance and putting the views of the public second. The merger of Scotland’s eight police forces to form a unitary force under Chief Constable Sir Stephen House in 2013 has been one of the Scottish Government’s most high-profile undertakings as well as one of its most controversial.

In his report Mr Wilson said: “The problem goes much deeper than Sir Stephen House. Here the parliament, ministers and civil servants must accept responsibility. To ‘retire’ Sir Stephen in a cosmetic move will do nothing to tackle the real difficulties of Police Scotland.”
Mr Wilson’s outspoken criticism of his SNP colleagues is embarrassing for the Scottish Government. Political opponents described Mr Wilson’s remarks as an “extraordinary intervention”, which showed the failure of the SNP’s biggest act of public reform and the extent to which the public has lost confidence in Police Scotland.

golach
20-Aug-15, 11:17
The Nats also got rid of the Transport police just because of the word "British" at the front .

cptdodger
20-Aug-15, 11:45
If it is found that "Police Scotland" was in any way responsible for the tragedy on the M9 recently, then without question, they should be dismantled immediately. I did'nt think it could possibly get any worse for her family, but it did - http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/2015/08/19/m9-crash-victim-lamara-bell-was-trying-to-get-out-of-car/

An absolutely horrific situation for both their families.

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 11:52
AYe a terrible situation....a national police force will never work, as requirements and approaches to policing differ across Scotland....in the consultation stage prior to setting up poice scotland the preferences were for creating 3 services or leaving the existing 8 alone...but somewhere along the line a single police force was created and its not working, sorry but this was a political decision thats badly backfired.

cptdodger
20-Aug-15, 12:01
I think I probably said this before, but when I was giving a statement at Thurso Police Station, the Policeman taking the statement was saying none of the older policemen and women, (and when I say older I mean a number of years service) were certainly not happy with the changes. I can't remember word for word the conversation, but I remember him saying their terms and conditions had been altered and it had impacted their pensions.

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 12:07
Policing in west of scotland is obviously a lot different than in small HIghland communities....we dont have the same levels of violent crime for starters and certainly dont need armed cops on the streets. A national serious crimes division dealing with murders etc is needed as statistically west of scotland / more populated areas have higher murder rates so murder investigations are better handled than say Northern Constabulary where there is less serious crime, ie these guys have more expereince and there have been several botched investigations up in the HIghlnads so I can see sense in that approach but running scotland on a one size fits all approach...nah !

cptdodger
20-Aug-15, 12:17
You are perfectly right, where I lived in Dundee just before moving here, if there was'nt either a police car or riot van in the street when I got home from work I would think it was strange. I lived in a block of flats, 3 one side, 3 the other, I was first floor, I came out my door one morning to be faced with CSI officers and a trail of blood going all the way down the staircase, long story short and one court case later ! A man had agreed to be attacked with a samurai sword in the flat above me, they did this because they wanted to blame the guy across the road who happened to be a money lender from Glasgow, and to which they owed a lot of money! That was just a normal day there for me. And that, was the type of things the local police were dealing with daily there. If anybody on this forum thinks there is a drug problem in Wick or Thurso, then they do'nt know what a drug problem actually means.

I am not knocking the police here, but they would be out of their depth in Dundee, unless they get moved round, I'm not sure about that.

sids
20-Aug-15, 12:21
You could give Police Scotland time to improve, or reorganise it all yet again.

The people on the M9 didn't die just because there's a national police force.

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 12:28
A one size fits all police force doensnt meet the needs of all parts of scotland....I lived for 5 years in Glasgow, 3 in Castlemilk, a big estate which was notorious at the time ( suited me it was cheap rent ! ), I also lived in Ruchazie...a war zone.... policing is completly different in these areas than say in Wick and as for drugs...well down there, you deal with guys with guns...again I dont know if, or ever heard of armed drug dealers executing the "competition" in Wick / Caithness or anywhere in the North. We ve got crime and the usual anti social behaviour... but shootings, stabbings, knife attacks, murders are as rare as hens teeth, so the HIghlands has to be policed differenly than bigger areas

cptdodger
20-Aug-15, 12:31
And I am not saying they did, to be fair it never struck me the difference between a regional and national Police Force until it was brought up by people after this happened. There had better be an enquiry and if it is found the administrative changes (from regional to national) compounded this tragedy, then changes will have to be made - and quick.

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 12:34
And I am not saying they did, to be fair it never struck me the difference between a regional and national Police Force until it was brought up by people after this happened. There had better be an enquiry and if it is found the administrative changes (from regional to national) compounded this tragedy, then changes will have to be made - and quick.

the point of creating a national police force was to save money not give the public better police services.....I mean centralised call centres....wheres the local knowledge ???

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 12:38
You could give Police Scotland time to improve, or reorganise it all yet again.

The people on the M9 didn't die just because there's a national police force.

Police Scotland has been subject to critiscm from day 1, point is it should never have been created in the first place, but we are where, are so yes they have to get time...and political guidance / requirements to improve, as another re organisation would be costly and again time consuming

cptdodger
20-Aug-15, 12:40
the point of creating a national police force was to save money not give the public better police services.....I mean centralised call centres....where the local knowledge ???

You have a point, it was in the Dundee Courier, that there was a brawl with teenagers on Balgay Hill which was getting out of hand, a lady dialled 999, and the call handler had no idea where she was talking about, in the process of her trying to work out where to send the police, somebody could very well have been killed.

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 13:07
You have a point, it was in the Dundee Courier, that there was a brawl with teenagers on Balgay Hill which was getting out of hand, a lady dialled 999, and the call handler had no idea where she was talking about, in the process of her trying to work out where to send the police, somebody could very well have been killed.

Its not rocket science to re route calls to local centres where local knowledge can play a big part, thats a starter for 10 that and more local political scrutiny ie local MP's / MSP's and input from consituents, do we really need armed cops bearing weapons routinely, or only have armed deployed units which can be called in as and when a sitiation occurs ? This one size fits all is nonsense. Have a national police but it has to be accoyntable and services finetuned to local requirements, cant be a lot of work to make this happen ?

rob murray
20-Aug-15, 13:17
The new single police authority's 13 members are appointed by the justice secretary. Questions have already been asked on the decision to have armed officers on permanent patrol across the country.That might be necessary in urban Glasgow, but outside major cities the policy is alien to Scotland's unarmed policing tradition.
CRitics have said..."We're on a dangerous road. With much greater control from the centre, the big decisions about what style of policing we have and what the major priorities will be set by a single police authority board, which is a group of 13 unelected people," theres a clear democrratic deficit at work here...
The merger, which ministers insist should save £1.4bn over 15 years, had been supported by many, often younger senior officers.... with their careers at mind. But several departing chief constables have been openly critical. One, Colin McKerracher, the chief constable of Grampian, said he was "horrified" when the merger was first proposed in 2011.

SO there you have it, the creation of Police Scotland was driven largey by money / cash savings, having a single police authority board of unelected ( yes ) men / women is undemocratic....restoring more ocal inputs will go a long way towards stopping the one size fits all approach.

Manxman
25-Aug-15, 08:57
The trouble with this force isnt the fault of the rank anfile officer but the higher ranking officers who themselves be under pressure from a Chief Constable who seems to be out of control and a government who cannot or will not rein him in
I know that a CC has to have a certain amount of autonomy but that does not mean that he can completely disregard the wishes of us the populace
Since Mr House has been in charge this force seems to have lurched from one problem to another he has also dispensed with a number of the volunteer organisations thet the governmentnasked to take a greater role in assisting the police force
Is it because he wants complete control over everything or ignorance of the opinions of us
We have seen in certain newspapers that police officers are afraid to speak up so therefore ther must be an endemic form of bullying and intimidation in the force
Please lets hope that normality resumes as soon as possible and we get the police force that we need and want

BetterTogether
27-Aug-15, 13:18
Now how many of you realised that the British Transport Police will become devolved and it's Holyrood intention to integrate them with police Scotland.