Police officer numbers and pay and conditions could come under threat in the next round of budget savings, a senior policeman has told The Courier.
Scottish Police Federation north area committee chairman David Hamilton made the claims in the wake of a devastating report, published on Thursday by the public spending watchdog, which revealed there is no strategy to make £1.1 billion of savings promised by ministers.
Police staff union Unison has also entered the debate, saying the Scottish Government’s insistence on keeping officer numbers at 17,234 while cutting the number of civilian workers provides neither best service nor best value.
Mr Hamilton said: “Given the huge proportion of salary and human resources (that is spent as part of the police budget), there will be questions asked about the number of officers, the number of support staff and pay and conditions.
“I look forward to seeing what comes forward. It is an enormous challenge and we expect some real challenges for our members.”
Unison said it was concerning, but not surprising that Audit Scotland’s report noted there is no strategy for the next financial year in place.
The union said it fully expects the bulk of savings for the next financial year to come in the form of more police staff posts being made redundant.
It claimed at least 450 staff have taken voluntary redundancy since April 1, with “more being approved on a weekly basis”.
George McIrvine, the Dundee-based branch secretary of Unison Police Staff Scotland, said: “What is clear is that the political maintenance of police officer numbers will have a detrimental effect on policing in Scotland, not improve it.
“We are currently being consulted on plans which will see police staff roles deleted, to be replaced by police officers on patrol carrying out administrative functions.”
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: “We have always said that reform is an ongoing process. Change of this scale is almost unprecedented and there were always going to be challenges.
“We acknowledged that earlier this year and acted decisively to support the SPA and Police Scotland in working together to successfully resolve those issues.
“We will now give careful consideration to the recommendations within the report.”