Scotland’s top police officer was forced to apologise to MSPs for missing a factual error in a report he had accused journalists of not reading properly just minutes earlier.
Sir Stephen House, chief constable of Police Scotland, dismissed coverage of an Audit Scotland publication that highlighted issues within the single force.
However, he said sorry to Holyrood’s public audit committee after raising a “factual error” in the document surrounding the number of divisional commanders when Labour MSP Ken Macintosh pointed out that, had Sir Stephen read the report properly during the fact-check stage, he could have had it corrected.
Sir Stephen also admitted police are filling in for redundant or retired civilian support staff on a daily basis, but again insisted there is no official policy to replace the hundreds of staff leaving under Police Scotland’s cost-cutting drive with frontline officers.
He said: “For accuracy, of course it happens on a daily ongoing basis, but it’s not part of a plan to do that at this moment in time.”
The Scottish Police Authority (SPA), the force’s watchdog, said the Scottish Government’s commitment to retaining 1,000 extra police officers with no compulsory redundancies will make necessary police cost-cutting “hugely challenging”.
Police have received 2,000 applications for voluntary redundancy from their 7,500 police staff roll, with 330 from control rooms, according to SPA chairman Vic Emery.
But Sir Stephen said he is confident the £1.1 billion of savings requested by the Government by 2026 can be achieved and confirmed they are focusing heavily on “non-people” solutions.