POLICE Scotland has become embroiled in a damaging row over claims its survey for measuring public satisfaction is "rigged" and leads to "skewed" conclusions.

 

The single force's monthly opinion snapshot only focuses on people who have reported crimes and excludes individuals whose contact with officers has been 'initiated' by Police Scotland.

This means that the experiences of citizens who have been frisked, as well as motorists who have been pulled over, do not count towards the final statistics.

MSPs yesterday expressed concern at the revelations.

Single force chief constable Stephen House has been under pressure for a year now over controversies surrounding armed policing and stop and search.

After it emerged last year that officers had been carrying guns on routine call-outs, House decided that armed response vehicles would only be deployed to firearm or life-threatening incidents.

However, it was revealed last week that armed officers had "proactively engaged" with members of the public 1,644 times since the edict.

House has also been criticised after his force announced that 'consensual' searches on under-12s would be abolished, only for the practice to continue after MSPs were told otherwise.

In their defence, senior police chiefs have consistently referred to their "user satisfaction survey" as evidence of public support.

Since September 2013, around 1,300 surveys have been completed every month to gauge views of police performance.

Respondents are asked about their levels of satisfaction and confidence in Police Scotland.

Rose Fitzpatrick, one of House's deputies, cited the study in the middle of the stop and search row.

She said 16,000 people had been interviewed between January and December 2014, adding: "More than 83% of respondents expressed satisfaction with how their incident was handled; almost 79% stated their confidence level in Police Scotland was high or very high."

Similarly, between October 2013 and March last year, around 80% of those asked said their confidence level in the single force was high or very high.

However, the survey's methodology is now under the microscope.

A "user" of police services is defined by the force as someone who has reported a crime or incident to the force, effectively people who have asked Police Scotland for help.

The hundreds of thousands of citizens who have been frisked are not part of the survey.

Suspects and people approached by officers to be witnesses are also excluded.

A source close to the force said: "If you just focus on people who have contacted the police, rather than everyone who has had contact with the force, the methodology looks rigged."

Although the cases are selected at random, sexual and domestic incidents are excluded, as are sudden deaths.

John Finnie, independent Highlands and Islands MSP and a former police officer, said: "The police service has a long history of being creative with figures. Concerns about survey methodology should not come as a surprise to MSPs who received what I consider a loaded questionnaire from Police Scotland on their stop and search arrangements. Their questions appear to presume only positives about stop and search, a misconception I intend correcting in my response.

"It time for the chief constable to stop pouring resources into fire-fighting the public backlash to his flawed operational decisions, end the dodgy data and start delivering the community-based policing the public wants."

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Alison McInnes MSP said: "We are all 'users' of the police. If the survey isn't representative of all those whom the police come into contact with then it isn't impartial or transparent.

"The opinion of someone who has done nothing wrong but is nonetheless regularly subjected to stop and searches might well differ from that of someone who has reported a crime.

"I think people are viewing police reporting of facts with increasing suspicion and that in itself is very alarming."

Scottish Conservative justice spokesperson Margaret Mitchell said: "The results of this survey could be seen as skewed. In order to be meaningful, it should have taken in the opinions of a cross section of the public, not just those who had contacted the police to report crimes."

Labour justice spokesman Hugh Henry said: "After that the debacle of armed police and stop and search, surely Police Scotland is not loading its user satisfaction survey? It would be a huge blow to the credibility of Police Scotland if it is only asking the opinion of those most likely to give a positive response."

A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: "The USS is just one of the many ways we engage with the public; the methodology ensures we capture a realistic and reliable picture of the quality of service provided by Police Scotland and it remains an important way of helping us shape the service we provide communities."