Scotland’s chief constable has welcomed more than 300 new probationary constables into the country’s police force.
The new recruits took their oath of office during a ceremony at Police Scotland’s headquarters at Tulliallan on Wednesday.
They join the service as it looks to increase its recruitment levels by encouraging more people to apply.
Police Scotland has experienced lower officer numbers due to training delays during the coronavirus pandemic and last year’s Cop26 climate change summit, as well as increased retirals following changes to pension arrangements.
Chief Constable Sir Iain Livingstone thanked the new officers for taking on “the responsibilities and duties of a police officer” and for joining “our shared mission to safeguard our fellow citizens”.
Sir Iain said: “I want to encourage everybody to consider a career in policing.
“Anybody can be a police officer. If you’ve committed, if you want to help people, if you want to come and assist people at their time of need, join the police service.
“It is deeply, deeply rewarding, and I want to make sure that people are considering policing when they’re looking at their lives and they’re looking at their life choices.”
The chief constable said new recruits will be “well-rewarded” with “many opportunities” despite an ongoing pay dispute with the Scottish Police Federation.
Asked if the dispute could impact recruitment efforts, Sir Iain said it was inevitable that police officers would be seeking a “legitimate and fair pay rise” and that he continues to back the call for higher pay.
“There’s a cost of living crisis at the moment, inflation is at levels we’ve never seen before,” he said.
“Inevitably, police officers and police staff are looking for a legitimate and fair pay rise.
“I’m lobbying very, very hard for them to get that fair pay rise, but I would say to everybody to come and join the police service. You will be well rewarded, you will be looked after within the police service, and there are many opportunities once you join policing.”
Justice Secretary Keith Brown said the oath of office ceremony was a celebration of “the diversity of those that are coming forward” to join the service.
He added: “We had people from different ethnic backgrounds, we had many female officers coming forward, and one officer who is 57 years old, which is quite remarkable.
“To hear during the taking of the oath of office, the references to fundamental human rights, to equality and diversity, which has been a change in the oath of office taken by police constables, I think was very inspiring.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here