Given the controversies, both real and imagined, around Police Scotland, the public meetings of its watchdog should be a riveting spectacle of accountability in action. Unfortunately, it is rarely the case that they are. Questions of senior police officers are rarely challenging and civilian members can appear awed by the office of chief constable.
The Scottish Police Authority (SPA), which meets today in Stirling, has been changing its membership amid concerns about appropriate skill sets. The SPA will have one more vacancy. One of its long-standing members, Moi Ali, has resigned after being sidelined by chairman Andrew Flannigan, because, she says, she publicly criticised the board’s habit of meeting behind closed doors.
“If dissent is only allowed privately,” Ms Ali told The Herald, “then I think decision-making becomes shrouded in a kind of fog.” The SPA, like the regional boards it replaced, has met both in private and in public (with the latter broadcast live online). Few of its members have asked tough questions at such open forums.
Thorny issues, whisper some insiders, were raised when members met without the presence of reporters. The failure of the board to impose financial discipline on the force suggests such tough interventions, if they did take place, were not as effective as they might have been.
The biggest issue in the short history of the single force has been its failure to make ends meet. It was the SPA’s job to make sure that it succeeded in doing so but this has not happened. The number of public meetings of the SPA and its subcommittees has reduced.
Papers are now published on the day of meetings not, as previous convention dictated, in advance. Of course, as this is policing, there will always be sensitive matters that cannot be discussed in front of TV cameras. But should these include, for example, forensic analysis of hard financial numbers?
Police Scotland and its chief officers have faced tough and sometimes politically partisan public questions, but from MSPs at Holyrood, rarely their own board members. Some have been heard to refer to the police as “us”.
There are those who believe that the SPA is less effective than the old boards, which were made up of local councillors, at scrutinising the police. It is not so straightforward. The old boards and authorities were often weak, with members focused on narrow local issues and lacking expertise to ask difficult questions.
Some of the most effective members of the SPA are, or have been, councillors. But there has been a lack of knowledge and expertise among members on key issues, including finance and the nuts and bolts of law and order.
This has been acknowledged. New members have been drafted in. They, and whomever replaces Ms Ali, need to demonstrate that they can hold the national force to account. They should do this in public, unless there are compelling reasons for meetings in camera.
The SPA has been criticised as toothless. It should show its teeth and it should do this in front of the online TV cameras which at present are rolling with few people watching.
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