Police Scotland is not accountable to the public. That must change

Without a hint of irony or nod to the firestorm it had hitherto neglected to be bothered about for years, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) finally conceded: “Raising this issue (of sex and gender) at our September Board meeting will provide an opportunity to seek public assurance and clarification that the approach and recording policy is both reasonable and lawful.” Better late than never I suppose.

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And then it came; in a carefully choreographed delivery of pre-prepared lines the Chief Constable stepped up to reassure us it was all a storm in a teacup and of course male sex offenders would be recorded as men. They always had been and always will be. That was it. Job done. Nothing to see - move along please.

But in what was a highly unusual, and long overdue series of questions and observations from board member Katharina Kasper, the gloss was soon knocked off the spin as inconsistency after inconsistency was pointed out. Ms Kasper’s questioning revealed far more than the words that came out of her mouth, for her delivery and forensic questioning belied an anger and frustration that it appears had been building for some time. The Chief was not going to be drawn on “hypotheticals” but reviews would be undertaken; women’s groups - previously ranked alongside witches and heretics - would be engaged with, and reports would follow. Now can we move along please?

Just 24 hours earlier I had been invited into the debating chamber of the Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar in Stornoway where I heard councillor after councillor talk of the real daily challenges their constituents faced; each one in some way shape or form linked to the decline in the policing presence across the Hebrides. Anti-social behaviour and violence on the rise, police responses on the fall. Constituents phoning councillors as trying to phone the police was a waste of time. As an illustration of the reality of policing decisions, it was a million miles removed from the corporate spin that would be put upon performance reporting just 24 hours later. And the most depressing aspect of it all was not that there wasn’t a senior police officer there to hear their concerns (but there wasn’t), it was the resigned acceptance that this was just how it was and would be.

One of the biggest weaknesses with the SPA is the absence of any democratically elected representation holding the police to account. This is not some fluffy ideal but strikes at the very heart of police legitimacy in the context of a police by consent model. Another is that there is no explicit statutory duty on the SPA to act in the public interest. This fundamentally changes police governance to largely being administrative and managerial rather than inquisitorial and if need be adversarial too. This is great news for the civil service but not so much for the rest of us.

Oversight of Police Scotland is generally regarded as weak (Image: PA)

There is little doubt that across the political spectrum there is a consensus police oversight is weak and as such agreement on the need to change should be easy to achieve. The same is true across so many areas of our public services where the quango model effectively prevents oversight bodies from speaking in the public interest. No one really wants public boards constantly bleating about the realities of the challenges they face or what it means for the public. But we do want and need the ability for such bodies to be able to speak freely when the need arises, and if for no other reason to show they aren’t completely detached from reality.

Chief Constable(s) do not like to be quizzed on their performance: they much prefer to report on the things they do well and gloss over the things they don’t. Former police boards were as capable of being manipulated as the SPA is but the one thing they always had was the propensity for a left-field low bowler which would test if the chief had a real understanding of what were real concerns for real people. Those things simply cannot happen now.

The best time to secure a commitment to change is at a time of political upheaval, and by any stretch of interpretation we have that just now. The managerial class has had its day and whilst we shouldn’t discard some of the good they have brought its long past the time to fundamentally reassess how our public services and institutions are scrutinised, and crucially advocated for.

Western Isles councillors are now leading that charge. They agreed to start the slow campaign work to build alliances with counterparts across Scotland to get their voice back in police oversight. But they have to be bolder than just seeking a return to the past, they should look to truly transform the governance framework to make policing about people and not just process once again. We can’t continue to tolerate police leadership and oversight that is structurally and emotionally removed from the realities of their decision making on the lives of millions of Scots. If nothing else last week’s episode showed the need for that.

Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations