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All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
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Displaying 1025 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I have a quick question about forensic services—and this time, it is your submission that I am reading from. It says:
“the prevalence of drug driving in Scotland is a significant concern for policing and has far exceeded predictions when the legislation was introduced.”
I imagine that that means that costs have been much more than was thought, which ties in with Liam Kerr’s question to the previous panel whether, in legislation, we are budgeting properly for the actual costs when things go live. Can you tell us a bit more about demand in that respect?
Your submission also mentions
“the impact on the demand for drug driving toxicology services.”
Are you finding it easy to recruit to those positions, or is there a skills gap?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
It is just that I am looking at the rolling replacement programme, and I note that it covers a lot of safety things such as body armour, firearms and supporting Taser capability as well as forensic services replacement. There are a lot of things in it.
12:00Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
That would be interesting. You mentioned police officers doing jobs that civilians could do. Civilians used to do those jobs, but we have put police into those roles as things have changed, so it would be interesting to see the fluctuation in civilian staff.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Following the same line of questioning, Chief Constable Farrell’s opening statement referred to fluctuations in staff numbers through recruitment and leavers. Can you tell us the current predictions for police officers and police staff numbers in the coming year? What number are you recruiting towards?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Can the training be done in-house, or do people need to go on college and university courses?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I have a quick question about body-worn videos. Are you aware of the current situation with the roll-out in that respect, and are you happy that enough is being done to roll it out at pace?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
Does the budget contain the full cost of training all police officers on the procedures and implementing the infrastructure in all the stations?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I have a quick question that goes back to inefficiencies. Earlier on, James Gray mentioned the estate being too big and inefficient. He also mentioned a station that had custody suites that were not being used. I am wondering whether there are things that have been cut in the past due to budget constraints and in an effort to make efficiencies, but which have proved not to be cost effective and perhaps need to be reversed—except you do not have the budget for that.
I am thinking about custody suites, because I have spoken to officers who have said that they used to be able to go in, process a prisoner and be back out and operational within an hour. However, they might now spend a full shift having to drive around trying to find a custody suite that might end up being in another locality. Is that an efficient use of police time? Would you like to reverse that and open up more custody suites?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
I also want to ask about the body-worn video camera programme. It was due to have been rolled out already, but it is now due to begin rolling out in spring next year. Can you guarantee that that will happen, regardless of the budgetary position, and that all the relevant officers who need a device will be provided with one? Is that programme still on course to roll out on time?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Sharon Dowey
So it might show that you are recruiting to 16,600 but you actually need 17,000, or whatever. It will show the variations.