Police Scotland is supporting our policing response for communities following a highly demanding summer period
Police Scotland is supporting our policing response for communities following a highly demanding summer period.
Over 200 officers have been re-deployed to local policing and new arrangements introduced within Police Scotland’s Contact, Command and Control (C3) Division which are designed to increase uptake of overtime.
The measures follow a busy first half of 2021-22, during which reported crime returned to pre-lockdown levels in a number of categories, while additional and complex demand with an online element continued to grow.
The changing needs of our communities as we emerge from coronavirus restrictions is outlined in Police Scotland’s Q2 Performance Report, which includes information covering the period between April and September.
Deputy Chief Constable Fiona Taylor said: “As has been publicly underlined by the Chief Constable, the summer period presented an exceptional level of demand on officers and staff, including displaced demand from key partners who continue to operate under critical pressure.
“The demand and challenges experienced in our Contact, Command and Control (C3) Division has led to increased 101 average answer times as we continue to prioritise emergency 999 calls.
“We have introduced changes to overtime payments for service centre staff as part of a range of measures to manage the ongoing high demand on our non-emergency 101 service. We anticipate these changes will increase uptake of overtime and further support our ability to manage peaks in demand.
“Additionally, we are taking steps to support local policing and, by way of example, Flexible Response Unit officers have returned to their local policing divisions for the foreseeable future.”
Reports of overall violent crime between April and September (32,328) are in line with the five year average (down 0.1%) but significantly higher than last year’s figure (30,538) when there had been substantial reductions in such offences.
This has been driven by a significant rise in reports of common assault (29,500 in total, up from 27,682) compared to last year, with the re-opening of licenced premises and more large gatherings contributing to the increase.
Overall sexual crime continues to be recorded at a high level with 7,519 reported in the first two quarters of 2021-22, up 13.4% year on year (6,629) and up 17.3% on the five year average.
The Performance Report also describes how recorded crime for crime types that typically contain an ‘online element’ – fraud, threats and extortion, communications and image offences, and stalking – have increased by over 60% since 2018-19.
The report also outlines concerns raised by members of the public through our Your Police Survey which received 1,308 responses during Q2 (1 July- 30 September) including the experiences of women and the harm caused by drugs.
It describes some of the work we are undertaking in relation to these matters, including our ThatGuy sexual offending prevention campaign and the test of change during which almost 650 officers volunteered to carry Naloxone which can save lives where someone has overdosed.
The report also outlines a number of operations to disrupt the activities of organised criminals operating within Scotland during which large quantities of illegal drugs were seized throughout July, August and September.
The Performance Report is published today and will be presented to the Scottish Police Authority Policing Performance Committee on Thursday, 9 December. Associated Management Information is available on Police Scotland’s website.
You can view the information here: https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/our-performance/
