Keeping Scotland Safe and Strong - A Consultation on Reforming Police and Fire and Rescue Services in Scotland: Analysis of Consultation Responses

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the police and fire and rescue services in Scotland deliver against several of the National Outcomes by focusing on the frontline. Progress has been good in recent years with recorded crime at its lowest level in 35 years and the number of fire related deaths and injuries steadily reducing^[4].

1.2 Severe financial challenges facing the public sector along with new threats to safety have led to debate over how to secure such frontline policing and fire and rescue services in a financially sustainable way. Two written consultation exercises^[5] were run by the Scottish Government between February and May 2011 which proposed options for reform. These were followed by extensive engagement with stakeholders across Scotland about the future of the Scottish Police and Fire and Rescue Services.

1.3 The Government has introduced legislation which will create a single Scottish Police Service and a single Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. To inform the development of the legislation, a further written consultation paper^[6], "Keeping Scotland Safe and Strong: A Consultation on Reforming Police and Fire and Rescue Services in Scotland", was published on 8 September 2011 which set out proposals for how best to establish these single services. Comments were invited by 2 November 2011 to help shape the final proposals and related legislation.

1.4 145 written responses to the consultation were submitted. These responses have been made publicly available on the Scottish Government website^[7] unless the respondent has specifically requested otherwise.

1.5 The consultation document was divided into 2 parts. Part 1 focused on police service reform and posed 12 questions on this topic; Part 2 focused on fire and rescue service reform, asking another 14 questions. Views were also invited on the partial Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) and the partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) undertaken as part of the proposals for reform.

Responses

1.6 145 responses to the consultation were submitted and analysed. Whilst responses from police bodies (e.g. police forces, Police Authorities/Joint Boards) and fire bodies (e.g. Fire and Rescue Services, Fire and Rescue Authorities/Joint Boards) tended to address the questions relating to police or fire respectively, local authorities and many individual respondents addressed topics on both police and fire and rescue issues. The presentation of the analysis of the comments submitted to the consultation follows the order of the questions set out in the consultation document.

Respondents

1.7 115 responses (79%) were submitted by organisations, with 30 (21%) submissions from individuals. Table 1 shows the numbers of responses by category of respondent. The list of the organisations responding to the consultation is in Annex 1.

1.8 A wide range of organisations responded including both police and fire bodies, the voluntary sector, national and local partnerships and other entities. 26 local authorities submitted responses representing 18% of the overall submissions.

Table 1: Respondents by category

1.9 Table 2 overleaf shows the area from which submissions originated. Almost one-third (30%) of submissions were from national bodies; 19% were from individuals and organisations located in Strathclyde; 13% of responses originated in Grampian.

Table 2: Respondents by geographical area

*Does not add to 100% due to rounding.

Method of analysis

1.10 An electronic database was used to collate the responses to assist analysis. This database stored free text in a systematic manner whilst providing the flexibility for amendments as the work progressed. The fields used to record the material were based on questions used in the consultation document.

1.11 A qualitative approach to the analysis of responses has been taken on account of the open-ended nature of the questions posed. Quantification of support for, or opposition against, proposals has been attempted where respondents indicated this clearly. However, numbers should be regarded as indicative rather than absolute, as no assumption can be made about the views of those who provided commentary without stating specifically where the balance of their views lay. Although the consultation invited all interested parties to comment, the views documented are those of the consultation respondents and cannot be extrapolated to the wider Scottish population.

1.12 The following 15 chapters document the substance of the analysis, presenting the main issues, arguments and recommendations contained in the responses. As seen in the Executive Summary, several issues cut across both police and fire and rescue reform, but in the interests of transparency the responses relating to the different services have been analysed and presented separately in the main body of this report. Part 1 (chapters 2 - 8) focuses on police reform; Part 2 (chapters 9 - 16) is dedicated to the questions on fire and rescue reform. Finally, responses to the partial EQIA and partial BRIA are outlined in Annexes 2 and 3).