Evaluation of police and fire reform year 4: summary of evidence

Introduction

This report provides a summary of evidence referring to police and fire reform in Scotland published during 2018 and that are in the public domain. This forms part of a four year evaluation commissioned by the Scottish Government, examining whether the aims of police and fire reform have been met and considering what lessons might be learnt for any future public service reforms.

This is the fourth Summary of Evidence produced as part of the evaluation and collectively these documents provide a unique collation of the published evidence relating to police and fire reform in Scotland. In particular, these summaries offer an accessible and comprehensive compendium of materials that form the evidence-base for reform that can be used to understand the nature, impact and implications of reform from multiple perspectives.

As with the previous reports, this report provides a summary of how the documentary evidence relates to each of the three aims of reform. This latest summary of evidence highlights that progress is being made towards the aims of reform, evidenced in reports published in 2018 by the services as well as HMICS (HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland), HMFSI (HM Fire Service Inspectorate), the SPA (Scottish Police Authority), Audit Scotland and academics. As well as demonstrating progress towards meeting the aims of reform and their journey into transformation, additional themes are also drawn out of the evidence, including training, vulnerability, ICT and the widening role of firefighters.

A summary of evidence has been produced in each year of the evaluation and the number of published documents relating to reform has decreased each year. In year 1 of the evaluation there were 58 documents, in year 2 there were 43, year 3 included 23 reports and for year 4 of the evaluation (2018) there were 19 reports (12 relating to police, 6 fire and 1 referring to both). These reports were collated through consultation with Police Scotland, SFRS, SPA, HMICS, HMFSI and Audit Scotland, as well as internet searches for relevant evidence.

The evidence review for Year 1 was published in June 2016 and consisted of publicly available evidence produced to the end of November 2015^[1].

The evidence review for Year 2 was published in August 2017 and presented evidence from between November 2015 and December 2016^[2].

The summary of evidence for Year 3 was published in May 2018 and presented evidence from 2017^[3].