The right thing to do?

[peopleblog01123]

This week saw the Scottish Government publish its first legislative agenda since the election in May, of which the item that got the most attention was the proposal to merge Scotland's eight police forces into one single national force. Because the SNP now has an overall majority, there seems to be very little that can stop this now, in spite of the objections that have been raised. One of the major worries is the impact that a single force might have on local policing, especially in rural areas. Of course, one can point to the fact that Ireland, a country similar in both area and population, has a single national police force, the Garda Síochána, and they seem to do quite well on the local policing front. However, Ireland has no history at all of the type of territorial police forces present in the United Kingdom, and so has developed and evolved its one size fits all type of force over the course of the history of policing in Ireland (which dates from the first half ofthe 19th century). Because Scotland has eight territorial police forces, they have evolved to take into account the distinct regional variations of the areas they are responsible for - policing the mean streets of the East End of Glasgow with Strathclyde Police is different to being a lone constable looking after a number of small villages in the Highlands with the Northern Constabulary. There is also the worry that moving to a single force, seen (perhaps rightly) as a cost saving, would then see resources that are spread between the existing forces relatively equally concentrated in areas that perhaps shout the loudest (Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Central Belt) to the detriment of other areas. These to me seem valid points, and were ones that led to proposed police mergers in England and Wales being dropped by the previous Labour government in 2007. But there is another suggestion that causes me the most concern about the Scottish plan, and that is that the creation of a national police force for Scotland (as well as a national fire service) is an attempt by the SNP to soften opinion in Scotland prior to a referendum on independence. It is noticable that the SNP have said they will announce a referendum towards the end of this parliamentary term; opinion polling still has a majority in Scotland in favour of remaining within the Union, and so the SNP will be doing all it can to persuade people to vote for independence. But using reform of public services to do this is a heinous thing to do. Reform should be to get the best out of the resource, not to achieve political ambition.

"Scottish police constabularies to be combined into single force"
"A Scotland-wide police force will save money - but will it work?"
"A single Scottish police force: paving the way to independence?"
"Scottish council bosses warn against creating single police force"