Scottish Government

"The Scottish police service represents public expenditure of around £1 billion per annum and it is important that it demonstrates value for money"
HMIC ANNUAL REPORT 2004/2005

Chapter Four Finance & Resources

Distribution of Police Grant Aided Expenditure ( GAE)

Each year, Scottish Ministers determine a total for Police Grant Aided Expenditure ( GAE) to be made available to police authorities in Scotland. Police authorities set the budgets for their respective forces and those budgets may be set at, above or below GAE. Scottish Ministers provide police grant of 51% of the net eligible expenditure incurred by forces up to the GAE level. The constituent local authorities provide the balance. If net expenditure exceeds GAE the constituent local authorities meet in full the costs incurred over and above GAE. Police authorities spend up to, but not above GAE levels. In 2004/05 the level of police GAE for Scotland was set at £938.9 million. Around 90% of revenue expenditure is spent on staff costs, including pensions. The remainder is used for property costs, supplies and services, transport and other goods and services.

In order to provide the best services available to the community, over recent years police authorities have recognised the advantage of spending up to GAE level and realising the maximum grant available. Some local authorities provided additional funding in respect of specific initiatives e.g. City of Edinburgh has paid for Youth Action Teams supplied by Lothian and Borders Police.

In another example of funding additional service, a Housing Association in the east end of Glasgow have been paying a subsidy to "hire" officers for additional overtime patrols at identified busy times of the week, with the cost being shared equally across the community.

It was previously recognised that inbalances existed in the distribution of Grant Aided Expenditure and a Police GAE working group was established. The final report of this group was published by Scottish Ministers in October 2004. The working group recommended a new allocation methodology for police GAE which aims to ensure that the way police funding is distributed is linked much more directly to the cost of policing each force. The new model is much more explicit and transparent and takes into account a range of factors including the population in each area, deprivation and the demands on forces. The first part of the implementation of this methodology involves "levelling up" the funding allocations for forces rather than redistributing existing funding so that no force will have its allocation cut. Ministers have committed significant extra sums towards levelling up funding between the forces over the next 3 years, £1 million in 2005/06, £4 million in 2006/07 and £11 million in 2007/08. Provision is also in place to allow the balance for levelling up, estimated at £4.5 million to be found by 2009/10, subject to the next Spending Review.

In addition to GAE, the Scottish Executive made the following additional amounts available for policing in Scotland in 2004/05:

• £34.7 million for capital expenditure
• £72.3 million for a range of specific policing initiatives or programmes, as a contribution to bodies which provide direct support to the Scottish police service or to meet new or exceptional pressures incurred by police forces during the year, including for example:
• £5.9 million for Ports Policing
• £5.5 million for the National Criminal Intelligence Service
• £1.5 million for Automatic Number Plate Recognition
• £1 million for Financial Investigators
• £420,000 for Restorative Justice initiatives
• £300,000 to support mountain rescue teams
• £31.5 million was also provided for the costs of Common Police Services.

The allocation of resources and shift patterns is always a difficult management area to reconcile across forces, particularly with the political, community and operational responsibilities that are currently impacting upon front line officers. During the fiscal year just past HMIC noted a number of innovative attempts to reconcile the work/life balance and the demands of modern policing with the introduction of alternative resource allocation methods, with both Lothian and Borders and Strathclyde to the fore in attempting to address these issues.

In order to ensure an equitable distribution of personnel throughout the force area, Strathclyde Police undertook a review of resource allocation, which reported in January 2002.

The key issues of relevance were to:

• identify and quantify the core policing functions to be undertaken
• ensure so far as possible that the approach to allocation is not open to manipulation
• minimise "top-slicing" of resources to give commanders freedom to manage
• ensure that the allocation process is an integral part of the strategic management of the force
• conduct regular review to ensure ongoing relevancy.

As a result, the force has devised a Resource Allocation Model which provides a formula for deployment of personnel across the force. This is being implemented, with a gradual realignment of staff numbers through selective allocation of new recruits and officers on transfer. In addition to providing transparency where none previously existed, the research also identified areas for further development, including management information and visibility issues.

In the Primary Inspection of Strathclyde Police in 2004 HMIC viewed the introduction of transparent criteria for resource allocation and deployment as good practice.

HMIC recognises that no single shift system will be capable of meeting the needs of every community throughout a force.

HMIC recommends that the force enters into early dialogue with staff

associations and develops options to amend or replace existing shift systems.

HMIC recommends that in developing options to amend or replace existing shift systems, the force takes cognisance of the welfare of officers attending court after a scheduled night shift tour of duty.

HMIC recommends that the force review the approaches taken to staff redeployment, recruitment and estimating demand with appropriate level of resources in future major change management projects.

Best Value

Under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003, police authorities now have a statutory duty to make arrangements which secure Best Value in the performance of the authority's functions. In pursuing this agenda police authorities need to work in tandem with chief constables who are, of course, responsible for the deployment of police officers within their force.

All forces are committed to Best Value and this is highlighted by ACPOS through its Best Value Sub Committee. Police authorities actively participate in the Best Value review process within forces and efficiency benefits are fed into the ACPOS annual report on Best Value.

HMIC continues to scrutinise Best Value as part of its programme of inspections. Along with Audit Scotland and the Scottish Executive's Audit and Accountancy Service it considers all aspects of financial and resource management within its inspection of forces and common police services. Audit Scotland has, of course, substantially developed its methodology in its scrutiny of Best Value and Community Planning in local authorities and, during the year, a number of its published reports demonstrated the range and depth of its work.

The existing joint working arrangements between the Accounts Commission and HMIC will need to be reviewed to take account of the powers now available to them under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003. Both HMIC and the Accounts Commission believe there will continue to be significant value in a co-ordinated approach to audit and inspection in the police service, making best use of the skills and expertise available and providing rounded assessments of the performance of police authorities in relation to Best Value. Accordingly HMIC is actively pursuing agreement in this area with a view to a new joint scrutiny arrangement being applied during its inspection programme in the forthcoming year.

Review of Common Police Services

The current review of common police services emanated from a review of the number of Scottish police forces in the late 1990s, which although recommending that the number of forces remain at eight, recognised that efficiencies could be secured by bringing together and extending the range of common police services. Thereafter, initial work was progressed to examine the scope for efficiencies.

The existing common police services have evolved in an ad hoc way, without a common framework, with no clear legal identity and with no authority to employ their own staff directly or to enter into contracts on their behalf. These factors have inhibited their ability to develop and there is a recognised need to modernise to ensure the continued provision of an excellent level of service to the Scottish police service. This requires legislation to put them on a statutory basis and to provide a robust and transparent system of accountability with clear oversight arrangements. The new structure will bring the common police services together into a single organisation to address the above matters, potentially secure efficiencies and form a platform to add further services in the future.

Work has been taken forward to establish a structure which will streamline the delivery of the existing common police services in a new single organisation. It is also intended that the four existing forensic laboratories will be brought together as the Scottish Forensic Science Service and, once established, will come under control of the new authority.

This work is being progressed through the Common Police Services Programme Board, which has held regular meetings since its inception in April 2004. The remit of the Board is, broadly, to provide high level strategic oversight of the existing common services, drive forward and identify the best long term solution for future structures and identify potential additional common police services.

In establishing the new statutory organisation, much of the work will be carried out through various work streams and there now exist Financial and Physical Resources and Human Resources Sub-committees, as well as a Forensic Science Programme Board, to take forward work in that area.

In February of 2004, a consultation document, "Supporting Police, Protecting Communities: Proposals for Legislation" was published detailing Ministers' proposals on the new authority. The consultation process concluded in May of this year and Ministers plan to introduce a Police Bill in the autumn.

Police Witnesses at Court

In the review inspection of Lothian and Borders Police published in January 2005 HMIC commented on the survey "Silent Witness" in respect of police witnesses' attendance at court. HMIC notes that following the survey the force took positive action to reduce the time spent by police officers at court.

In a pilot project initially applied to the City of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Sheriff Court summary trials only, 2 police officers were identified as "Court Standby Officers" and deployed to Edinburgh Sheriff Court. The Procurator Fiscal's Office also provided a support member of staff to assist in court with the liaison between the police and the Procurator Fiscal Deputes. These individuals worked closely with the Deputes in order to ensure that officers attended court when required and within the agreed timescales (20 or 30 minutes depending on the officer's station). Each officer on standby reported to the Standby Officers on the morning of their appointed court date, leaving contact details, and thereafter remained on standby within their respective stations until summoned to give evidence or countermanded. On a police officer being requested to attend at court they made their way there immediately.

The scheme has proved very successful. Over the initial 4 month trial period, 2,700 personnel hours were saved by preventing officers from unnecessarily travelling to and from court and reducing actual time spent at court. This meant a saving of £45,000 for the local division. If applied across a full year this would save approximately £140,000. The average daily attendance of police staff to the court also reduced dramatically, from 37 per day to 10 per day. As a result, the scheme was adopted as divisional practice.

On 1st June 2004 officers who work in the city within Operational Support and the CID joined the scheme and preliminary discussions have taken place with the Procurator Fiscal Service with a view to extending its remit to include Edinburgh District Court. The division covering East/Mid Lothian intend to implement a similar system with regard to their courts and other Scottish forces have expressed interest in the project.

Initial discussions have taken place into the possibility of having officers on standby whilst performing operational street duties. It may prove possible to run a limited pilot scheme in this regard at some point in the future.

Over the recent past there has been considerable work done to reduce the non productive time spent by police officers attending court and although improvements have been made the search for greater efficiency needs to continue and it is important that this area is kept under formal review.

HMIC looks forward to the result of this project and to examining the efficiency saving benefits accrued.

Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act came into effect on 1 January 2005 and, prior to and immediately after, HMIC has been assessing the Scottish police service's preparedness for the Act during primary and review inspections.

The Act gives a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities, sets out exemptions from that right and places a number of related obligations on public authorities including publication schemes and records management.

All forces have in place an appointed Information Security Officer ( ISO), who has responsibility for all Freedom of Information and Data Protection issues. The ACPOS Freedom of Information Practitioners Group ensures that forces remain aware of and are involved in national developments within the Scottish police service.

Policies and guidance documents have been created to ensure staff are aware of their roles and responsibilities. These include Protective Marking; Freedom of Information; Data Protection; as well as Data Security and Information Technology issues.

The number of requests and questions directed to the Scottish forces and central services for the first three months since the implementation of the Act in January 2005 are set out in the table below.

HMIC has received five requests in that period, three of which referred to statistics held, while the remaining two were "Subject Access Requests" under the Data Protection Act in respect of individual complaint files.

It is far too early in the process to determine what the overall impact will be on the police service in Scotland; however, HMIC will monitor the situation with a view to providing a full update in next year's report.