Appendix C Stakeholder questionnaire
Response analysis
Stakeholder Survey Responses: Summary of Main Issues
This summary reports the views of key stakeholders and working partners of policing in Scotland, including those in local authorities, the criminal justice system, health boards, and the emergency services. In total, just over 100 organisations were approached to take part in the survey, forty-one of whom provided written responses.
The consultation posed a series of questions which were designed to elicit stakeholder views on the following issues: their current operating context; their strategic outlook; service delivery issues for policing; local policing issues; standards; and governance. Whilst in many cases organisations did not elect to answer every question, taken as a whole the responses provide a broad overview of stakeholders' experiences, expectations and knowledge of interaction with policing.
Although individual stakeholder responses frequently highlighted a range of specific issues relating to their own delivery concerns, it was also possible to identify a number of broad, common issues and experiences. This brief summary draws together these main themes and outlines the findings.
What do you perceive are the key issues affecting your service to the public at present?
According to 33 per cent of the 36 stakeholders opting to respond to this question, the key issue affecting current service delivery is the need for effective co-ordination and working communications within and between organisations. Where partnerships were held to be positive, stakeholders widely acknowledged the achievements made in terms of fostering close strategic and operational relationships:
The development of a shared agenda has in our view contributed greatly to a more effective and 'joined up' approach.
West Dunbartonshire Council
Furthermore, in light of previous constructive experiences, respondents welcomed the prospect of adopting further measures to ensure an integrated working environment:
…the opportunity to strengthen and enhance partnership working should, we believe, be an underlying principle for all future activity.
East Ayrshire Council
However, as a result of the increasing demands upon agencies to work together through a wide variety of structural and partnership arrangements, attention was also drawn to the lack of clarity over roles and targets and in ten cases (30 per cent), the need to enhance and to promote greater coherence in partnership working. As one organisation commented:
The critical importance of ensuring that referral mechanisms from the police service, our largest stakeholder, remain strong and robust and where possible enhanced…. Victim Support Scotland believe that the current level of referrals from the Scottish police service could be more than doubled over the next three years through more effective referral arrangements.
Victim Support Scotland
Twenty-two per cent of respondents also emphasised the need to maintain effective intelligence and risk assessment when dealing with offender management in the community. Stakeholders considered it necessary to ensure that any data-sharing processes between partner organisations are adequately set up; enabling efficient management and helping to enhance public confidence in the criminal justice system.
In addition to issues of communication, a range of economic, environmental and practical issues were also identified, including: financial pressures and a lack of resources (14 per cent); increasing migration and community diversity (11 per cent); and planning within the context of Single Outcome Agreements (14 per cent). These key issues also arose in respect of stakeholder concerns about future impacts upon policing in Scotland and are thus outlined in the following section.
What aspects, if any, of your planned development are likely or ought to have an influence on policing in Scotland over the next 5 years? Do you anticipate that any changes in the environment in which you operate are likely to influence policing?
Thirty stakeholder organisations considered the key issues likely to influence policing over the next five years. A range of planned/environmental changes were identified as influential, with stakeholders each anticipating an average of five concerns. Taken together, these concerns can be broadly summarised under the following three themes:
- Political and community tensions ( e.g. terrorist threats) and environmental hazards ( e.g. floods).
- Budgetary constraints and an uncertain financial situation.
- Changing public service working environments arising from community planning partnerships and Single Outcome Agreements.
In the first instance, 14 stakeholders (47 per cent) perceived that community and environmental factors were likely to impact upon their practices and planned developments. As a result of these acknowledged difficulties, respondents highlighted the importance of greater integrated emergency response planning and management. Stakeholders further suggested there is a need for greater emphasis on risk assessment through partnership working, joint processes, and systems:
The development of operating protocols and response procedures regarding terrorist events and the effects of climate change …impact on emergency and council services alike.
Fife Council
Linked to this demand on resources was a general consensus that budgetary constraints and an increasingly uncertain financial environment would create difficulties for future planned developments. Eight stakeholders indicated that a reduction in funding capabilities could also impact upon partnership working arrangements:
If, as envisaged, budgets remain tight this may lead to some services being cut or restricted and therefore may impact of joint working with the partners.
Midlothian Council
Specifically, stakeholders drew attention to the increased focus on managing offenders in the community and the additional burden placed on organisations by the introduction of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements ( MAPPA). The commitment of time and resources needed to help manage and monitor higher numbers of offenders in the community was considered to be an important issue for all organisations. One respondent questioned what steps had been taken to address this problem:
…how can all agencies work in a more streamlined and effective way to make such a change feasible within current resources?
Scottish Prison Service
A further area of concern noted by 12 of the 30 stakeholders (40 per cent) was some of the effects of community planning partnerships and joint challenges arising from the introduction of SOAs. The following quotations typify stakeholder responses:
Single Outcome Agreements will become increasingly influential across the entire public sector. Their focus upon areas that require improvement will necessitate an alignment of the activities and policies of public bodies. This will have major implications for policing in Scotland, as well as the relationships between the police and other bodies.
Solace
The development of the Single Outcome Agreement and its roll out to all Community Planning Partners as the key strategic policy document setting overall strategic targets and direction is likely to be the single most significant influence on Stirling Council, policing, and indeed all local public service delivery.
Stirling Council
It was anticipated that SOAs will influence the environment in which all local services are developed and delivered, with consequences for the way performance is managed and reported. It was further acknowledged that these Agreements may have a positive impact on the working environment, allowing organisations to build upon existing good practice in relation to partnership working. Indeed, common to each of the issues identified by stakeholder organisations was a perceived need for the continuation and enhancement of communication, information-sharing and partnership working between the police and its partner agencies. Respondents frequently emphasised the importance of establishing effective multi-agency working to help determine the success of initiatives, and to enable partners to achieve challenging national outcomes, indicators and targets:
The issue of more effective partnership working across all public sector agencies will impact on …issues of greater joint working, governance and information sharing.
Aberdeenshire Council
The challenges to policing are similar to the challenges faced by all community planning partners - utilising resources available to us through working with organisations across Scotland to benefit from specialist knowledge, facilities etc … and ensuring that we connect locally with our communities to make sure services are responsive and accountable.
Fife Council
What do you see as the important issues affecting police service delivery?
In general, the responses provided in answer to this question could be closely aligned with those given in answer to the previous two questions. That is, stakeholders tended to perceive that their current and anticipated planned developments/changes would also affect police service delivery.
In addition to those issues highlighted in the previous section, 32 per cent of all stakeholder respondents perceived a key issue affecting police service delivery to be the need to increase the numbers of visible and approachable police officers.
The need for a visible police presence is fundamental to the success of community policing and public reassurance.
City of Edinburgh
There was a generally held view that the high demands on policing services have resulted in a lack of high visibility patrolling within local communities. This has only served to enhance public concerns about rising levels of crime. As such, stakeholders suggested that increasing a notable police presence and active engagement with members of the community would act as a means of alleviating public perceptions of crime: providing reassurance and promoting realistic understanding.
Any potential of the police service having reduced capacity to engage in local crime and anti-social behaviour preventative initiatives is a concern. Continuation of the operational strategies by the police relating to public reassurance, response policing and engaging criminality is important.
East Renfrewshire Council
Three stakeholders drew specific attention to the importance of fostering links with key community groups, such as young people, in order to help break down barriers and misunderstandings about the police, and to encourage the reporting of crime and anti-social behaviour. Drawing upon a recent consultation exercise, one organisation commented:
Young people want more visible policing, but they want the police to be trained to be friendly and accessible to them…it would help address young people's concerns if …relationship building was valued more highly.
Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People
An additional related area of concern noted by 11 stakeholders was public perceptions of risk, and in particular, children's protection services and offender management in the community. Both aspects of service delivery were held to be crucial in determining confidence in public services, however, as highlighted elsewhere in this report, concerns remained over the practical implications of effectively managing these services where interventions, such as MAPPA, remain so resource intensive.
The police, no less than other services, are at risk of having unrealistic expectations thrust upon them in respect of public protection unless adequate resources are allocated to address them.
West Dunbartonshire Council
Overall, there was a consensus among stakeholders for the need to ensure a balance between building community confidence/meeting expectations at a local level and ensuring that the police can deal with pressures to deliver wider national objectives.
Are there any broad principles which might help to determine what aspects of policing need to be concentrated at each of the three broad levels of organisation?
Do you believe that all Scottish police forces are currently able to respond to broader strategic issues that impact on communities but may not have manifested themselves in specific incidents or reports to local police?
Examination of the 30 responses to this question indicated that there was a lack of consensus regarding the specific principles necessary to determine aspects of policing at each of the three levels of organisation. Rather, respondents implied that co-operation and co-ordination were of greater importance than an '…inflexible delineation of functions to different levels' (Solace). Indeed, eight of the 30 (27 per cent) stakeholders perceived that when seeking to determine policing priorities, organisational structures should not be a primary concern. The quotations, below, typify such responses:
The notion that clear, rational principles can be identified to underpin the shape of the Scottish public services and that there is a therefore a 'correct' solution or model, is akin to the search for the Holy Grail.
East Lothian Council
It would seem unlikely that possible 'solutions' will reside wholly within one 'level' … the key issue is good communication and co-ordination within and across forces, rather than a rigid delineation of functions being carried out at different levels.
Fife Council
Moreover, it was believed that centralisation of services should not be the main objective in determining resource management and distribution:
It is [not] necessarily helpful, to create lists of what is best managed at what level [this] will of necessity vary depending on the experience and perspective of respondents… Centralising activity does not necessarily promote effective service delivery.
South Lanarkshire Council
Any proposed changes to current policing arrangements should clearly identify the benefits they would bring to local policing. We would be concerned about further centralisation of police services and suggest that the recent centralisation moves need time to establish themselves and demonstrate their benefits or other impact to local police services.
Aberdeen City Council
Nevertheless, there was acknowledgement among seven of the 30 stakeholders (23 per cent) that it would be useful to have some dimensions of policing that could primarily be managed at a 'higher' level, particularly in relation to crimes that are not maintained within geographic boundaries, for example, child protection, human trafficking and serious fraud. However, a caveat to this view was that any management of such resources should not impinge upon local policing activities or deplete existing services. Instead, every attempt should be made to draw upon representatives who have sufficient local knowledge and experience. As two stakeholders explained:
We would support a national approach to serious crime and counter-terrorism, although local agencies should retain some input/linkage to ensure that local dimensions are fully considered.
Scottish Borders Council
Policing activities at a regional and national level need to be informed and advised by local knowledge.
Orkney Community Safety Partnership
It was felt that rather than assigning responsibility to particular levels of policing, encouraging continued co-operation, shared approaches, and multi-agency working may be a more useful way of moving forward. It was also anticipated that this kind of integrated approach could increase effective cross-working and reduce costs.
In relation to how forces may be able to respond to broader strategic issues, it was generally felt that expertise develops further in some forces than others - primarily due to frequency of occurrence of particular types of offences - and thus there will inevitably be differences in capability to respond to broad strategic issues. For four stakeholders, the importance of ensuring that support is available and accessible to all forces means that, rather than 'levelling down' the capacities of any other forces' resources, attempts should instead be made to increase resources:
Should capacity issues exist… then, the emphasis should be on levelling up rather than dissipating existing capabilities and services to communities.
South Lanarkshire Council
The council values the ability of the police to share expertise across all of the functions of the police to inform all aspects of service delivery. Further, the council recognises that other police forces in Scotland do not carry the range of specialist functions provided through Strathclyde Police, but the solution …is not to diminish those available in Strathclyde.
East Renfrewshire Council
Additionally, the stakeholders suggested that services could usefully be shared between forces:
There are clearly a number of ways in which a strategic perspective can be maintained without moving towards a single national structure. For example, specialist teams who build expertise in particular areas of police work and can support police forces who may not have the capacity or opportunity to develop specialist knowledge.
Aberdeenshire Council
From this perspective, the benefits of enabling shared specialist teams ( e.g. forensic specialists) to respond to incidents where forces do not have existing resources, are increased effective cross-working and a reduction of costs within and between police forces. An additional two respondents felt that drawing upon the support of stakeholders could enable the sharing of resources ( e.g. drug dogs, incident management training, drug testing facilities) between partner organisations and police forces, particularly in areas of risk assessment and training on incident management.
Is it possible for police forces and services to maintain their independence while adopting common minimum standards of service delivery? If so, how might this be achieved?
Seventy-two per cent of the 32 stakeholder organisations who responded to this question welcomed the opportunity for police forces and services to maintain their independence whilst adopting common minimum standards of service delivery. There was a consensus among respondents that there should be 'no conflict' between the concept of establishing and working to national agreed standards, and the ability to maintain autonomy to provide effective local service delivery. As one respondent reasoned:
It ought to be possible to maintain independence for forces whilst delivering to minimum standards. This already happens to a large extent in other parts of the public sector. The Social Work Services require to deliver minimum levels of care but has some flexibility on how to discharge its responsibilities. The Education Service must deliver a national curriculum and a set number of school days but how those are delivered is at the discretion of local officers and elected members.
Angus Council
In terms of how this might best be achieved, ten of the 32 stakeholder organisations (26 per cent) felt that the primary goal would be to ensure that measurements relate clearly and solely to outcomes, rather than methods or processes: thus enabling forces to preserve a level of independence to utilise their knowledge about 'what works' in relation to local priorities, and to implement changes flexibly rather than through rigid uniformity. The following quotations reflect the views of these ten organisations:
Setting standards is essential so service planning and delivery can be measured against a robust definition of service expectations. It is important, however, that local flexibility is retained so that decisions can be made according to local need and local priorities.
City of Edinburgh Council
The way to improve standards across the country is by way of encouraging good practice and consistency rather than imposing rigid uniformity. Common standards of best practice provide an opportunity for benchmarking across the eight forces within a consistent framework. This approach ensures collaborative, informed working in the development of standards but allows local forces flexibility as determined by local priorities informed by risk assessment.
Fife Council
In addition, nine stakeholders believed that an effective means of ensuring standards of service delivery would be to establish sub-committees or working parties with stakeholders, members of the public, and across police forces. It was anticipated that this would provide the police with feedback and facilitate the sharing of good practice and training. There was also a perception that the ability to utilise feedback would enable the evaluation and monitoring of police standards:
An approach based primarily on robust self-evaluation and performance monitoring, complemented by a degree of external inspection, should underpin service standards for all public services.
Solace
Although broadly supportive, nine of the 30 stakeholders (28 per cent) held concerns about the adoption of common minimum standards of service delivery. In particular, these respondents noted that in setting standards, consideration should be given to the need to identify local priorities and constraints which may affect and impact upon how effectively services may be delivered within individual forces.
Additionally, respondents felt that attention would need to be given to the extent to which standards would remain static when faced with constant upward pressure. It was also believed that in devising any common standards of service delivery, consideration must be given to how these standards could be enforced where there is failure.
Do you feel there is any need for the mechanisms of police governance to be reviewed? If so, how might this be achieved?
Is there any other way in which the national role played by ACPOS and the growing importance of partnership working with local authorities and other community planning partners might be accommodated in addition to, or instead of changes to police governance?
Stakeholders provided mixed responses about the need to review mechanisms of police governance. Of the 22 organisations who elected to respond to this question, 50 per cent believed that there was no requirement for a review.
Among this group, responses tended to focus on the fact that the current tripartite system was working effectively at the present time; with mechanisms seemingly robust and receptive to needs:
…the existing mechanisms of police governance are working well … any review must be based on ensuring that the key principles of local accountability, policing by consent and the tripartite approach are retained.
South Lanarkshire Council
Nevertheless, despite a positive appraisal of current police governance, it was generally felt that continued work on accountability and further clarity over operational matters would be welcomed. In particular, it was perceived that assessments of the current system would help to highlight any flaws or issues. As two stakeholder organisations reflected:
There may be merit in improving clarity of what is an operational matter and therefore what lies within the responsibility of the Chief Constable.
South Lanarkshire Council
A restatement of respective roles by the Scottish Government would be useful and continuing work on accountability will be required - but it is not considered that any review process is necessary beyond this.
Fife Council
Among the 11 stakeholders who felt that a review was required, there was a perceived need to a need to take better account of the contribution of other agencies; to improve accountability; and to acknowledge the introduction and potential impact of the Single Outcome Agreements.
The traditional model of independent operation of the police requires to be reviewed to take account of the contribution of other agencies and improve local oversight and accountability. Partnerships are crucial.
Clackmannanshire Council
As the Single Outcome Agreement is becoming the driver for local priority setting, with monitoring and evaluation being facilitated through partnership structures, it would seem an opportunity to clarify the role and responsibilities of all partners' governance arrangements … it would appear timely to look towards the future and investigate how accountability structure may be shared or better delivered.
Scottish Borders Council
In general, it was considered that reviews of police governance could take place in partnership with stakeholders and agencies ( e.g. community safety partnerships, criminal justice authorities) and through committees/planning and forums/reviews. The perceived benefits of introducing such arrangements were an increase in collective responsibility and a fostering of shared good practice, both across Scotland and within Northern Ireland and England.
There might …be merit in further discussions between the various partners in police services to agree a common set of objectives and identify the key steps that need to be taken, by whom and over what timescale, to improve on current arrangements.
Audit Scotland
The vast majority of stakeholders chose not to comment upon the role of ACPOS. Among those seven organisations providing responses, there was a belief that whilst ACPOS provides a helpful and professional role, it might additionally be assisted by emulating aspects of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities ( COSLA). Two organisations noted:
The role performed by COSLA …may assist in developing mechanisms and approaches to governance and thereby underpin the role of the police in community planning and the development of Single Outcome Agreements.
Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service
COSLA may be better placed to provide a perspective on accommodating the national role played by ACPOS
Social Work Inspection Agency
It was further suggested that ACPOS could be involved in a National Community Planning Forum alongside Community Safety Partnerships, Criminal Justice Authorities and other organisations involved in community planning. The potential benefits of such inclusion were cited as the facilitation of more collective responsibility and an increase in aspects of accountability and policing by consent.
The role of ACPOS is broad and varied, but to date ACPOS has acted in a fairly autonomous manner. It may therefore be that it needs to consider becoming more open and transparent. It may also be that ACPOS needs to be more inclusive and hold regular meetings… There is definite scope for partners to serve on some of the sub-committees and working parties established by ACPOS where these involve the need for partnership working.
East Ayrshire Council
Such integration and communication could not only assist organisations in becoming more transparent but also inform strategic thinking alongside any review of governance. Stakeholders further suggested that any such moves to incorporate changes would benefit from prior consideration of good practice in similar administrations.
Is there any other issue or information which you feel should influence our review and we should consider?
The stakeholder consultation findings suggest both a broad degree of support for the current tripartite arrangements and positive working relationships with the police. Nonetheless, some stakeholders retained concerns about the need to ensure transparency and to strengthen accountability through more collective responsibility. In this sense, there remains considerable support for continued and ongoing dialogue between stakeholder organisations and police forces across Scotland. Given the identified challenges currently facing public service organisations it was deemed imperative to further enhance working relationships and to align police provision with that of their partner organisations. The perceived benefits of doing so include opportunities to gain knowledge and insight into the difficulties facing stakeholders; augment understanding about the local community issues; simplify joint operational issues; and enhance working knowledge about how partners may contribute to the task of managing and preventing crime.