Scotland now has one police force for five and a half million people. This is principally meant to be a way to save money. I object to this for quite a few reasons.
Firstly, bigger is not better. The trend all over Europe is towards smaller administrative units in all kinds of government, closer to the people who pay for them and more answerable to their wishes. These can be health authorities, local government or police services. I have to wonder why Scotland is going against the trend.
Another worry is who these larger units are answerable to. Who investigates the police, for example, when there are complaints? It was bad enough when we had 12 police authorities and they investigated each other. Now, I suppose, we have to get somebody in from outside Scotland. Extra cost, extra time needed and no guarantee the outside force will know the lie of the land here.
Then there's the matter of who decides what is sometimes called 'tactics' and what I prefer to call policy.
This is Sir Stephen House, chief constable of Scotland's single police force. He is obviously very well qualified to do his job.
For most of 2014, Scotland's specially trained armed police officers have been bearing firearms when carrying out their everyday duties, sometimes on the streets. I don't like this and I'm not the only ordinary citizen who dislikes the idea of armed police routinely appearing among us, rather than being trained to arm themselves only when trouble appears. Sir Stephen doesn't seem to have negotiated this with anyone and, worse, he seems to confuse policy (in Scotland, we do not arm our police officers as a matter of course) and tactics (he may need armed police officers at any time and doesn't want to waste time going back to a central area to collect the guns).
Scotland is not a violent country. We don't as a matter of course expect to hear gunfire on our streets. That may come, of course, if terrorist threats escalate and gangsters get access to weapons from other parts of Europe. But the arming of a previously unarmed police force is a serious issue that needs a lot of discussion - which we haven't had.
And just in passing, I loathe Sir Stephen's new uniform. To me it looks semi-military. Not at all the 'communautaire' image I want the head of our police force to project. It's bad enough to see the proliferation of hi-vis vests throughout the land. (Anybody know why nursery weans going for a walk need to wear hi-vis vests?) Sir Stephen and the senior members of the police force may like this image but some of us want our police to look like us. Not Rambo.
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