Flat funding would have ‘significant’ consequences for police, force warns

A flat cash settlement for Police Scotland would have “significant operational consequences” and could reduce officer numbers by up to 1,500 in the next 18 months, the force has said.

Ahead of an appearance at Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday, Police Scotland called for a 4.2% increase to its revenue budget – worth £59.1 million and bringing the total to £1.48 billion – as well as a rise to £83 million in capital funding – a 22.4% increase from this year’s £67.5 million forecast spend.

The force was asked by the Scottish Government to model the impact of a flat cash settlement – which would not rise in line with inflation compared to last year – and a cash reduction of 3%.

Under the first scenario, a submission to the committee said, there would be a “significant slowdown of police officer recruitment”, which would bring numbers as low as 15,100 by March 2026, compared to what Chief Constable Jo Farrell said was an officer workforce of 16,600 within the next week.

Officers cannot be made redundant so the reductions would be as a result of changes to recruitment.

For the second scenario, the document suggested the number of police officers could drop below 15,000, alongside a “large-scale staff exit programme”, which would see civilian workers leave through compulsory redundancy.

Appearing before the committee, Deputy Chief Constable Jane Connors said: “If we do see a reduction and we see a reduction in police officer numbers and equivalent police staff, then we have to review how we deliver our services and where those services are put in.”

Police Scotland aims to “be able to put our resources into the right place”, she said, but added: “If we don’t have the funding that we need to be able to do that, we will then have to start falling back to say ‘where are the officers and the staff going to be put?’.

“Which is not a strategic way of doing it, it means that we have to make those difficult choices much more quickly, without the longer term view in.”

But if such reductions were required, Ms Connors said “I don’t think public safety would be compromised”, but the service would have to “make more difficult choices”.

Ms Farrell also lamented the condition of the police estate, telling MSPs the days of “rolling repairs” are “now over”.

She said: “We need to, moving forward, be in a position where we can invest in our estate and move away from repair, repair, repair, because we’re now repairing the repairs.

“When I was here last month, we talked about officer welfare and we talked of a thriving workforce, and some of the estate our people are working in is, quite frankly, appalling and does not in any way portray the image of this organisation as one that can be trusted to deliver (for) communities or give our people the right environment to feel as though they’re being care for.”

The chief constable repeatedly pushed for multi-year funding settlements from the Scottish Government to provide future certainty for the force, something ministers have frequently sought from the UK Government.

On top of the 4.2% rise in 2025-26, the total revenue budget, the submission said, would need to increase by 2.2% in 2026-27, 2.6% the following year and 2.5% in 2028-29.

In her previous appearance before the committee earlier this year, the chief constable said officers attending court but not being called “saps away” their ability to tackle crime.

On Wednesday, she said £3.4 million had been spent last year on overtime for officers to attend court – £2 million of which was because officers were being called on rest days or during their annual leave – when they were called in just 10% of cases.

In a rough estimate, Police Scotland chief financial officer James Gray said around £22.5 million had been lost due to the 90% of officers who did not appear in court but could have been deployed elsewhere, while further costs are incurred by having to bring other officers on shift during rest days.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “We will continue to work with Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to identify options to address current financial challenges, whilst protecting service delivery to ensure we have a safe, protected and resilient country.

“The Scottish Government is providing record police total funding of £1.55 billion this year – an increase of £92.7 million.”