Police And Fire Services Facing Huge Cuts By Scottish Government

14th September 2023

The SNP must give police and fire services a fair deal in the upcoming budget, Scottish Labour has said today following evidence at the Criminal Justice Committee.

Today the committee heard stark warnings from police and fire services ahead of the Scottish Government's upcoming budget.

MSPs were told that the police are currently being forced to make £18.9 million of additional savings between August and March alone to balance the books this financial year.

Among other things, their budget pressures are being dealt with by cutting officer numbers and seeking to close 30 police stations.

Police Scotland warned that they were "going to have to take a lot of pain" and that the changes required are "going to impact on our ability to respond."

They refused to rule out expanding the controversial pilot currently taking place in the North East, whereby some crimes are not investigated. This was attributed to a lack of resources.

Humza Yousaf's pledge to roll out body cams for police officers has also been left in tatters, with Police Scotland’s deputy chief saying that budget pressures mean he cannot guarantee they will be rolled out this year.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has had to make £11 million of savings in this financial year and expect to have to make more cuts based on the Scottish Government’s current plans.

They are warning that if further savings are expected next year they will have to cut firefighter numbers and reduce the number of fire appliances, such as fire trucks.

They warned of risks posed by further cuts, stating that “we would not be able to reduce resources of that magnitude without there being an impact upon response times and, ultimately, safety and risk within communities”.

Commenting, Scottish Labour Justice spokesperson Pauline McNeill said “If the SNP do not listen to the shocking evidence the Criminal Justice Committee heard this morning, they will be presiding over devastating police officer and staff cuts and undermining the ability of our Police and Fire Services to keep our communities safe.

“It is unacceptable that Humza Yousaf cannot even keep his own promises to roll out police bodycams, leaving Scotland behind the rest of the country.

“The SNP must listen to these stark warnings and act now to address this turmoil.”

James Gray (CFO, Police Scotland) "Month-on-month overspends due to overtime costs resulted in plans for £18.9m of additional savings required to bring budget back into balance. Officer reductions have partly led to this increase in overtime.

“Element of trepidation” for next year’s budget - if similar settlement which is below what is required to stand still and requires cuts, the compounding effect makes delivering the service progressively harder.

Seeking permission to close 30 police stations to further reduce estate.

David Page (Deputy Chief Officer, Police Scotland), "Took on a £54m budget challenge this year alongside officer reduction. Struggling to meet £18.9m mitigation plan added in August.

“Going to have to take a lot of pain” in transformation budget just to balance the books, this delays multi-year programmes into next year.

Police Scotland was hoping to use capability enhancement to offset workforce reductions but are now having to put the transformation budget into meeting budget pressures. As a result, workforce is going down and capability is standing still, which effectively means backsliding and “has clear operational impact”

DCC Jane Connors QPM (Crime and Operational Support, Police Scotland), “That is going to impact on our ability to respond”

[of NE pilot scheme] “The hard choices that we’re facing, the lack of resources – we need to be able to reduce demand”

Ross Haggart (Chief Officer, SFRS) "Had to achieve savings of £11m this financial year"

Based on flat-cash assumption within Resource Spending Review, will need to make between £14-26m savings next year alone, and by 2026/27 that may rise to between £37-48m in savings.

Savings “have resulted in the SFRS being very lean”

If they have to apply the low-end estimates for cuts for next year it would mean removing 18 appliances out of a currently operational 106 (which assumes continuing the mothballing of the ones temporarily removed for savings at the moment).

Haggart: “We would always seek to minimise the impact on community safety, but we would not be able to reduce resources of that magnitude without there being an impact upon response times and, ultimately, safety and risk within communities”

“Very little scope for us to make significant savings without reducing firefighter and specifically whole-time firefighter numbers. If we were to have to reduce firefighter numbers to the extent that our modelling suggests, we do not believe this could be achieved without impacting upon the safety of the communities we are here to serve.”

14 fire stations have RAAC with mitigations, but permanent solutions are required.