- Conference
- 2014 Police & Justice Conference
- Date
- 13 June 2014
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes with massive concern the continued savage cuts of public expenditure to Scottish policing as a result of the Scottish Government’s dogmatic pursuit of its artificial manifesto pledge of an additional 1000 Police Officers as well as the brutal unachievable savings they trumpet will be made of £1.5 billion in 15 years.
This political ideology has led to the loss of 1000+ Police staff jobs across Scotland which has resulted in a diminished public service that cannot provide an acceptable local service to the community’s in which they are meant to serve. Perversely, to paper over the cracks, the only way Police Scotland try to maintain some level of public service is to utilise these 1000 extra Officers carrying out recently redundant posts such as Citation serving, licensing and traffic warden duty.
On the horizon we will witness a major attack on existing Police Staff terms & conditions of employment aligned with a major job evaluation scheme that will not be favourable due to the savings of £66 million per annum demanded by the Scottish Police Authority.
Conference notes the positive work of the opposition parties who consistently challenge the Scottish Government on the failings of Scottish Policing and continue to fully support our campaign for a balanced workforce of the right mix of Police staff and Officers to provide the best value service from the public purse to best keep Scotland safe.
Many Police Forces in England & Wales are proactively looking at Scotland with an interest no doubt to gauge whether this reform is financially fruitful.
Conference, therefore, calls on the SGE to:
1)Raise our concerns of Police Reform in Scotland with all political parties and in particular, through Labour Link across the UK.
2)To campaign against imposing financial penalty on an unevidenced artificial number of 17234.
3)Continue to promote the benefits of in-house delivery and against attempts to outsource.
4)To promote the advantages of localism against the faceless centralisation agenda.
5)Develop recruitment materials to recruit new members in existing privatised services such as G4S.