Rank-and-file must be included in any Highland police review

A former police commander-turned-councillor has warned any review of officer numbers in the Highlands must include face-to-face talks with sergeants and bobbies on the beat.

Recently-elected Matthew Reiss – who previously served as Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross area commander – said it was vital that bosses sought the views of frontline staff after the Scottish Police Authority called for officer numbers to be scrutinised by university academics in a major review policing review.

The authority’s chairman Vic Emery described the current Police Scotland figure of 17,234 officers as "arbitrary" and wants to appoint a team of experts to investigate and pinpoint the best number.

It comes after Highland councillors voiced fears last month about officers not being replaced on the frontline because they were being promoted to specialist units formed in the wake of the national force’s creation.

Councillor Reiss, who retired from the now dissolved Northern Constabulary in 2013 after 28 years, said Central Belt-based academics would have to bear in mind the geographical challenges faced by Highland officers and place it into context with the volume of crime when assessing statistics.

"In my view it is essential that they speak to some of the sergeants and the ones who are on the front line, particularly in remote areas", he said. "Those are the ones who are out there at 3 o’clock in the morning patrolling the road. The sheer amount of time they spend travelling in their beats, on paper they might appear to be less productive.

"A mundane thing like carrying out a shotgun licence renewal, the officer has to go and physically see the applicant and you could be essentially be talking about a round trip of three hours in some of the more remote areas. That doesn’t show up in crime statistics."

Councillor Reiss, an Independent, said his former colleagues were more interested in their crime detection rates rather than the number of officers employed but was hopeful the police maintained a presence across the region but conceded it would be dependant on the public purse.

There are currently 675 officers in the Highlands.

But Highland councillors Andrew Baxter and Richard Laird highlighted concerns last month that officer shortages and gaps in frontline officers were appearing in Lochaber and Inverness because bobbies were being drafted into newly-formed specialist units like trunk road and domestic violence teams.

The region’s divisional commander chief inspector Julian Innes repeatedly insisted there were no officer or vacancies and said it was simply a different deployment model.

Highland MSP John Finnie, a former policeman himself, thought there were enough officers but predicted cutbacks could be found in Police Scotland’s senior ranks.

The SNP has previously reported that recorded crime is at its lowest level for 37 years. The Scottish government said more than 1,200 extra officers had been employed since the party won power in 2007.

Mr Finnie, a former SNP member, strongly backed the involvement of rank-and-file officers in a review and hoped a "simple arithmetic exercise" would be avoided.

"The most important position in the police force by a country mile is the frontline police officer," he said. "Clearly, there are enough officers, the 37-year record low crime rate reflects that. There have always been disparities for instance at a supervisory level and it is the case that there could be a rationalisation of senior officers."

Mr Finnie argued the argued the presence of specialist police units could lessen the workload of frontline officers.

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