Police Scotland

Police Scotland, officially the Police Service of Scotland, is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and crime prevention in Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist services of the Scottish Police Services Authority, including the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. Although not formally absorbing it, the merger also resulted in the winding down of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.
Police Scotland is the second-largest territorial police force in the United Kingdom in terms of officer numbers, and the largest territorial force in terms of its geographic area of responsibility. The chief constable is answerable to the Scottish Police Authority, and the force is inspected by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.
Scotland is also policed by the Ministry of Defence Police, British Transport Police, and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary within their respective jurisdictions. Both the Metropolitan Police and National Crime Agency also have some jurisdiction in Scotland. In regard to the Metropolitan Police this is due to their national responsibilities for the protection of the Royal Family and other prominent persons, such as the prime minister, and for counter-terrorism.

History

Prior to merger

After a consultation process, the Scottish Government confirmed on 8 September 2011 that a single police service would be created in Scotland. The Scottish Government stated that "reform will safeguard frontline policing in communities by creating designated local senior officers for every council area with a statutory duty to work with councils to shape local services. Establishing a single service aims to ensure more equal access to national and specialist services and expertise such as major investigation teams and firearms teams, whenever and wherever they are needed." The Police and Fire Reform Bill was published in January 2012 and was approved on 27 June 2012 after scrutiny in the Scottish Parliament. The bill received royal assent as the Police and Fire Reform Act 2012. In September 2012, chief constable Stephen House of Strathclyde Police was announced as the future first chief constable of Police Scotland. He was sworn into the post on 1 October 2012. The first chair of the Scottish Police Authority, Vic Emery, was appointed in August 2012.
As the date of formation approached, it was widely reported that the new chief constable and the Scottish Police Authority were in disagreement over the control of backroom staff.
Police Scotland officially came into being on 1 April 2013 under the Police and Fire Reform Act 2012, merging the following police forces around Scotland:

This merger also included the:

Scottish Police Services Authority, including the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency
Since merger

In June 2014, a leaked Police Scotland internal email to police managers in Dunfermline ordered a substantial increase in stop and search activities and warned any police officers not meeting the higher targets would be subjected to a performance development review. Police Scotland has previously denied setting stop and search performance targets for individual officers. The next month, it was revealed that between April and December 2013, Police Scotland's officers stopped and searched members of the Scottish public at a rate of 979.6 per 10,000 people, a rate three times higher than that of the Metropolitan Police and nine times higher than that of the New York Police Department. It was also revealed that the Scottish Police Authority, the body tasked with overseeing Police Scotland, had removed criticism of the force's use of stop and search powers from a report it had commissioned. Also removed from the report were calls for a review of stop and search on children and for clarification of the policy's primary aim.
In October 2013, Police Scotland announced proposals to close 65 out of 215 police station public counters and reduce opening hours at others. The force cited a drop in the number of people visiting public counters and the development of new ways for the public to contact the police, including the 101 telephone number and contact points which connect callers at police stations directly to officers, as reasons for the proposed closures. The plans were condemned by some opposition MSPs. In November 2016, it emerged that 58 further stations could close as part of an estates review.
In 2014, the Scottish Crime Campus in Gartcosh was opened. This £73million secure facility houses several specialist investigative and analytical departments of the police including forensic services, and is also the base for other law enforcement-related agencies such as the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency. Police Scotland was responsible for the security of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
File:Police Scotland administrative headquarters.jpg|thumb|left|New administrative headquarters on the River Clyde at Dalmarnock, Glasgow
In 2015, the former Strathclyde Police headquarters in Pitt Street, central Glasgow were closed and the officers based there transferred to a new £24million office in the Dalmarnock district of the city, although some operational functions, such as the control room for Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, moved to the regional communications facility in Govan.

Control rooms

In October 2013, it was announced that the number of police control rooms and call handling service centres in Scotland was under review, with the possibility of seven out of ten such offices closing. Control rooms considered for closure included Dumfries, Aberdeen and Inverness; the Dumfries control room closed in May 2014, with the workload absorbed by existing facilities in Glasgow and Motherwell. The facilities in Glenrothes and Stirling soon followed, with all their calls and dispatching moved to a single site for the east of Scotland at Bilston, Midlothian.
Closures in Aberdeen and Inverness were delayed until 2017 as a result of a Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland review of the service, following a July 2015 incident in which two persons died after their vehicle had crashed off the M9 motorway; the matter had been reported to the police just after the crash but was not investigated further at the time as the call was not properly logged onto the computer systems due to inefficient interim procedures in place following the recent restructuring in the eastern region.
The Aberdeen control room and service centre closed in March 2017, and Inverness followed in February 2018, with staff at the latter location invited to re-train in a dedicated unit performing criminal record checks and other enquiries via the Police National Computer and related databases; this unit was to share work with an existing department in Govan, a proposal which local council leaders claimed was not what was originally presented to them during the consultation process. That department was formally launched in May 2018.

Organisation

Executive team

the force is led by an executive team that includes Chief Constable Jo Farrell, plus three deputy chief constables, a deputy chief officer and ten assistant chief constables. All force executive officers are based at Tulliallan Castle in Kincardine, Fife or Stirling Randolphfield.

Ranks

Police Scotland uses the same rank structure and insignia as other police forces in the United Kingdom.

Local policing

Local policing in Scotland is overseen by a deputy chief constable. The country is divided geographically into 3 regions – North, East and West – each headed by an assistant chief constable. There are 13 divisions, each covering one or more local authority areas and headed by a chief superintendent. All divisional commanders are "people who came up through the ranks in that part of the country". Divisions are further split into Area Commands under chief inspectors. These are then managed by ward, under an inspector, mirroring the 353 wards used in local authority elections; every ward in Scotland has its own local policing team and problem solving team.

Divisional structure

As of 2023, the divisional structure is as follows:

Divisional identifier	Division name	Area Commands
L	Argyll and West Dunbartonshire	Cowal, Bute and Helensburgh
L	Argyll and West Dunbartonshire	Oban, Lorn and the Isles, Mid Argyll, Kintyre & Islands
L	Argyll and West Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire
U	Ayrshire	East Ayrshire
U	Ayrshire	North Ayrshire
U	Ayrshire	South Ayrshire
V	Dumfries and Galloway	Dumfriesshire
V	Dumfries and Galloway	Galloway
E	Edinburgh	North East
E	Edinburgh	North West
E	Edinburgh	South East
E	Edinburgh	South West
P	Fife	Central Fife
P	Fife	East Fife
P	Fife	West Fife
C	Forth Valley	Clackmannanshire
C	Forth Valley	Falkirk
C	Forth Valley	Grangemouth
C	Forth Valley	Stirling
G	Greater Glasgow	East Dunbartonshire
G	Greater Glasgow	East Renfrewshire
G	Greater Glasgow	Glasgow City Centre
G	Greater Glasgow	Glasgow East
G	Greater Glasgow	Glasgow North
G	Greater Glasgow	Glasgow North West
G	Greater Glasgow	Glasgow South East
G	Greater Glasgow	Glasgow South West
N	Highlands and Islands	North Highland
N	Highlands and Islands	Inverness
N	Highlands and Islands	South Highland
N	Highlands and Islands	Orkney Islands
N	Highlands and Islands	Shetland Island
N	Highlands and Islands	Western Isles
Q	Lanarkshire	East Kilbride, Cambuslang and Rutherglen
Q	Lanarkshire	Hamilton and Clydesdale
Q	Lanarkshire	Monklands and Cumbernauld
Q	Lanarkshire	Motherwell, Wishaw and Bellshill
A	North East	Aberdeen City North
A	North East	Aberdeen City South
A	North East	Aberdeenshire North
A	North East	Aberdeenshire South
A	North East	Moray
K	Renfrewshire and Inverclyde	Inverclyde
K	Renfrewshire and Inverclyde	Paisley
K	Renfrewshire and Inverclyde	Renfrew
D	Tayside	Angus
D	Tayside	Dundee
D	Tayside	Perth and Kinross
J	The Lothians and Scottish Borders	East Lothian
J	The Lothians and Scottish Borders	Midlothian
J	The Lothians and Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders
J	The Lothians and Scottish Borders	West Lothian
R	Criminal Justice & Services Division	Custody
R	Criminal Justice & Services Division	-
R	Criminal Justice & Services Division	-
R	Criminal Justice & Services Division	-