Police Scotland (), formally 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 (after the Metropolitan Police) 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 (Scotland) 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 (Scotland) 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 (then the convener of the Scottish Police Services Authority), 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 (Scotland) Act 2012, merging the following police forces around Scotland: Central Scotland Police Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary Fife Constabulary Grampian Police Lothian and Borders Police Northern Constabulary Strathclyde Police Tayside Police
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."Police chiefs warn officers: step up stop and search" Herald Scotland, 29 June 2014 http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/police-chiefs-warn-officers-step-up-stop-and-search.24620750 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."Police Scotland frisk nine times as many people as the NYPD" http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/police-scotland-frisk-nine-times-as-many-people-as-the-nypd.24811529
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.
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.
In 2021, it was confirmed that the premises in Fettes, Edinburgh (adjacent to Broughton High School and formerly the headquarters of Lothian & Borders Police) was considered to be obsolete, and the high-value site including playing fields would be sold off, with the remaining policing functions relocated in and around the city.Former Edinburgh police HQ site of hundreds of new homes, Scottish Housing News, 19 March 2021 In 2023 (the year before the 50th anniversary of the complex),Fettes – over and out at 50, Tom Wood, The Edinburgh Reporter, 7 May 2024 hazardous RAAC concrete was found to be present, accelerating the process of vacating the buildings., Ian Swanson, Edinburgh Evening News, 15 September 2023 By 2025 it was reported that this process was almost complete, but the near-empty building had yet to be sold or demolished.Edinburgh police HQ still lies unused for years despite being worth millions, Deadline News, 3 March 2025
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 (with control functionality moving to Dundee and call handling across the three sites in the Central Belt) were delayed until 2017 as a result of a Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) 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 (response) and problem solving team (community).
Divisional structure As of 2023, the divisional structure is as follows: Divisional identifierDivision nameArea CommandsLArgyll and West DunbartonshireCowal, Bute and HelensburghOban, Lorn and the Isles, Mid Argyll, Kintyre & IslandsWest DunbartonshireUAyrshireEast AyrshireNorth AyrshireSouth AyrshireVDumfries and GallowayDumfriesshireGallowayEEdinburghNorth EastNorth WestSouth EastSouth WestPFifeCentral FifeEast FifeWest FifeCForth ValleyClackmannanshireFalkirkGrangemouthStirlingGGreater GlasgowEast DunbartonshireEast RenfrewshireGlasgow City CentreGlasgow EastGlasgow NorthGlasgow North WestGlasgow South EastGlasgow South WestNHighlands and IslandsNorth HighlandInvernessSouth HighlandOrkney IslandsShetland IslandsWestern IslesQLanarkshireEast Kilbride, Cambuslang and RutherglenHamilton and ClydesdaleMonklands and CumbernauldMotherwell, Wishaw and BellshillANorth EastAberdeen City NorthAberdeen City SouthAberdeenshire NorthAberdeenshire SouthMorayKRenfrewshire and InverclydeInverclydePaisleyRenfrewDTaysideAngusDundeePerth and KinrossJThe Lothians and Scottish BordersEast LothianMidlothianScottish BordersWest LothianRCriminal Justice & Services DivisionCustody
Officer numbers : West Command Regional resources 1,355 Argyll & West Dunbartonshire L Division 533 Ayrshire U Division 777 Dumfries & Galloway V Division 363 Greater Glasgow G Division 2,474 Lanarkshire Q Division 1,360 Renfrewshire & Inverclyde K Division 609 Total 7,471 East Command Regional resources 787 Edinburgh E Division 1,104 Fife P Division 753 Forth Valley C Division 618 Lothians & Scottish Borders J Division 912 Total 4,174 North Command Regional resources 584 Highland & Islands N Division 1048 North East A Division 668 Tayside D Division 906 Total 3,206 National resources Total 1,730 Total resourcesWest, East and North Command resources plus National resources Total 16,611