Herald reveals SNP's savage Police cuts

When I was on Brian Taylor's Big Debate on Friday, one of the questions was on the 3000 civilian jobs expected to go after the creation of the single police force.

My answer was that it was hardly responsible government on the part of the SNP to say they'd meet their extra 1000 police officers pledge while cutting back office jobs. What's the point of having those extra officers if they're stuck in the office filling in forms and doing the intelligence work themselves. Years of work have gone into creating a civilian support structure so that bobbies can be out there on the beat catching criminals and the SNP are just discarding that.

They've been dead sleekit about the whole Police re-organisation. Their 2011 manifesto was very woolly on the subject and when they were pressed, Kenny MacAskill hinted that around 3 or 4 police forces would remain.He was clearly hedging his bets as every police force outside the major cities were against a single force and there was considerable concern in local communities about it. The minute the SNP got their majority, they reverted to centralising type and went for a single force.

MacAskill wrote to all police staff promising no compulsory redundancies and no changes to terms and conditions of employment last October. If today's Sunday Herald report is to be believed, both of these promises are not worth the paper they are written on. Special payments to police officers look to be under threat as well as £300 million in cuts over the next three and a half years.

Liberal Democrats have opposed a single force from the start. I wrote about it way back in January 2011. Apart from the fact that it will concentrate way too much power for law enforcement in the hands of two people, the Chief Constable and the Justice Secretary, there's going to be less local control over policing. You can't have one force properly meeting the diverse needs of communities from Stromness to Elgin to Kelso to Glasgow. It seems that our concerns are now being proven right.

Willie Rennie is quoted in the Herald article saying:

These cuts are even worse than we feared and what was set out in the outline business case. The costly upheaval of centralising our local police forces will have a big impact on the effectiveness of the police.

It is vital support staff that are to pay the price for the SNP's costly reorganisation. For years we have worked to create police forces with the right level of support staff to help our front-line officers do their jobs. The SNP are reversing that good work to pay for their obsession with centralising control. The Justice Secretary must come before Parliament to explain himself.

The thing is, if we can't believe a personal letter to staff from the Justice Secretary, how on earth can we believe anything else the SNP says to us about how independence will turn out? They're making all sorts of claims, EU membership being the prime example, that they have no evidence to substantiate and when someone tries to get to the truth under FOI legislation, they blow our money to maintain secrecy.

Again, as I said on the Big Debate the other day, the SNP have to remember that they have to govern for the next two years. People need healthcare, decent education and jobs. The Police cuts, and the broken promises associated with them, will be beginning to bite by the time the Autumn of 2014 comes round. I could do with knowing what exams my daughter is going to be sitting in 2015 sooner rather than later, and so could she. It might be all about independence for the SNP, but for the rest of us, life and its challenges and milestones go on. I was never going to vote for independence anyway, but if they screw up secondary education, nobody will have any confidence in their constitutional claims.

Salmond refuses to guarantee future of local emergency control rooms

At First Minister's Questions yesterday, Alex Salmond chose to make a couple of  cheap gags at the Liberal Democrats' expense rather than actually answer the question that was put to him.

He basically refused to guarantee that local police and fire emergency control rooms would not close as a result of the SNP's power grab to centralise both services. 

Here's the exchange in full.

Willie Rennie: This week, the First Minister’s bulldozer came charging back out of the garage. This time, it was the Justice Committee ramming through police centralisation and crushing amendment after amendment. What is next in the bulldozer’s path? Perhaps it will be emergency control rooms. Can the First Minister guarantee that he will not close local police and fire emergency control rooms?


The First Minister: I am still trying to work out the bulldozer thing. The most recent bulldozer, I suppose, was during the Scottish local government elections. If I remember correctly, Liberal Democrats the length and breadth of the country, as they did in last year’s Scottish parliamentary elections, made this the centrepoint of their campaign, spreading gloom, doom and despondency around Scotland and saying that central Scottish police and fire services will not work for local communities. The only unfortunate thing—the only bulldozer in operation—was the bulldozer that the Scottish people lumped over the Liberal Democrats.


Willie Rennie: So I get no answer—absolutely no answer. The First Minister stood there before, boasting about the big numbers that his centralisation plans will save. We should not forget that, in his own consultation, his plans were rejected by two to one. He should not give me any of that tosh about the public supporting his plans for centralisation. The truth is that his changes will cost money, not save it, which is why the control rooms are under threat. People at the Scottish Police Federation think that emergency control rooms will close. Only a couple of weeks ago, a chief fire officer told Radio Scotland that he believed that closures were on the way. When will the decision be made? People rely on control rooms at Thornton, Dundee, Inverness, Aberdeen, Govan and many more places. When will they be told their fate?


The First Minister: The programme for police and fire reform continues according to the timetable. We have made the point that we think that within the Scottish structure we can improve local accountability. 

I was struck by Willie Rennie’s mention of the situation north and south of the border. The difference between Scotland and England is this: in Scotland, police numbers are increasing—they are 1,000 up on what they were in 2007—whereas in England, police numbers are collapsing, thanks to the policies of the Tory and Liberal Administration. Of course, that is reflected in the respect that is shown by the police federations in both countries. When Kenny MacAskill, as Cabinet Secretary for Justice, went to the Scottish Police Federation in the past few weeks, he got a standing ovation. When Theresa May, as the Home Secretary and representative of the Liberal and Conservative Government, went to the Police Federation of England and Wales, she got a slow handclap. That is the difference between the confidence that the forces in Scotland have in our policies and the total lack of confidence that the forces in England have in the Tory-Liberal coalition.

Afterwards, Willie Rennie said:

The First Minister refused to commit a long term guarantee that local 999 call centres will not close on the SNP government’s watch.  These are services which rely on local knowledge which will be lost if the SNP choose to merge emergency call centres in Scotland. The Police Federation believes that emergency rooms will close. The Chief Fire officer believes closures are on the way. If the First Minister cannot confirm that no 999 call centres will be closed, then we are right to think that the endgame can only be closure of local 999 call centres. The First Minster cannot simply sweep this information under the carpet. He cannot afford to be passive. There are communities with real concerns, who are all asking the SNP government to guarantee that there will be no closures to local 999 call centres. “If it isn’t going to happen, why won’t the First Minister just say so?

 The whole centralisation has been conducted with maximum sleekitness by the SNP as I wrote last August. They looked like they were going with a single police force in the months ahead of the Holyrood election. Then their manifesto was very wolly-worded and the line that was put about by Kenny MacAskill was that the current 8 Police Forces would be cut to 3 or 4. Three months in with an overall majority, they finally opt for the single force option. You can't say that policing needs are the same in Glasgow, Helmsdale and Elgin and to put them under the control of one chief constable is ridiculous. 

If you want to support Willie Rennie and the Liberal Democrats' campaign to keep policing local, you can do so here. And join the Facebook page here for more information. 

What have Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillors done for you?

This isn't an exhaustive list, but it showcases some of the excellent achievements of Liberal Democrat councillors in administration across Scotland over the last five years.

Scottish Liberal Democrats are part of 13 coalition administrations across Scotland.

This includes running the big councils of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh and the Highlands.

We also help control Fife, Perth and Kinross, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire and Borders.

Over 150 councillors have a strong record of delivering for their local communities.

Over the last five years Scottish Liberal Democrat councillors have delivered for local communities across Scotland, including:

-          Edinburgh – 30% reduction in crime through focussing on community neighbourhood policing, the Edinburgh Guarantee helping young people back to work, building a better future for our capital.

-          Fife – household recycling above 50% making it one of the greenest councils in Scotland and judged to have the best care services in Scotland.

-          Perth & Kinross – building the first council houses in a generation and the 1^st council to meet the 2012 homelessness targets and doing it ahead of time

-          Aberdeenshire – prioritised spending on education despite tough times with new schools built and have won awards for stewardship of council.

-          Aberdeen – Lib Dems have brought the budget back from the cliff face where Labour left it and are now held up by Audit Scotland as an example for all to follow

-          Highlands - Liberal Democrats have met the challenge of tough times with a radical new charitable trust to protect services and, by careful work with NHS Highland, Liberal Democrats have helped elderly people and children who need better care.

This is a record we can be proud of. Particularly in the likes of Aberdeen and Edinburgh where Labour had done what they did at UK level, and left a right financial bourach. Jenny Dawe wrote about that on Liberal Democrat Voice a while back. As soon as she took office as leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, she was taken aside and told that there was, in Council terms, next to nothing in the reserves. Under her stewardship, finances have been restored to a healthy level. It all goes to show that, as we've shown at UK level, we don't run away and hide and sit on our hands when confronted with difficult situations. 

Liberal Democrats see this election as a chance to deliver more for local communities, unlike the SNP. Allison Hunter, SNP Leader in Glasgow, recently confirmed what we've always thought - that "everything the SNP does, is, of course, a stepping stone towards independence".

Nick Clegg wrote in this week's Sunday Times, and sadly, this doesn't seem to be available online, about how the SNP duck out of big, controversial decisions wherever they can. They've certainly been less than helpful in Edinburgh on the trams, although they did vote for them in the end. He wrote:

We also know from experience that if the choices facing the SNP do not fit in with that separatist agenda, they walk away rather than face up to their responsibility as elected representatives. In Aberdeen they refused to reorganise local schools and build necessary new ones - it was too difficult. In the Highlands, the SNP refused to take the necessary steps that led to more than £4 million being reinvested in public services. It was the same in Edinburgh when they turned their back on a new model for service delivery that would protect local services and in Argyll and Bute they didn't have the bottle to even consider important decisions.

For the SNP, independence is more important than home helps in Aberdeen, or school children in Inverness or the jobless in Edinburgh. I don't think any service or council should be used as a stepping stone towards independence.

The SNP are going all out for majority control on councils - but voters, having seen what they're like with majority control at Holyrood, might well be more cautious about choosing them. In the run up to the Scottish Parliament elections last year, they said virtually nothing about independence. Since they got their majority they've gone on about virtually nothing else. They have, against the advice of much of Scottish civic society and every other party at Holyrood, put through an unenforceable, illiberal, ineffective Sectarian Bill. They have  gone against the spirit of what they said in their manifesto (which suggested 3 or 4 Police forces) and decided to merge Scotland's 8 Police forces into a single force which gives way too much power to the Justice Secretary. And their First Minister has cultivated a rather worrying relationship with Rupert Murdoch. Willie Rennie took him to task on this last month and the normally blustering First Minster was literally flailing because he knew he didn't have a defence.

Liberal Democrat councillors and candidates are truly local champions, from Eileen McCartin in Renfrewshire to   Rick Kenney in Galashiels to Nick Noble in Thurso,  Angela McLean in Conon Bridge and Iris Walker and William Sell in Aberdeenshire. Peter Barrett in Perth and Kinross and Paul Edie in Edinburgh and Tim Brett in Fife have between them slashed crime and homelessness and vastly improved social care, making services better and more responsive to individual need. 

That's what Liberal Democrats do and is what we offer across Scotland on May 3rd.