Last night I attended a meeting of Dundee University Conservative
and Unionist Association which was addressed by Murdo Fraser MSP.
Dundee's two Parliamentary candidates, Nicola Ross (Dundee West) and
Bill Bowman (Dundee East), were also present and said a few words.
Murdo talked about the General Election and also about his views
regarding a federal system of government in the United Kingdom.
I
asked a question about Police Scotland and Murdo indicated that he
was due to speak at a COSLA meeting on the subject and was proposing
that a new system of policing should be considered, where serious
crimes are dealt with by a national police force, and community
crimes are dealt with by local forces accountable at a local
authority level. The following is a news release issued by the
Scottish Conservatives today which gives a bit more detail about the
proposal:
A model teaming a new tier of policing should be looked at in more
detail, the Scottish Conservatives have announced. Speaking at the COSLA conference in Crieff today, Murdo Fraser
said that it shouldn’t be presumed that a single police force is
the answer as it has struggled to win public confidence. Currently, a single police force has led to the loss of community
policing, closures of local stations, stop and search and routinely
armed police officers on the streets.
Instead a new system of policing should be considered, where
serious crimes are dealt with by a national police force, and
community crimes are dealt with by 32 local forces accountable at a
local authority level. The new tier model of policing would mean that a local force led
by a senior officer at Chief Superintendent level or above, would be
directly accountable to locally elected councillors. Mr Fraser said this type of policing would benefit the taxpayer as
further funding would not be needed to cover administration costs. And local councils would benefit by taking charge of crime and
safety issues, which are right at the heart of local communities.
Scottish Conservatives enterprise spokesman Murdo
Fraser said: “We think this proposed system could work
very well in Scotland, like it has in other European countries such
as Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. Already local councils employ community wardens to deal with
local crime, and there’s no reason in principle why the
administration of community police forces cannot also fall under the
same local authority umbrella.
“Of course, this is just an idea, and it may not need to go this
far. It might be possible to recreate proper local accountability
within a Single Police Force. However, for the benefit of the taxpayer, accountability and
fighting crime it is an idea worth considering further, and something
that will require further discussion and debate in the coming
months.”
