Tayside Police may refuse freedom of information requests
Budget cuts may force Tayside Police into the radical step of refusing to entertain official government inspections, performance reviews and freedom of information requests.
Tayside Police HQ.
- By Bruce Robbins
- Published in the Courier : 31.08.10
- Published online : 31.08.10 @ 11.48am
Convener of the Tayside Police joint board, Councillor Ian Mackintosh, said it was his view that the force was using too much manpower complying with requests by government police inspectors and "ticking all the boxes" in performance monitoring.
The Tayside force has embarked upon a programme of identifying where savings can be made in anticipation of a much- restricted operating budget.
Already, Strathclyde and Lothian and Borders forces have announced they will be making hundreds of officers and "back office" civilian staff redundant in a bid to achieve the necessary cuts.
Stratclyde is expecting to lose 400 officers by the end of the financial year and Edinburgh and Lothian are looking at similar job cuts.
Councillor Mackintosh said the Tayside force will be doing "everything possible" to avoid large-scale job losses but it will be some weeks yet before their operating budget is known.
However, he said that before considering any redundancies the force should look at the manpower expended on compiling statistics for government civil servants.
He said, "I think it might well be we have to say we aren't going to do any more of these inspections that use up such a lot of officer time rather than going out and doing front-line policing.
"Freedom of information requests also involve a tremendous amount of officer time and these are things we might have to cut back on. It will be hard to justify coming up with all these statistics for the government if it takes officers away from their main policing duties.
"At the end of the day, the important people are the people of Tayside and they are the right ones to judge us on the job we are doing."
Mr Mackintosh said it was not yet clear if that would mean job losses but the force has already introduced a recruitment freeze that will see numbers gradually fall.
"The Transforming Tayside Programme is looking at the services we provide and whether some of these are perhaps being duplicated," he said.
"Tayside Police is already quite lean at the moment anyway and we have already reviewed services in the past.
"Until we know what exactly is happening in the financial world with the UK spending review and, later on, the Scottish Government settlement, it's difficult to know what will happen.
"We all know that savings will have to be made and we are looking at doing that as far as possible through efficiencies." We have to try to preserve as much frontline policing as possible."
12.26pm - 31.08.2010 Neil Ward - Edinburgh, UK Report This
Tayside Police are not above the law. The must comply with information requests.
07.43pm - 31.08.2010 Sammy - Edinburgh, UK Report This
How about they keep supplying the info but anyone wanting it has to pay for the time it takes to research it? If it's a choice providing somebody some bit of info or cops on the street there is no competition. For the next few years all public services will have to provide essential services only.
09.02pm - 01.09.2010 Joseph Nixon - St Andrews, UK Report This
I doubt police officers will be answering information requests - more likely lower paid 'backroom' staff. And how would a blanket refusal to answer requests sit with the Information Commissioner?
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