The Scottish Government’s policing policy has been branded a “sham” after it emerged officers will spend at least 400 hours backfilling civilian posts at just one station when they could be on the beat.
The Courier has obtained details showing PCs being drafted into help at Perth’s public inquiry office the first point of contact for people coming in off the street due to staff shortages throughout June.
Labour has called for an investigation to be carried out into whether the problem of “backroom bobbies” spreads nationwide and a leading union official said Tayside could be the tip of a Scotland-wide iceberg.
Statistics show there were 17,496 police officers in Scotland an all-time high but concerns have been raised about how much backroom work needs to be carried out because of a reduction in police staff.
Unison Police Staff Scotland secretary, George McIrvine, said members were “papering over the cracks” of the problem.
He added: “If this is the added expense the public has to pay for policing in a single month in a single department in Perth could you imagine the cost to the public purse across Scotland? Unison strongly suspects you could multiply this example by at least 100. It is not best value.”
The leaked staff rota shows constables from Dundee and elsewhere were being brought in to fill gaps caused by a combination of redundancies, annual leave and sickness.
Scottish Labour justice spokesman Lewis Macdonald said: “There must be an investigation into how far this practice goes across Scotland as a matter of urgency.”
A spokesman for Kenny MacAskill said such calls were “the height of hypocrisy from Labour” and pointed out that crime was at a near 40-year low.
He added: “This simply shows how frustrated they are that the SNP Government is not just meeting but beating our police and crime targets.”
Superintendent Kevin Lynch, of Police Scotland’s Tayside Division, said there is “no intention” to routinely use police officers to permanently backfill police staff posts, adding support staff numbers have reduced by more than 20% in the region.
He added: “Where public performance must be maintained, police officers may be used to fulfil those duties normally undertaken by police staff as demand dictates.
“The way in which this is managed ensures there is no impact on frontline policing.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The deployment of officers is a matter for Police Scotland, who have repeatedly said there is no strategy to backfill staff jobs with officers.
“There may be a small number of occasions where a police officer provides temporary additional support to staff roles.
“While reducing the duplication built into the eight-force structure something that was supported on a cross-party basis will mean fewer civilian staff at the end of reform there is a commitment to no compulsory redundancies.”