Tayside Police would be swallowed up into a new North Command along with Northern and Grampian under plans for a single police force for Scotland, it has emerged.
Labour justice spokeswoman Jenny Marra said: ”Labour will be pushing the SNP Government to make sure that decisions taken by the police at every level local, regional and national are accountable to local communities.
”Many police matters have to be decided strategically at different levels, but the most important thing is that local people know what’s happening and police plans and actions are accountable to our communities.”
Grampian Joint Police Board member Councillor Martin Greig, who has always opposed the national force, said the area is too large to manage.
”This proposed northern area is far too large it will stretch from Dundee to Shetland and out to the Western Isles,” he said. ”The size is unworkable. It’s a very unwelcome move. I don’t think the Scottish Government know what they are doing.
”There has been a complete lack of work done to assess the local impact of a single police force.”
The new Police Service of Scotland is expected to go live on April 1 next year. The proposals have been set out in the Police and Fire Reform Bill, which will also create a single fire and rescue service.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he had not initially backed national police and fire services, but that UK Government spending cuts made it a ”necessity”.
”Our plans for reform are the best way to protect frontline police and fire services,” he said. ”We have worked closely with the service, staff associations, trades unions and local government and have formally consulted the public twice to shape our proposals.
“Our plans for the first time create a direct relationship between the services and local authorities, and the communities they serve, with local services tailored for local needs.”
The West will include Strathclyde and Dumfries and Galloway, while the East includes Lothian and Borders, Central and Fife.
The merger will take place next year and the Scottish Government says the creation of three giant command areas splitting Scotland into north, east and west regions will create ”local services tailored for local needs”.
But opponents of the national force have called the North Command area almost 20,000 square miles and stretching from Dundee to Shetland ”unworkable”.
Up to 2,000 support staff across Scotland will be cut when all eight forces become one a figure already predicted by union bosses while an assistant chief constable will oversee each area.
A chief constable, who will lead Scotland’s new national force of almost 25,000 staff, will be in place by October.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said the plans are ”the best way” to protect frontline police services.
Dundee councillor Jimmy Black, who is the new convener of Tayside Joint Police Board, gave a cautious response, saying he will meet First Minister Alex Salmond this week to discuss the plans, along with all the other local authority police board conveners.
”I don’t want to comment until after that,” he said. ”The plans will be laid out there and we will have the chance to comment on them then.
”What we have to remember is that the whole point is to provide one single police force to make the whole system work more efficiently in the future than it does at the moment, but we will be looking at how that very large area will be organised.
”If there is any part of the plan which we in Tayside think is unworkable then we will let the First Minister know. We will not be slow in telling him.”
Continued…