First appearing in the October 2023 edition of 1919, this article from Mark Diffley (Founder and Director of Diffley Partnership) outlines findings on confidence in policing from polling commissioned by the Authority. 

Like all our public services during times of financial pressures, Police Scotland faces significant challenges while budgets are constrained.

The former chief constable commented last year that “hard choices lie ahead to deliver effective policing within the revenue budget available”, a familiar refrain from leaders of Scotland’s hard pressed public services in the current climate.

Against this backdrop, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis which has placed many individual and household budgets under similar strain, policing in Scotland faces the crucial challenge of how it will maintain public trust and confidence as well as levels of performance.

Analysis of attitudes towards policing in Scotland suggests that, while perceived levels of performance in key areas of police remain positive, public perceptions on issues of anti-social behaviour and community cohesion, and key metrics on public confidence and trust in the police are more concerning.

In 2022, the Scottish Police Authority commissioned Diffley Partnership to measure and monitor public sentiment in terms of trust, confidence and the performance of the police at both a national and local level.

With three waves of data now available, which includes engagement with over 2,500 Scots every six months via a nationally representative survey, we can now take a deep dive into how the public views the police and how these perceptions may be changing.

The evidence presents a number of interesting and noteworthy points.

Firstly, on a positive note, a plurality of Scots think the police do a good job generally and specifically in terms of tackling crime and keeping areas safe, and these ratings have remained broadly consistent across the three waves of the research.

On perceptions of policing in general, for example, 44 per cent of Scots think the police do a good job compared to 24 per cent who take the opposite view, and the balance and strength of these views have remained consistent over time.

However, a second stand-out point is that perceptions of performance around issues of anti-social behaviour and community cohesion highlight more significant public concerns.

On both issues, negative perceptions of police performance outweigh positive perceptions, illustrating these as key challenges to address.

The research highlights the wide prevalence of anti-social behaviour, only seven per cent of Scots observed no anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhoods in the last 12 months, so the finding that 42 per cent rate police performance as poor in this regard compared to 26 per cent who rate performance as good does present a challenge for the service.

Furthermore, the third key point from the research is that in terms of both trust and confidence in the police and conducting their core duties, the public has developed a more negative view in recent times.

We ask survey respondents to rate trust and confidence against a range of attributes on a scale of zero (very low) to 10 (very high); what we observe is that, when averaged out, these scores did not change significantly between the first two waves of the survey, July 2022 to January 2023, but have taken a noticeable downturn in the period since.

This means that, for three specific measures of confidence, responses to incidents, crime prevention and tackling antisocial behaviour locally, the average scores are each below the mid-point of five out of 10 for the first time.

On all other measures of confidence, public attitudes sit marginally above the mid-point at between five and six out of 10, but all have fallen markedly over the previous six months.

The story on measures of trust is similar, with public sentiment declining noticeably over the last six months. All five measures covered in the survey remain above the mid-point at between five and six, though it is worth noting that trust in responsiveness, like confidence in responsiveness, has fallen sharply in the most recent period.

The fourth stand-out point is that perceptions of trust and confidence in the police are not evenly distributed across the population. Whilst it is perhaps unsurprising that views of the police depend on factors such as gender, age, social class, the type of neighbourhood you live in, it is worth highlighting the extent of these differences.

On all measures covered in the survey, females have higher levels of trust and confidence in the police than males, suggesting a systematic gender difference across the board rather than on specific measures.

In some cases, these differences are significant and have grown over the most recent six-month period; this includes the core trust measures of local policing and policing in Scotland overall where average scores out of 10 were 6.01 and 5.85 for females compared to 5.66 and 5.46 for males.

Similarly, those who live in Scotland’s most deprived neighbourhoods typically have lower levels of confidence and trust in the police than those in our most affluent communities. Again, on some measures of trust and confidence, these differences are marked; for example, on the issues of trusting police in your local area, average scores range from 5.25 out of 10 for those in Scotland’s most deprived neighbourhoods up to 6.17 in our most affluent districts.

It is of course important to point out that other public services also face significant challenges in maintaining public confidence. A survey from January for example showed dissatisfaction with how the NHS is being run in Scotland outweighing satisfaction by 46 per cent to 29 per cent, highlighting that the police service is not unique in this regard.

This ongoing research will help Police Scotland to both understand public attitudes and perceptions and help inform important decisions to maintain and improve public engagement.