Annual Report

The annual report is in a different format than previously presented and covers wider areas of the workforce. The main findings are shown below.

Workforce Numbers
Key Findings

There has been a reduction in Police Officer numbers of 189.9 FTE (1.1%) over the past year.
An exercise to redistribute officer resources has been completed to work with around 16600 FTE officers in line with budget limitations.
There has been an increase of 120.3 FTE (2.1%) staff over the same period.
Staff increases have been seen across most Corporate Functions such as vetting, procurement and service design.
There have also been increases in C3 Service Centres and Criminal Justice functions such as productions and custody.
An exercise to reduce staff numbers in line with budget allocation is ongoing.

Promotion, Joiners and Leavers
Key Findings

1117 officers (FTE) joined Police Scotland year ending March 2023, an increase of 670 officers FTE from the previous year (2021/22 was a particularly low year for recruitment due to COVID 19 and the operational commitments due to COP26).
This is the second highest number of joiners since the formation of Police Scotland (the highest being 2020/21 when recruitment numbers were increased in preparation for COP26).
1301.4 FTE officers left Police Scotland year ending March 2023, 377.1 FTE (41%) higher than the previous year. This is the highest annual number of leavers since the formation of Police Scotland and can be attributed to changes in the police pension regulations.
The police officer leaver rate (leavers as a proportion of headcount at the start of the year) was 7.7% for the year ending March 2023 which is the highest since the formation of Police Scotland and 3.2% higher than the 5 year average (this is as a result of high levels of attrition and lower overall officer numbers).

Diversity
Key Findings

There were 303 officers who identified as ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) in Police Scotland, an increase of 50 (19.7%) when compared with year ending March 2020.
There has been an increase of 49 officers who identified as ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) in the Constable ranks when compared with year ending 2020.
30 officers, (3% of all police recruits) identified as ethnic minority (excluding white minority).
11 officers (<1%) who identified as ethnic minority (excluding white minority) left Police Scotland in the year ending March 2023.
On 31 March 2023 there were 5759 headcount female officers making up 34.26% of the officers in Police Scotland, this is a proportion increase of 0.87% from the previous year.
38.14% (426 FTE) of police officer recruits were female for the year ending March 2023.

Officer Wellbeing

Key Findings
As at 31 March 2023, there were 687 FTE officers on long-term absence (equivalent to 4.1% of all officers), 391 police officers were on long-term sick leave, which is equivalent to 2.3% of police officers (compared with 2.6% in the previous year).
As at 31 March 2023, there were 935 police officers on recuperative duties, equivalent to 5.6% of officers. There were also a further 1025 officers on adjusted, IHR retained or protected duties, equivalent to a further 6.1% of officers.

Actions as a result of the findings
The proportion of female recruits has dropped this year in comparison to the previous year and proportionally the number of recruits form under-represented groups does not fulfil the needs of the organisational objective for the Force to better represent the community it serves. To that end, the development of the positive action team within recruitment appears to be critical in addressing these issues.

On the 31 March 2023, due to long term absence and duty modifications 14% of police officers were not available to fulfil the full role of a Constable (this excludes short term absence and other abstractions from duty). Further work requires to be undertaken in this area to reduce these longer term abstractions and improve availability of officers, particularly at a time of reducing resources.