Background

During the last two years, Your Safety Matters (YSM) has put measures in place to deliver the Chief Constable’s commitment to reducing the impact of violence on officers and staff. New measures have been introduced and existing measures refined, where required, to improve safety including a review of Officer Safety Training (OST) and equipment, and enhanced conflict resolution skills. These commitments have been driven through the YSM Diamond Group, chaired by DCC Taylor and cascaded locally through the YSM Champions Network.

APU strategic analysts have provided the YSM Diamond Group with products which deliver an up-to-date view of assaults on police officers and staff. These analyses provide insights on, but not limited to, locations of assaults, the types of injuries sustained and a focus on repeat offenders and victims. This work has been important in establishing the national picture of assaults on police officers and staff across Scotland and has been used to underpin officer safety training and reviews of current processes.

Main Topic of discussion

Aim of the YSM Diamond Group

The 2019 Terms of Reference for the YSM Diamond Group outlined their purpose to undertake an end-to-end strategic review of all challenges related to the prevention of violence against police officers and police/SPA staff and to ensure Police Scotland/SPA staff were effectively trained, equipped and supported while carrying out their duties. In November 2022 this was updated and the scope expanded;

‘To undertake an end-to-end strategic review of all issues related to the psychological wellbeing, prevention of violence and abusive behaviour against police officers and police/SPA staff, to ensure Police Scotland/SPA staff are effectively trained, equipped and supported while carrying out their duties.’

The addition expands the scope of YSM to include a focus on psychological wellbeing and will allow strategic analysts to provide the group with new and impactful insights on the effect violent and abusive behaviour has on our officers and staff. It reinforces our dedication as an organisation to understand this impact and put processes in place to support officers and staff in their duties.

Developing and increasing the initial scope of the YSM Diamond Group from the ‘prevention of violence’ to the ‘prevention of violence and abusive behaviour’ will include a focus on crimes and offences that have the potential to impact officers and staff negatively both physically and psychologically.

YSM Champions Network

Following the establishment of the YSM Diamond Group, each division was asked to provide a representative who would be their YSM Champion in order to ensure a direct link between the YSM Diamond Group and our frontline officers and staff. The champions are responsible for establishing themselves as a single point of contact for all divisional issues relevant to Your Safety Matters, this includes executing recommendations made by the Diamond Group at a divisional level and thereafter providing feedback.

The YSM Champions Network meets on a bi-monthly basis and is chaired by ACC Johnson. The outcome of these meetings is then fed into the Diamond Group via an established agenda item, with all YSM Champions provided with an opportunity to attend the Diamond Group on a rotational basis to present feedback on specific actions undertaken, updates on progress and examples of good practice.

The Champions Network provides an opportunity for organisational learning, sharing experiences from operational policing at a division level and discussion around any issues encountered.

The Champion’s Network has been fundamental in sharing the organisational message that no police officer or member of staff should experience violence or violent behaviour whilst at work.

Power BI Dashboards

The development of the Your Safety Matters Dashboards, which includes the Crime Report Dashboard, Health and Safety Dashboard, Reporting Rate Dashboard and the new YSM Use of Force Dashboard, have increased our ability to analyse assaults on police officers and staff.

Increased analysis and regular reporting commissioned by the YSM Diamond Group has provided key insights to inform action to impact on assaults on officers and staff.
2022/23 has seen a reduction in assaults on police officers and staff of 6.2% (-438) from the PFY and a 2.1% (-143.2) reduction on the 5 year mean. As illustrated in the Control Chart below the number of assaults in 2020/21 often surpassed the upper limit and were outliers. There has been no replication of this in 2022/23, the only outliers have been below the lower limit.

Diagram