Outcomes and approach

The high-level focus of the group’s work continues to centre on the four key outcomes across three areas established at the outset of its work:

Culture

Police Scotland has a clear diagnosis of existing cultures and behaviours and their impact, and a robust understanding of what successful cultural transformation would look like and how to achieve it.

Strategic direction

Police Scotland has a clear Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy with measurable outcomes, the delivery of which is embedded throughout the Service.

Police Scotland has an Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Human Rights Strategic Oversight Board that identifies good practice, continually reviews policies and procedures and drives innovation to promote Equality, Diversity and Inclusion throughout the organisation.

Training and development

Police Scotland has a comprehensive training and development plan at every level of the service which drives culture change, supports the effective implementation of its EDI strategy as well as deepening the awareness among all staff of EDI and anti-discrimination issues in relation to everyday practice.

We have expanded the training and development outcome since establishing the outcomes to ensure it fully reflects the role and purpose of training and development in relation to EDIHR.

As the implementation phase of the group’s work has progressed, the IRG has identified seven proxy themes which we anticipate will form the basis of our reporting framework in relation to those four outcomes. These themes, which are not mutually exclusive, are:

Governance and Oversight

Dealing with Complaints and Grievances

Role of Middle/People Management

Policies and Practice

Training and Development

Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion

Vetting

We had originally included Vetting within the Recruitment and Promotion theme, but on reflection concluded that it needed to be a theme in its own right.

This has enabled the group to carefully consider what forms of data and evidence it will need to assess the level of assurance it can offer Police Scotland in relation to the four key outcomes.

The overarching context for consideration of data and evidence is provided by Dame Elish Angiolini’s Report on Complaints. Investigations and Misconduct, published in 2020, recommendation 18 of which gave rise to the establishment of the IRG.

Of particular relevance to the IRG’s review are Dame Angiolini’s observations on a range of matters including frontline resolution, promotion readiness, supervision culture (particularly at middle management level), the threshold for statutory misconduct, the experiences of minoritised groups, the role of ‘canteen culture’, and the role of diversity staff associations and the Scottish Police Federation in relation to EDIHR.

The principal forms of data and evidence being gathered by the IRG include:

Internal policies, reviews, reports and administrative data produced by Police Scotland

External reports and reviews including relevant HMICS thematic inspections and ongoing reviews conducted out with Scotland

Interviews and discussions with a range of key personnel in senior managerial roles, specialist units, and representatives of the diversity staff associations and the Scottish Police Federation

Interviews and group discussions with officers and staff across a sample of four divisions, three geographic and one operational.

Observations of the delivery of training courses

The insights described in section 5 of this interim report draw primarily on qualitative evidence gathered via the interviews, discussions, and observations we have conducted to date. During the next phase of the review, as well as gathering further primary data, we will endeavour to consider this qualitative evidence in the context of administrative data including for example, data on complaints, grievances, misconduct, recruitment, retention and promotion, and documentary evidence and online information held by Police Scotland.

The most significant recent review of relevance to the IRG’s work out with Scotland is Baroness Casey’s review into the standards of behaviour and internal culture of the Metropolitan Police Service. Police Scotland is the second largest police service in the UK after the Metropolitan Police Service and covers the largest geographical area of any territorial police service.

Baroness Casey’s report was published as we were drafting this interim report. The Casey review covers some of the same terrain as our own review but with a broader remit and has been conducted in a parallel but nevertheless distinct policing context.

Prior to the report’s publication, we had already made contact with the Casey Review team. It is our intention to meet further with representatives of the team to learn more about their approach, findings and conclusions. This will enable us to consider their relevance to our own review and our assessment of Police Scotland’s progress on EDIHR.