Consultation & Engagement

Our aim is to achieve a consistent and co-ordinated engagement plan that is appropriate and meaningful and accessible to the public, local communities and our stakeholders.

The approach is designed to do things with rather than to/for. Engagement is not always about asking what people want or think they need but working ‘with’ to understand needs and how these can best be met within our budgetary and resource capabilities. Feedback and solutions are led by needs and designing a service that meets these needs appropriate in every local area.

In the context of estates transformation, the engagement narrative has been framed on local policing delivery models towards meeting the needs and expectations of local areas. For example, adapting the local policing model for a modern accessible, visible, and engaging service; and all within and guided by the drivers of public confidence, predictors of trust, and determinants of satisfaction.

For a meaningful and constructive dialogue, the narrative has so far focused on outcomes and needs over buildings and efficiencies. While buildings help make savings, they do not equate to service delivery.

Communications and messaging has been focused on the budgetary challenges and has been clear on what our proposals are and that the service will be making decisions informed by feedback and consultation. We have made a commitment to keep communities and our stakeholders updated and informed as this engagement, and indeed with wider transformation programme, develops.

The Research and Insight service, in collaboration with colleagues from other corporate functions and with local policing divisions, have designed, managed and co-ordinated the quality control of activities, namely:

A National Conversation about the future of our estate – This has utilised our Engagement Hub platform to share and showcase information and invite everyone to take part in our conversation. This is focused on the Estate Strategy 2019, an opportunity to sense-check progress against the vision articulated by the strategy.

Local community impact assessment – The level and scope of engagement has been assessed based on a review of information available about how each building proposed for disposal is currently used by colleagues and the public; and the impact associated with any potential disposal. This assessment included a conversation with Divisional Commanders and teams around their own local knowledge and wider impacts or benefits in the local area.

A consultation for each building – Consultations (survey questions) include qualitative and quantitative questions to capture agreement with the proposals and people’s understanding, perceptions and use of their local police buildings. The information can then be used to inform local communications and engagement, address areas of concern and impacts for informing decision-making and local scrutiny.

Weekly review and analysis of data – A weekly review and overview report has been provided to teams and senior leaders within the service to provide robust oversight. This has enabled the service to monitor and respond to any important areas as required. This is fed into the governance structure surrounding estates transformation.

Analysis, synthesis and reporting – As each building’s consultation closes, we are taking a co-ordinated approach with estates colleagues about those buildings which decisions are required on first. For example, many consultations closed on 18 February, and by 19 February there was analysis of consultation findings reports available for four of these buildings to support proposals at Resources Committee on 13 March. In general terms, feedback and the reports for each building will be provided at least 2-3 weeks after each consultation closes. Reports will be available on Police Scotland’s Engagement Hub, providing a ‘one stop shop’ for the public, communities and stakeholders to review the reporting of their feedback.