Policing powers during the pandemic

In 2020, the UK and Scottish Governments introduced separate pieces of legislation in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.

The Coronavirus Regulations gave temporary powers to police officers
to help ensure that people followed
the restrictions put in place to
prevent the spread of COVID-19,
protect the NHS, and save lives.
The temporary powers allowed police
officers to:
 Tell people to disperse
 Tell parents to stop their children
breaking the rules
 Issue a Fixed Penalty Notice or
make an arrest
Purpose
The Strategic Police Plan commits to the provision of policing for a safe, protected
and resilient Scotland. This requires designing and maintaining services which
meet rising and evolving demands in a constantly changing environment. To meet
these demands now and in the future Scotland’s police service must adapt and
proportionately adopt new ways of working, policies and technologies which will
enable them to protect the safety and wellbeing of our communities (as outlined
in the Policing Principles - Section 32 of Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act
2012).
This series of public focused and user-friendly factsheets have been developed to
provide an overview of the benefits of new policing approaches and upcoming
developments within policing, the policies that will govern them, and the ethical,
privacy and human rights implications. For further reading, Police Scotland and
the Scottish Police Authority have also published a range of associated material
that will be signposted at the end of this document.
For more information on the
legislation see:
The Health Protection
(Coronavirus) (Restrictions)
(Scotland) Regulations 2020
Coronavirus Act 2020