Further detail

The Inspection took place at a time of significant change and progress in the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion space starting with the launch of the Policing Together Strategy in 2022, followed by the then Chief Constable Sir Iain Livingstone’s statement on institutional racism and discrimination in Police Scotland in May 2023 and the ongoing programme of work to become an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory service.

Driving positive cultural change was and continues to be at the heart of the Policing Together Vision which is to ensure Police Scotland is welcoming, inclusive and representative of communities and creates working environments where people demonstrate organisational values and standards and know they belong. This is an imperative for the organisation to ensure officers and members of staff can be themselves, reach their potential and deliver the highest standard of service to the diverse communities of Scotland.

A summary of the recommendations was presented to the Strategic Leadership Board in January 2024 and under the direction of the Strategic Lead, DCC Speirs, a Cultural Oversight Group of key internal stakeholders was established to progress with a formal improvement plan to address all areas.

In the findings, HMICS recognised the challenges in creating a single service in the early days and highlighted the improvements achieved in respect of equity of access to specialist services, more robust investigation of sexual crime and domestic abuse together with improved financial management. The report acknowledged that in more recent times there has been an emerging change in the tone and style of the organisation and a more reflective and learning organisation is beginning to develop. The last six years in particular has seen a continued focus on delivery of high-profile events, detection rates and community-based policing, supported by a foundation of ethics and human rights.

However, resourcing challenges and the continuing budget focus has also resulted in financial scrutiny that often balances the books but misses out on improvements that would be welcomed by staff and officers, and that would bring about improvements in service delivery to communities. The recommendations have a strong focus on working more collaboratively internally; reducing silo working and duplication; simplifying plans, messaging and performance and governance structures; creating more inclusive environments for all groups, providing more opportunities for feedback and dialogue with staff, addressing perceived barriers or inequalities; and supporting organisational change through structured methodologies.

Developing the Improvement Plan

Under the Direction of ACC’s Professionalism and Assurance and Policing Together, work has been progressing under the Cultural Oversight Board with the primary focus on the completeness of all remaining sections of the Improvement Plan. This Board has included representatives from SPA and has engaged directly with HMICS. The Improvement Plan has been reviewed and approved by Police Scotland’s People Board on 5 August 2024.

There is wide recognition that much activity was either underway or planned which contributes to addressing the recommendations and in recognition of the cross-cutting nature of the recommendations members of the group worked together to identify improvement actions; ensuring alignment with other strategic plans and current/planned operational and scrutiny activities. This alignment is provided within the full version of the Improvement Plan and presents a summary of our management response, intended actions, milestones, target dates and Executive lead.

See Appendix A – Improvement Plan.

The first iteration of the Improvement Plan focuses on high level activity knowing that as we start to realise the deliverables further action will emerge and therefore the plan will continue to evolve over the months. This will include more detailed consideration of areas for development which at this time have not been allocated specific actions within the plan. In agreement with HMICS we have aligned the areas for development alongside recommendations and will explore in partnership with SPA what action is needed going forward and whether this is already covered in ongoing activity.

Dependencies and Alignment

It is important to recognise the complexity and nature of the complexity of cross-cutting recommendations, this will be essential to successful implementation and sustainability of the improvement actions. Where possible, there has been a specific effort to document these dependencies along with alignment with other supporting Strategies/Plans within the Improvement Plan. Examples include:

• Strategic alignment is included in the design of our Colleague Engagement Survey to ensure we are measuring progress against priorities, plans and actions. The approach includes refreshed annual colleague survey with stakeholders to measure culture transformation and will measure progress to how we respond to recommendations of HMICS.
• HMICS Frontline Focus Wellbeing Inspection Report highlighted a range of cultural aspects that were felt to impact on wellbeing, such as organisational stressors. Within their report, HMICS also recognised that whilst cultural change is complex, there must be an organisational acceptance and response to the broader inequalities that exist and are felt across the frontline. (Organisational Culture Improvement Plan- Recommendation 8).
• The development actions from the review have been considered within the wider policing context of the Strategic Outcomes, with improvement actions aligned to the Joint Strategy and key enabling Strategies, specifically ‘People’ and ‘Policing Together.’

Engagement, Consultation and Benchmarking

Consultation has taken place with business leads and HMICS to further develop the priority key actions highlighted within the Improvement Plan. This has included workshops with HMICS and key Stakeholders to discuss approach and actions for specific recommendations; 1 (Leadership); 2 (Parity between officer/staff groups); 6 (Grievance Process); 8 (Engagement); 9 (Organisational Design/Development) and 10 (Performance). These discussions included exploring evidential expectations as well as the development of cultural measures. Divisional contacts have provided responses in relation to actions, deliverables, timescales, target dates and dependencies.

Engagement with SPA has been ongoing throughout the development of this plan and their feedback and comments incorporated particularly in relation to Recommendation 6 which is jointly owned and Recommendation 10 where they will have a role in discharging areas for development.

As advised to May’s People Committee, we continue to explore opportunities to consider best practice across UK Policing into our Organisational Culture Improvement Plan.

Engagement has taken place with the National Police Chief Council (NPCC) in relation to the development of a Cultural Toolkit and Police Scotland has recently participated in a National Police Chief Council ‘s Organisational Culture Questionnaire and will be responding to the follow-up questionnaire this month (August).

Police Scotland has also approached the Metropolitan Police to learn about their approach and monitoring of their Culture, Diversity, and Inclusion (CDI) Programme, including cultural measures for success and all will support our ability to ensure that we are maximising the opportunities to share and learn best practice.

Delivery and Governance Arrangements

We have previously identified the need to develop a cohesive approach to implementing the changes required. Especially since there are many dependencies, links to other recommendations and the actions have multiple owners.

ACC Paton, Policing Together, will be the primary lead for coordinating and driving progress and implementation of the actions within the Improvement Plan, acknowledging all the businesses will be required to contribute. The need for this coordinated and cohesive approach is reflected in the recent Policing Together refresh which brings together all key business areas under the Policing Together umbrella to ensure visibility, coordination, progress and an understanding of impact into a streamlined governance structure (See Appendix B).

Tactical progress towards the Improvement Plan will be overseen by the Policing Together Implementation Group chaired by Chief Superintendent Policing Together. The terms of reference for the Implementation Group will be updated to reflect the Groups’ new responsibility to monitor delivery of the practical steps within the Improvement Plan. The requirement for a separate HMICS Cultural Oversight Group will be kept under review if it is felt that further focus and momentum is required.

Timescales for actions to be delivered will vary, however alignment to organisation strategies, specifically Policing Together’s next strategic review, in September 2026, provides a focal date for the Improvement Plan and affords the opportunity to sustain improvements by embedding into the future strategic direction of the Force. We have identified milestone dates and deliverables for all actions to monitor and assess progress.

Measuring the Improvement

A key part of Improvement Planning is the identification of measures or indicators of success at the outset. A set of Cultural Measures are being developed separately and will be used to quantify/qualify the improvements made resulting from the activities in this plan. Once finalised and approved, they will be aligned to each of the recommendations.

Pro-active engagement with HMICS has increased our understanding of their evidential expectations for each of the recommendations and has not only helped us shape the improvement actions but has also provided areas of focus when progressing these actions.