Community Confidence Survey

Community Confidence Survey

Between 20th September and 15th November 2022 a survey was conducted to gather the views of those aged 16 and over on Letham and confidence in policing. Questions were made available online via SPA Citizen Space page and on paper via community organisations with a freepost envelope to the SPA office for returns. There was also the option to request another format if required. In total there were 57 responses to the survey.

This was analysed alongside results for the Police Scotland Your Police Survey (there were 32 responses for Letham in 2021/22 and 41 in 2022/23).

The findings were published in December 2022 and key findings included:

Letham community cohesion appears to be strong and people in the area report a sense of safety. Nearly half of the Community Confidence survey respondents strongly agreed or agreed that Letham had a sense of community, and Your Police Survey insights show that 71% of survey respondents (n=29) stated they felt safe in 2022/23.

However, when asked to comment on views of Letham, responses were largely negative and related mainly to anti-social behaviour, and drug and alcohol use.

High levels of confidence in policing were mostly associated with policing in general, and it is notable that the highest proportion of respondents scored ‘Low’ or ‘Medium’ in their level of confidence for all indicators. Your Police Survey data also indicates there has been an increase in those who are not confident from 19% (n=6) in 2021/22 to 41% (n=17) in 2022/23.

Respondents in Letham generally had more neutral feelings in relation to trust and local policing, with a higher proportion scoring ‘medium’ across all indicators.

Regarding performance, the highest proportion scored ‘a neither good nor poor job’ across all indicators. Comparatively, SPA national polling showed a higher proportion of respondents feeling negative about ‘tackling anti-social behaviour’ and ‘bringing the community together’ and a positive response for ‘policing in general’, ‘keeping your area safe’ and ‘tackling crime’.

The majority of respondents noticed no changes in local policing in the last six months, nor had their opinion of policing changed.

The qualitative responses highlight that police presence and visibility appear to be where respondents’ confidence issues lie.

Community Confidence Under 16s Survey

After permission was received from Perth and Kinross Council, between 13th and 20th January 2023 a survey was run in a local primary school to gather the views of under 16s on policing. Questions were also developed aimed at Primary 1 to Primary 3 with completion facilitated by teachers. It was at the discretion of schools on how these questions were made available to pupils and in total there were 95 responses.

The findings of these questions were published in March 2023.

Key findings included:

The majority of pupils appeared to view policing positively.

The main suggestion across the years on what police should focus on or what would make them happier about police was more engagement in schools.

The Primary 4 to Primary 7 answers also mentioned wanting police to focus on keeping people safe along with references to anti-social behaviour, road safety and helping with dangerous/bad people.

It should be noted that due to small sample sizes and the non-representative nature of the samples the findings of these surveys cannot be generalised to the entire Letham population.