Executive Summary

This paper discusses the headline findings of a survey conducted in Levenmouth as part of the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland Community Confidence Action Research Project.

The Community Confidence Survey ran from 1st February to 15th March 2023 with 100 responses. 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 Levenmouth population.

Key findings:

Levenmouth community cohesion is not particularly strong. Just over onethird of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that Levenmouth has a strong sense of community. More respondents neither agreed nor disagreed that Levenmouth had a strong sense of community, and over a quarter of respondents disagreed.

When asked to comment, views on the area were largely negative and related mainly to the poor condition of their local areas, youth anti-social behaviour, and drug 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 most indicators.

Respondents in Levenmouth had generally positive feelings in relation to trust and local policing, with a higher proportion scoring ‘High’ in three out of four indicators.

Regarding performance, ‘A very good/somewhat good job’ and ‘A somewhat poor/very poor job’ were each the most common responses in two scenarios – similar to SPA national polling. These responses were equally common in ‘Keeping your area safe’.

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