Background

Policing Together, which launched on 30 September 2022, seeks to ensure our values of integrity, fairness, respect and a commitment to upholding human rights lie at the heart of all we do. In order to build and maintain the bond of trust, which underpins our legitimacy to police with and for the public, it is vital we challenge discrimination internally and externally – and challenge our own and each other’s behaviours, attitudes and actions.

Through listening to our officers and staff and from other sources we know there is much work we must do to in order to ensure Police Scotland better represents and reflects the communities we serve. Inclusion is an operational necessity and morally the right thing to do. As such, engagement at a strategic and tactical level with a wide range of diversity staff associations supports delivery of Policing Together; by listening to those who have experienced discrimination and racism, recognising where it persists and fully understanding what an anti-racist police service must be and do. This approach is due to be strengthened by a new Diversity Staff Association Collaboration Group, chaired by Deputy Director of People and Development Nicky Page.

Policing Together provides a focal point and platform to share the significant work already undertaken across the whole of Police Scotland, as well as bringing additional energy and direction to equality, diversity and inclusion imperatives. The schematic below illustrates how Policing Together encapsulates the organisations strategic approach which flow from our core principles, as well as the anticipated organisational and societal outcomes.