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Published: 27 January 2025

Project Final Report - December 2024 - Community Confidence Action Research

Keywords : Police Confidence community confidence action research trust levenmouth wick irvine fullarton letham

Report Summary

This report outlines the final findings of the the work of the SPA and Police Scotland's Community Confidence Action Research Project across Letham, Levenmouth, Irvine Fullarton and Wick.

To access the full document please open the PDF document above.

To view as accessible content please use the sections below. (Note that some tables and appendixes are not available as accessible content).


CONFIDENCE IN THE POLICE

What do we mean by confidence in the police in the context of the CCAR Project, and what does wider survey data show? Confidence in the police relates to whether people think that the
police are performing well and delivering high quality, effective policing services that make them feel safer and more secure at home and in their community. Confidence can be shaped by direct contact and experience with the police service, or indirectly based on hearing about others’ direct experience, observing police activity, or by seeing/hearing media stories.

Confidence in the police is not the same as trust in the police. Trust in the police relates to whether people believe that police are honest, act with integrity, treat people fairly and with respect, and therefore can be relied upon to provide a legitimate, consensual policing service to the public. It is
possible for people to have high trust in the police but low confidence and vice-versa, although the two concepts are often interrelated.

In Scotland and the UK as a whole, there are several sources of empirical evidence available for judging whether or not the public has confidence in the police, the majority of the evidence being collected by social surveys and polling activity. The questions and wording used differs slightly between surveys, jurisdictions and over the passage of time, meanwhile the surveys themselves vary between being administered online, and/or in-person and/or via telephone. It makes comparisons difficult, but brings about the benefit of being able to triangulate data for additional assurance, and essentially all of the approaches share at their heart an interest in whether the public thinks the police service is doing a good job.

Reach and representativeness is an ongoing issue for all of these surveys. There are undoubtedly many people with certain characteristics that are unlikely to be reached via large-scale survey methods for a wide variety of reasons. Research into the views of seldom-reached / seldom-heard communities instead benefits from different methodological approaches, usually of a qualitative nature, with highly-targeted participant recruitment activity.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is the longest-standing survey which asks, among other topic areas, a question about whether respondents think that the police are doing a good job
locally. The latest findings from the 2021-22 survey show that 84% of people think that the police are at least performing fairly, with 49% of people regarding police performance as being excellent or good. It is notable, however, that the proportion of people rating police performance positively has been falling during the course of the last decade: in 2012-13 for example, 90% of people rated police performance as at least being ‘fair’, with 61% of people giving an excellent or good rating.

When looking at how views vary according to a range of factors, including deprivation, it is evident from SCJS data that some sections of society have more confidence in the police than others. In terms of deprivation, people living in the most deprived areas of Scotland are less likely to rate police performance as positively as others, with the proportion rating police performance as being excellent or good typically being 5-8% lower than the rest of the population (See Table
A1.15).

More recent data (2019 to the present) on confidence in the police is collected via the organisation YouGov. It is based on a UK-wide survey and is collected regularly as a ‘tracker’, available at this link. Although the size of the sample for Scottish is relatively small, the consistency and frequency of the survey provides reliable information when viewed as a trend. The latest finding available at the time of writing is for 4th November 2024 and shows that 59% of people in Scotland think that the police are doing a good job.

The tracker for Scotland shows that between 2019 and 2021, between 70-80% of people rated police performance positively. A decline then occurred between 2021 and early 2023, followed by stabilisation at around 50%. The drop in confidence in 2021-23 coincides with period when lockdowns were still in effect, and public frustration was high in relation to people ‘breaking the rules’ and ‘keeping others in lockdown’. The Authority tested this position in several waves of public polling carried out during the pandemic, where the public were asked about their views on the police in relation to lockdowns and compliance with the rules. There was clear evidence by 2021 that the public had become frustrated with the police for not being ‘tough enough’ regarding enforcement of breaches of the regulations and non-compliance with guidance. The 2022-23 period also coincides with the emergence of the ‘cost of living crisis’ and growing levels of discontent towards governments and public bodies.

The Authority has also been commissioning polling through an independent supplier (the Diffley Partnership). The polling uses the established ScotPulse panel, and core questions on confidence and trust are asked on a six-monthly basis. The CCAR Project has included these questions in the
surveys administered in each of the four localities in an attempt to establish whether trust and confidence in the police was lower than average in each of the areas that had been selected.

The latest round of Authority polling (August 2024) shows that 46% of people rate the police as doing a very good or somewhat good job, an improvement from January 2024 (42%) and July 2023 (44%). The improvement in 2024 aligns with what is showing in the YouGov tracker data.

In terms of the CCAR Project, most of the questionnaire surveys and community conversations took place during 2022-23, a time when confidence in the police was falling, both in Scotland and across the UK, and it is against this trend that the CCAR Project’s insights must be considered.


Related Content

Wick - December 2024 - Community Confidence Action Research Final Report

Irvine Fullarton - February 2024 - Community Confidence Action Research Final Report

Levenmouth - February 2024 - Community Confidence Action Research Final Report

Letham - November 2023 - Community Confidence Action Research Final Report

Policing Performance Committee - 10th December 2024 - Item 3.3 Community Confidence Action Research Final Report