Report Summary
This report provides members of the Policing Performance Committee with an overview of the SPA Public Confidence Polling Report.
To access the full document please open the PDF document above.
To view as accessible content please use the sections below. (Note that tables and some appendixes are not available as accessible content).
Meeting
The publication discussed was referenced in the meeting below
Policing Performance Committee - 12 September 2023
Date : 12 September 2023
Location : online
Trust in the Police
Similarly, respondents were asked how much trust they have in the police in a number of areas, on a scale of 0 "do not trust at all" to 10 "trust completely".
As with questions of confidence, we observe a decline in the levels of trust reported by the public across the six month period between data collection cycles.
Local police continue to receive the highest level of trust from the public (5.84) and are closely followed by police in Scotland overall (5.66).
In terms of actions, police are trusted to protect (5.38) and care about people (5.36) to around the same degree, with trust to listen and respond to people’s needs slightly lower (5.16). However, converse to confidence, the average trust ratings continue to show that, overall, police are more trusted than not trusted on all measures.
Variations in Trust
Levels of trust in the police vary significantly when looking at demographic and geographic factors
Gender
Females are significantly more likely to have more trust in the police for all aspects.
Parliamentary Area
People in the Glasgow Parliamentary Region have much less trust in the police, on average, than any other Parliamentary Region
Areas of Deprivation
As with confidence, since wave 1 we have observed differences in trust based on the level of deprivation in the local area. Those living in the most deprived areas (SIMD1) typically have less trust in the police on every measure than those in the most affluent areas (SIMD5).
