Work Underway to Improve Colleague Experience

Work to improve colleague experiences across these key themes is already being taken forward including:

Resourcing
• To strengthen the frontline, reconnect with communities, and respond to emerging threats when the outlook for public finances is challenging, we are progressing the next phase of police reform under Operation Evolve.
• Key milestones already progressed include Police Scotland’s role in the implementation of the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability, the contract award for a national roll out of body worn video, and the establishment of a Mental Health Taskforce. With the support of partners, this will deliver the necessary system-wide efficiencies in the criminal justice system and in the care for people in mental health crisis required to enable sustainable and effective policing.

Safety
• Your Safety Matters brings a focus to violence and abuse experienced by police officers and police staff. The programme is led by a strategic group chaired by Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs and includes experts from across the service.
• Under the programme, we’ve delivered a clear message that violence and abuse is not simply part of the job. Improved operational safety training, a Taser uplift and partnership with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to introduce impact statements is some of the work that has been driven to support officer and staff safety. 
• We’re using data and in-depth analysis to identify key areas that can be targeted, for example by updating course content in operational safety training and more effectively identifying prolific repeat offenders. 
• The Chief Constable has proactively raised the issues of assaults on Police Officers with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

Culture
• Policing Together was established to drive the sustainable, meaningful change required to become an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory police Service which stands against sexism, misogyny, homophobia and all forms of discrimination. Much has been delivered across four areas: leadership, training, professionalism and prevention, and communications. We’re building on what has been done with refreshed energy and work to bring Policing Together to life.

Communication
• The Chief Constable has personally led visible and direct communication with regular updates and frequent meetings with officers and staff on the frontline across Scotland. Other Executive members are making frequent visits across the Service, including locally held ceremonies and awards. Senior leaders are being encouraged to engage with officers and staff. 
• The Strategic Leadership Board will be held in different divisions across the course of this year.  This will afford the opportunity for the Chief Officers Team to attend musters and engage locally during this time.
• We are increasing our internal communication with the intention of launching a weekly executive blog in late February.

Wellbeing
• We have invested almost £17million over four years to support the health and wellbeing of the workforce. The investment has provided colleagues with an improved Employee Assistance Programme and new occupational health services. Improved services include:
• 24/7 access to a safe and effective clinical assessment, helping to reduce the number of working days lost
• Enhanced, professional assessments for neurodiverse colleagues to consider how best to support them in delivering their duties
• A new delivery model for mental health interventions to ensure the least intensive clinical treatment is provided, including immediate access to counselling
• Trauma and critical incident support to identify colleagues at higher risk and ensure they receive the appropriate care
• Help and support in managing the menopause
• Complex health assessments to help understand the contributing factors to colleagues’ health

The thematic analysis of free text comments is captured within Appendix A.

Next steps and key considerations

Our focus continues to be alignment of emerging insights with our 2030 Vision and Three-Year Business Plan.

Each division/department have been asked to identify three key improvement activities for their division/department to progress in the year.

We have committed to running the survey on an annual basis.  A lessons learned exercise of the process will be conducted to deliver improvements and timeliness of the survey and results ahead of the launch of the 2025 survey later this year.