Annual report 2023-24

Inspection reports

HMICS frontline focus – wellbeing

The aim of this inspection was to engage directly with frontline officers and staff to identify the issues they consider affect their wellbeing, and assess their awareness of wellbeing provision in Police Scotland.

The inspection also considered the approach taken by Police Scotland comparable to professional guidance.

Following the publication of the HMICS scrutiny plan 2022-25, we committed to conducting a series of strategic reviews, focusing on the frontline, with the purpose of identifying issues and providing recommendations to drive improvement.

Wellbeing was selected as the first review of this nature, given its significant priority to Police Scotland and its impact on officers and staff.

The inspection report contains seven recommendations and areas for development, which are intended to enable Police Scotland to focus on wellbeing provision, through an improved understanding of the factors that officers and staff considered most impactive.

HMICS thematic inspection of organisational culture in Police Scotland

The aim of this inspection was to make an assessment as to whether Police Scotland has a healthy organisational culture and ethical framework, and whether the appropriate values and behaviours are consistently lived across the organisation.

Organisational culture in policing is an area of significant public interest and rated highly in topics to be considered when HMICS consulted on its scrutiny plan 2022-25. It also recognised that a decade had passed since the formation of Police Scotland – the biggest public sector reform in Scotland since devolution.

The speed of change and the merger of eight forces and two agencies to create one service, with associated financial savings, created many challenges.

The inspection report identifies that Police Scotland is on a journey of change and improvement and contains 11 recommendations, intended to enable the service to improve culture; address inequalities; define effectively what is valued and how it is measured; streamline processes; and enhance communication, training and guidance.

HMICS thematic review of policing mental health in Scotland

The aim of this review was to assess the state, efficiency and effectiveness of Police Scotland’s provision of mental health-related policing services. Our review considered the following five objectives:

• how well-prepared Police Scotland is to meet the needs of people experiencing poor mental health
• whether the police response to mental health-related demand affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation in delivering other policing services
• whether the organisation understands the demand associated with the provision of mental health-related policing services
• the effectiveness of the force’s collaborative working arrangements on the provision of mental health-related policing services
• the impact that the involvement of the police has on the person who is experiencing poor mental health.

This report contains 14 recommendations and identifies areas for development to ensure the best possible service and outcomes for those experiencing poor mental health in Scotland.

HMICS assurance review of vetting policy and procedures within Police Scotland

The aim of this review of Police Scotland’s vetting was to assure the quality of vetting and renewals and whether these effectively identified potential misconduct, risk or vulnerability.

With recent high-profile cases of police officers abusing their positions, vetting is an integral part of the process to identify individuals who are unsuitable to work within policing. The review focused on recruitment and management vetting of officers and staff either being recruited by, or those already working within, Police Scotland.

HMICS considered the history of vetting in Scotland in the years prior to the creation of Police Scotland in 2013. It reviewed vetting case files of officers and staff over a four-year period between 2019 and 2022, as well as examining guidance and policy currently providing the basis for vetting in Police Scotland.

The report contains 15 recommendations and identifies areas for development to improve Police Scotland’s vetting of its officers and staff, and subsequent identification and management of risk. The report also highlights examples of good practice within the Force Vetting Unit.

HMICS assurance review of Scottish Police Authority forensic toxicology provision

This assurance review of the Scottish Police Authority’s forensic services toxicology section followed disclosure that drug driving cases had been marked as ‘no proceedings’ by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. This occurred primarily due to the section failing to analyse and report blood samples within appropriate timescales.

The review focused on the end-to-end processes (from roadside to court) for drug driving. The report provides an overview of the issues leading to the drug driving cases that were unable to be prosecuted, with an assessment of the effectiveness surrounding the processes in place for obtaining, analysing and reporting drug driving blood samples to support criminal proceedings.

The report contains 25 recommendations and identifies areas for development to improve the provision of service in relation to drug driving. Significant progress has been made in some of the recommendations and there is a clear ambition to improve the capability and capacity within the SPA forensic science capability.

Joint scrutiny activity

Joint inspections of adult support and protection services

Since the publication of the last annual report, work has progressed at pace on joint scrutiny of adult support and protection services. These joint inspections, led by the Care Inspectorate in collaboration with HMICS and Healthcare Improvement Scotland, form part of a national inspection programme that seeks to focus on whether adults at risk of harm within a specific geographic partnership area are safe, protected and supported. This culminated in the production of an overview report published in August 2023. This report
provides a national baseline of how effectively partnerships are ensuring that adults at risk of harm are safe, supported and protected.

The overview report also provides the platform for a second phase of the programme, which began in August 2023 and should be completed in July 2025. This phase has identified four priority areas of focus for the joint scrutiny team, namely:

• Year 1 – Revisit those partnerships that were previously inspected in 2017-18. This will provide an updated national picture of the partnerships inspected during that initial phase and allow for an assessment of whether progress and improvements have been made during the interim period.
• Year 1 – Working with scrutiny partners and adult support and protection partnerships, develop a Quality Improvement Framework (QIF) that will support an improved and more consistent national approach to self-evaluation across a number of key areas relating to adults at risk of harm.
• Year 2 – Review of improvement plan progress in those partnerships where areas from improvement identified during the initial inspection outweighed strengths.
• Year 2 – This workstream, which will be led by HMICS and supported by scrutiny partners, will seek to work with identified partnership areas and – using the newly-developed QIF – explore and evaluate the delivery of early interventions and preventative approaches within adult support and protection (ASP) arrangements through a supported self-evaluation approach. We will consider the impact of these key tenets, and the associated overlay of trauma-informed approaches, to understand how service delivery influences outcomes for adults at risk of harm.

Joint inspection of services for children and young people at risk of harm

In keeping with our long-term commitment to collaborative working, HMICS has continued to work with the Care Inspectorate, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Education Scotland in this critical area of scrutiny and assurance.

The remit of these joint inspections is to consider the effectiveness of services for children and young people up to the age of 18 at risk of harm. The inspections look at the differences community planning partnerships are making to the lives of children and young people at risk of harm, and their families.

As per previous years, the inspections cover specific geographical areas and perform a key role in supporting services for children and young people. The four partnership areas inspected in the current reporting period are published on the Care Inspectorate website.

In addition to the geographical inspection work, the Scottish Government requested that the Care Inspectorate lead a strategic review, supported by HMICS and other scrutiny partners, of the experiences of children and young people who were living in cross-border placements (i.e., children or young people placed in residential care settings in Scotland from other UK jurisdictions). HMICS is supporting this review by engaging with key police partners to report on the impact of cross-border placements. It is expected that this report will be published later in 2024, on the Care Inspectorate website.

Healthcare provision within police custody centres in Scotland

HMICS and Healthcare Improvement Scotland conducted a baseline assessment of healthcare in custody in 2022/23. Following the publication of this report, agreement to fund and implement a scrutiny programme delivered by both agencies was sought and agreed. In 2023/24 three joint inspections have been completed. These are detailed below and show the difference in healthcare and custody service delivery across geographical areas.

Such a service differential is concerning and leads, in some places, to low levels of service that don’t meet the needs of those who are brought into custody (other than to deliver them safe to the exit door of a police station or the court). The chance to deliver service (or referral for service) for the large number of people with mental health or substance abuse challenges is an opportunity that must be taken. The recently-published report by Community Justice Scotland (National Outcome: More people in police custody receive support to address their needs) stresses the need to seize the opportunity of a person coming into custody to receive care, treatment and onward referral to services to address either substance or mental health issues.

This preventative approach is one that is fully supported by HMICS and, as a result, our inspections will be shared with Community Justice Scotland at an early stage to ensure that there is an understanding of the pathways and mechanisms in place in local areas to support the most vulnerable on their release from custody.

The first joint inspection was published in April 2023, in the Lanarkshire area. This was the first inspection to use the new joint methodology and provided recommendations to both Police Scotland and NHS service providers. Since then, inspections have been conducted in Tayside, Dumfries and Galloway, and Fife divisions, with recommendations to both
Police Scotland and healthcare providers. An escalation of concerning practice was made regarding medication in Dumfries and Galloway, with a follow-up review in late 2023 (published in 2024) addressing the issues identified and the steps taken to address them. This first use of the escalation process worked well and prompt action was taken to address the failings.