Related Downloads
Additional
Vision and strategic direction
19. Police Scotland’s vision and strategy for custody is contained within the overarching 2030 vision for policing, which is structured around four strategic outcome pillars: safer communities, less crime, supported victims, and a thriving workforce.
20. Police Scotland has also introduced a Custody 2030 project. This is a strategic transformation initiative, aligned with the wider 2030 vision, which is designed to modernise the criminal justice services division (CJSD)[1] underpinned by a strategic plan for custody.
21. The strategic plan is aimed at improving service delivery by achieving significant change and improvement through estate modernisation and establishing increased workforce resilience. In addition, core project focus areas include:
National custody and productions model: Establishing a ‘hub and spoke’ approach to estate management. This involves upgrading central custody hubs while closing older centres considered unfit for purpose, subject to government capital funding.
Regulatory compliance: Improving adherence to the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 by improving communication and audit procedures between local policing and the CJSD.
Digital transformation: Implementing tools like the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) to remove the manual transfer of evidence, speeding up investigations and freeing frontline resources.
Trauma-informed care: Enhancing the training of custody staff and officers to better support individuals who present with a range of vulnerabilities including those resulting from mental health distress, and drug and alcohol problems.
22. There is clear strategic intent at senior leadership level, with the Custody 2030 project setting a more dynamic direction with greater emphasis on continuous improvement during its timeline. The well-defined core aims have been developed through recognition of the issues raised in joint custody inspection reports and the internal analysis of performance that has become more structured in recent years. Senior officers spoke of there being a clear understanding of the challenges facing custody services, and they have recently established a project team to deliver on the strategic plan.
Communication of strategy
23. As with any strategic plan, it is of course essential that it is communicated effectively across relevant parts of the workforce. However, we found gaps in the dissemination of the strategy. Our conversations with custody staff demonstrated a lack of understanding of the strategic direction for custody and the steps that will be taken to achieve the change and improvement required. While there was a sound appreciation across custody staff teams we engaged with of the long-established goal of maintaining high standards of care and welfare for detainees, they were less certain about how this would be delivered in practice and what role they would play.
24. Some staff outlined what they described as ‘information overload’ whereby flurries of messages on a wide range of subjects emerging from the divisional coordination unit (which provides command support) could mean that key messaging gets drowned out and loses impact.
25. Custody sergeants appeared to have a firm understanding of their operational responsibilities, but variability in the perspectives and approaches of custody inspectors, who are a key link in the tactical and strategic leadership chain, can result in gaps in how strategic expectations and general operational direction is communicated to staff across the estate.
26. Despite this, custody staff highlighted that while they may not yet have a full appreciation of the strategic plan, they had a strong understanding of their individual roles and believed that by delivering these well they were effectively contributing to the wider strategic aims and objectives within custody.
27. The CJSD senior leadership team (SLT) have informed us that they will enhance communication on the strategic plan through an improved staff engagement and visibility framework, with an associated communications plan supported by a dedicated allocated resource. This will align with the Police Scotland ‘People Plan’ and the ‘Your voice matters’ engagement framework, which continues to serve as a conduit for staff opinion and feedback.
Oversight of recommendations
28. During this review, we sought to establish the effectiveness of Police Scotland’s oversight and governance of the delivery and implementation of recommendations resulting from the joint custody inspection reports published since April 2023.
29. In addition, we examined the extent to which NHS boards that had been subject to inspection had progressed recommendations effectively. We provide further detail on the arrangements made by NHS boards to address and implement recommendations in the healthcare section of this report. This section outlines findings from activities undertaken by HIS to carry out the review. It also provides an analysis of progress and areas requiring ongoing improvement.
30. Police Scotland meets its responsibility to review and address custody inspection recommendations through the senior leadership structure of CJSD, with the support of internal teams including the CJSD Continuous Improvement Unit.
31. Senior leaders acknowledged that there had been a lack of momentum regarding the oversight and delivery of existing recommendations and highlighted the need for enhanced auditing and governance structures to improve accountability, secure continuous improvement, and ensure the effective delivery of recommendations.
32. In order to address this, CJSD has initiated an audit and assurance governance group, which is a monthly senior management governance meeting aimed at prioritising the delivery of HMICS recommendations as part of an action driven approach. Chaired by the CJSD chief superintendent, this group has been endorsed by the Police Scotland executive and forms the main strategic mechanism for delivering on recommendations.
33. As a result of audit and assurance group actions, CJSD has developed an audit and assurance framework intended to ensure a pro-active, welfare-centred approach to learning and continuous improvement. The task of coordinating the delivery of HMICS recommendations has been adopted by a recently formed organisational learning group. This group has commenced a schedule of regular monthly meetings with SLT attendance and aims to provide regular updates to the governance group to ensure appropriate oversight of the audit and delivery process.
34. In addition, weekly meetings have been introduced between the CJSD superintendent and the custody cluster inspectors that have been tasked with maintaining HMICS recommendation updates via a shared spreadsheet to drive local improvement. The cluster inspectors have welcomed this improved focus and support.
35. In practice, the audit and assurance approach aims to review around 350 custody records each month from the police NCS, to assess compliance and identify learning that could be shared across custody centres. Regular performance reports on the results from the auditing process are generated to monitor progress, identify locations that may require support, and to highlight key themes emerging from the audited records.
36. We found that highlights from this had not been fully cascaded to custody centres as many of the custody staff we spoke with were unaware of the audit and assurance approach and auditing of records. Nevertheless, it was evident that some of the findings from these internal audits had been circulated to staff via memos and briefings intended to promote improvements in service delivery.
37. For example, custody staff confirmed they had received instructions resulting from HMICS recommendations that related to the application of greater scrutiny and discretion around the strip-searching of detainees, mandatory fire evacuation drills, maintenance of appropriate stock of anti-harm clothing, and appropriate application of detainee risk levels. Our review found, however, that several of these issues have continued to present a challenge in custody centres, which highlights that ongoing work remains to achieve broad, consistent and lasting change in operational practice.
38. Many of the supervisors we spoke with welcomed the direction and clarity resulting from the recommendation oversight arrangements, however, were frustrated by a lack of consistency in the implementation of recommendations across the custody estate. They also raised the impact that staffing challenges had on achieving greater consistency. In addition, they felt that not enough was being done to reinforce and consolidate the learning that had been achieved and, more crucially, to evaluate the effectiveness of the changes that had been made as a result of recommendations.
39. When assessing the effectiveness of the oversight of recommendations, consideration must be given both to the number of outstanding recommendations and the regular recurrence of common themes when we undertake new custody inspections. These factors highlight the need for continued emphasis on governance arrangements, a strong focus on the evaluation of what is working well as a result of changes made, and on ensuring increased consistency across the estate.
Arrangements to address strategic risks
40. Police Scotland have mechanisms in place to identify and oversee strategic risks associated with the delivery of custody services, including formal risk registers and senior level oversight.
41. Other governance approaches have been established, including use of the 4risk[2] management tool, which enables the structured evaluation of identified business risks, supports strategic focus and informs the tactical and operational response. For example, custody resourcing and the custody estate are recorded as high-level risks and therefore occupy priority positions on the system.
42. However, there remains room for refinement. For example, risks relating to local policing are captured elsewhere and therefore creates the potential for strategic blind spots and reduced comprehension of the wider operational policing impacts of custody specific challenges. To address this anomaly, risks to local policing resulting from custody challenges or demands are considered by the CJSD operations superintendent who engages directly with local policing commanders through a joint operations forum.
Leadership visibility
43. The effective cascading of strategic aims and priorities beyond senior level is often hampered by limited supervisory and leadership visibility within custody settings. We have highlighted in our custody inspection reports that gaps remain, in some locations, in the regular and consistent presence of managers within custody centres. This can lead to variable staff experiences and inconsistent leadership, oversight and direction.
44. The issue often centres around the visibility of cluster inspectors, who perform the critical role of first line managers for operational supervisors and second line managers for staff. Where gaps exist, it can impact on the quality of communication between the SLT and custody staff. It can also impact on service delivery as new or less experienced staff are more reliant on leadership direction.
45. SLT members agreed that the visibility of managers in custody is highly important and recognised that there were instances where this could be improved. As a result, the divisional commander is reviewing a new staffing framework, which includes a stronger emphasis on visible leadership, demonstrating that this is recognised as a key issue in need of swift resolution.
46. In an effort to improve senior leadership visibility, regular voluntary online meetings and forums under the banner ‘Meet the Commander’ have been introduced, and all staff are actively encouraged to participate in the sessions. Some staff viewed these positively with one CJPCSO team leader speaking highly of SLT efforts to engage, stating they felt listened to and appreciated. More generally however, levels of staff uptake were found to be varied, and inspector level visibility in the forums was described as mixed.
47. A CJSD operations superintendent oversees the operational delivery of the national custody estate, which is vast and subject to significant logistical challenges regarding transportation in some areas. That said, many staff stated that the operations superintendent had made concerted efforts to visit several locations and engage with staff.
Leadership stability
48. The above noted challenges regarding communication and visibility are further exacerbated by issues regarding leadership structure and a lack of stability in some senior roles.
49. We consider that in order to ensure the effective implementation of custody recommendations at all levels, leadership arrangements should be clear and consistent. In addition, it is important to maintain stability in leadership roles wherever possible. While we recognise that, at times, most policing divisions can experience change and instability due to routine changes of personnel linked either to promotions, secondment or retirement. However, it is evident that CJSD have experienced a significant degree of flux across several key positions in the leadership structure.
50. A regularly cited criticism among custody staff is the frequency of change among senior managers which has, over the past few years, seen four incumbents of the divisional commander role alone. Similar changes have been seen in other parts of the management structure, which staff state can create uncertainty and inconsistency in messaging and prioritisation, and has resulted in a loss of momentum for change.
51. Other factors cited relate to the regularity of leaders occupying temporary promotions, whereby their tenure could be interrupted by departure following substantive promotion. Staff suggest that this can result in ‘short termism’, which can impact on progressing changes resulting from recommendations and internal auditing. This is particularly relevant when considering the scale and complexity of tasks associated with the change programme currently being undertaken.
52. Some staff have stated that there is a lack of corporate memory in the division as a result of regular changes in leadership and management, which can mean that the same issues are examined every few years. Some custody inspectors new to the division, who as line managers serve as a critical conduit between leadership and delivery, appear less clear on operational priorities, and staff feel that they regularly rely on their own experience to deliver services. However, our custody inspection reports have regularly found the first line management provided by custody sergeants to be strong and often grounded in considerable experience.
53. When custody staff were asked about potential barriers to change and improvement, they identified frequent staff turnover or ‘churn’ within custody, including among supervisory staff, as the primary issue. This, it was said, could lead to newly developed national policies and practice being overlooked in favour of reverting to traditional and potentially outmoded practice due to staffing pressures.
Custody estate and staffing
54. Police Scotland has not yet effectively addressed the challenges of maintaining a custody estate that is consistently well resourced and fit for purpose.
55. The estate strategy is currently being reviewed to ensure it meets the levels of demand across the country, while addressing the legacy issues of an aging estate, much of which requires considerable ongoing maintenance.
56. Senior leaders recognise the need to review the operating model including the number of centres, resource levels and resource distribution. An established staff to cell ratio of 1:10 is widely quoted, although most people we met with during our review were unclear on the formal basis or origin of this figure. However, leaders are now reviewing this to determine what staffing ratio fits best for the transformation programme, giving due consideration to varying demands across the estate.
57. The division operates a number of ancillary centres that can be opened when required to flex the estate in response to demand. However, inconsistency in the use of these centres causes confusion and introduces additional challenges. There is a stated desire to move towards a hub and spoke custody model designed to better meet demand, however this brings its own challenges in terms of increased impacts on detainee and officer movement, which in turn can place a higher burden on local policing resources.
58. We learned from CJSD that statistics show they have more cell capacity than required to meet demand. Conversely, most staff report acute capacity challenges at weekends, with some describing staffing levels as unsafe at times.
59. During interviews with senior leaders, there was broad agreement that careful consideration of demand across both urban and rural locations would be required to inform the custody estate review. Variability in demand poses a significant challenge on evaluating the appropriate staffing resource to meet the care and welfare needs of detainees and deliver effective custody operations.
60. Senior leaders also highlighted the potential impact of interdependencies between custody and local policing. Local policing is reliant upon custody services, however the current custody operating model can have significant implications for local policing resource abstraction.
61. Our review has found occasions where the current operating model of temporarily closing custody centres in response to staffing pressures has resulted in longer journeys for detainees and escorting officers between the remaining centres and other locations including courts. This will of course be an additional consideration that needs to be factored into custody estate planning.
Partnerships
62. CJSD appear to have well developed and thriving relationships with relevant partners with responsibility for criminal justice services and with links to police custody. Custody managers referred to recent collaborative workshops with Scottish Government, the Scottish Prison Service, and community justice partners to explore reducing current bail and remand populations. In addition, custody leaders have engaged with the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service and Deloitte to consider the potential for streamlining court processes and improving end-to-end systems.
63. There have been advanced discussions with multi-agency partners in preparation for the imminent transition to a new custody transport provider, which demonstrates proactive preparation for a business area that in recent years has presented significant challenge to the effective operational delivery of custody.
[1] The Criminal Justice Services Division (CJSD) oversees police custody services across Scotland and leads Police Scotland's engagement with key partners across the criminal justice system.
[2] 4risk is a cloud-based risk and business assurance platform offered by the business advisory firm RSM UK. It provides organisations with a real-time view of their risk registers, controls, and compliance environments.