Thematic inspection of road policing

Police Scotland should examine the extent to which target setting and performance management processes drive operational behaviours and assess their impact in terms of delivering outcomes and maintaining public satisfaction and confidence.

Police Scotland should ensure that road policing measures and targets contribute effectively to road casualty reduction across Scotland and explicitly support the outcomes sought from Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020. Appropriate emphasis should be given to broader road security matters including the use of the strategic roads network by criminals.

Police Scotland should reassess the resource allocation model for road policing based on 12 months’ experience of the new structures and operating model. It should then establish a written plan for the redistribution of national resource to enable delivery of its determined road policing operating model and should specify an envisaged target date for completion.

The Scottish Police Authority should engage with local authorities to define roles and responsibilities for local scrutiny committees and understand their legitimate interest in issues beyond setting the local policing plan and holding the divisional commander to account for its delivery.

Police Scotland should conduct a review of the analytical and administrative support arrangements within Operational Support Division that are available to support road policing. This review should consider the analytical support requirements necessary to ensure that road policing assets are deployed intelligently, and should also consider whether there is sufficient administrative research capacity to support work that links intelligent-led deployments and activity more clearly to outcomes.

Police Scotland should review what information sharing protocols it has in place with key strategic roads network partners with a view to improving real-time information exchange, overall incident management, and journey reliability for motorists.