Status of all recommendations

Police Scotland must improve the resilience and capability of its core police ICT systems to ensure C3 Division staff have efficient access to the information required to perform their roles.

The SPA and Police Scotland should put in place measures to monitor progress against the areas for development outlined in this assurance review.

The Scottish Government, SPA and Police Scotland should collectively cease to use 17,234 officers as a target and focus instead on developing a workforce based on the skillset and mix required to meet the current and future challenges for policing in Scotland.

Police Scotland should redesign its workforce planning approach requiring a set of design principles and parameters to facilitate meaningful involvement of senior staff to deliver a consistent design and planning approach.

Police Scotland should establish a clear model and plan for producing a Target Operating Model and set out a route map for its delivery through business planning and change activity.

The SPA and Police Scotland should review governance arrangements and processes, and clearly define how workforce planning decisions will be made and who will oversee their implementation.

Police Scotland should strengthen the links (at all levels in the force) of tasking and co-ordination to workforce planning, fully adopting the demand response model to demonstrate how changes in threat, risk and demand translate directly into tactical and resource decisions.

Police Scotland should develop a unified and expanded data science capability within the Demand and Productivity Unit.