5. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact that the Scottish budget 2024-25 will have on police officer numbers in the South Scotland region. (S6O-02938)

As was outlined in the recent budget, we will increase the Scottish Police Authority resource budget by £75.7 million in 2024-25. Although it is for the chief constable to decide how best to deploy police resources, I welcome her statement to the Criminal Justice Committee on 20 December that the budget settlement would allow the recruitment of officers to restart before the end of this financial year.

Police Scotland has recruited almost 600 officers in 2023 and around 1,480 new recruits since the beginning of 2022. As at 30 September 2023, there were 379 more police officers than there were in 2007. Scotland also has more police officers per capita than England and Wales and offers higher pay ranges, with 30 officers per 10,000 of population compared to 25 per 10,000 in England and Wales.

We have seen police officer numbers plummet right across Scotland in recent years. In the smallest division, Dumfries and Galloway, numbers have been cut from 411 in June 2020 to just 354, which means that, at certain times, just a couple of officers are covering a huge geographical area.

Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether the recent budget means that we will return to the levels of June 2020 in Dumfries and Galloway? Given that the SNP’s commitment to maintain police numbers at the level when Police Scotland was established, a decade ago, now seems dead in the water, what exactly is the Government’s current specific target for officer numbers?

The establishment and agreement of officer numbers is, of course, an operational matter for the chief constable. When she appeared at the Criminal Justice Committee just before Christmas, she made it very clear that she welcomed the budget settlement and that it would enable Police Scotland to retain police numbers of around 16,500 or 16,600.

It is important to remember that we now have nearly 400 more officers than we had in 2006-07. In the Dumfries and Galloway divisional area, there were 354 officers as of 30 September 2023, which compares to 349 on 30 September the year before. I hope that that small increase gives some reassurance to Mr Smyth about the stabilisation of police resources in his area.

I met the divisional commander of Dumfries and Galloway just before the recess. He welcomed the fact that we have additional recruits in the region but noted that rurality poses huge challenges in relation to appropriate officer cover.

Will the cabinet secretary comment on whether Dumfries and Galloway could be considered a priority area for police recruitment after the end of the current recruitment freeze, given the challenges of rurality and officer coverage?

It is important to recognise that there are particular challenges for particular workforces in rural Scotland. That is why Police Scotland has undertaken targeted recruitment, including in Stranraer and Dumfries last year. I hope that I demonstrated through the numbers that I quoted to Mr Smyth that there has been a small increase in and a stabilisation of police numbers across the Dumfries and Galloway divisional area.

It should be noted that the creation of a Scottish-wide single police service means that all communities have greater access to national policing capabilities than would otherwise be the case. Local area commanders can also draw on specialist resources to support local policing wherever they are needed.

The latest recorded crime statistics from Police Scotland show that, in the Ayrshire police division, overall crime jumped by more than 10 per cent at a time when police numbers have fallen in Ayrshire since the Scottish National Party centralised our police forces. How much more should crime rise in communities such as Ayrshire before the Scottish Government starts properly resourcing our police?

For the current financial year, resourcing for policing across Scotland benefited by an additional £80 million. We introduced the draft Scottish budget before Christmas. Once again, it saw additional resource and capital for Police Scotland.

It is important to recognise that there continue to be more police officers per capita in Scotland than there are in England and Wales. Recorded crime has reduced by 41 per cent since 2006-07, so Scotland under the SNP is a safer place.