Police Scotland must act over sexism, racism and every form of discrimination within its ranks – Dr Paul Arnell and Dr Megan O’Neill

Police Scotland needs effective and consistent leadership and safe whistleblowing procedures to help root out prejudice (Picture: John Devlin)

A single, unified Police Service of Scotland was created on April 1, 2013.

It was presented as a new beginning: the inefficiencies and faults of the previous system of policing were in the past and a new professional, nationwide institution would operate with a community focus by ‘Keeping people safe’. This would come with 1,000 additional officers and be more cost efficient.

The initial years of Police Scotland have been plagued by controversies. No level of the institution has been spared.

At the top, it may be recalled that Police Scotland’s first Chief Constable, Sir Stephen House resigned in 2015 in the wake of, amongst others, the stop-and-search controversy. His successor, Phil Gormley, also resigned as Chief Constable in the course of investigations into claims of gross misconduct. Those investigations were never concluded. The present Chief Constable, Iain Livingstone, was appointed in 2018.

Leadership and good governance are undoubtedly important, indeed crucial, for Police Scotland as they would be for any large organisation. Authority – moral and operational – permeates through organisations from the top downwards.

Around the same time as the appointment of the current Chief Constable, the former Lord Advocate, Dame Elish Angiolini, was commissioned to investigate the handling of complaints, investigations and misconduct issues in Police Scotland. The publication of her report in November 2020 appeared to be a watershed moment.