 Welcome everyone to the Justice Sub-Committee on policing in 2015, please switch off all mobile phones and other devices completely. In no apologies you've been received, we've been joined by Christian Arlord, and by Graham Pearson. Can I just say to the two gentlemen that I will let members have their questions first, because it is a very specifically appointed committee, but you are welcome to come in if you have 1. The sub-committee is invited to agree to consider item 3 in our work programme in private. Are you agreed? 2. Item 2 must conclude by 2.15, when the chamber sits later, just shortly afterwards. It is an evidence session on the latest developments in relating to armed police. I welcome Ian White, SPA board member who chairs its recent inquiry into the public impact of Police Scotland's standing firearms authority. 3. Deputy Chief Constable Ian Livingstone, crime and operational support assistant chief constable Bernard Higgins, operational support Derek Penman, HM Inspector, Constable in Scotland, who also recently reported in the standing firearms authority. Members of copies of the reports that I have mentioned, I thank you all very much for coming today. As usual, I go straight to questions from members, John Finnie, Kevin, Margaret, Elaine and then Alison. Thank you, convener. Afternoon panel, I've got some questions from Mr White by me, please. Mr White, the report that was published inquiring into the public impact of Police Scotland's firearms standing authority, why was that published late? Sorry, I'm feeling it before Mr White. You need to press buttons in here. Sorry, okay. We have a lovely gentleman who's putting you online. Just indicate when your questions come to you directly. Otherwise, if you want to come in, indicate and I'll call you. Mr White. Thank you, convener. I'm used to other places where you do have to press buttons, so that's the nature of it. We were delayed slightly by a number of factors, but we wanted to make sure that we had a full review of the information that had come to us. We wanted to make sure that we could publish a report that balanced the rather slightly conflicting information that had come to us from different sources and put that out in a way that was appropriate with the role that we have, which is about making sure that we can have continuous improvement in policing in Scotland. Who saw the report in advance of it being published, Mr White? A number of stakeholders saw the report for reasons of checking for factual accuracy. ACC Higgins and his staff saw it to check for factual accuracy, particularly around a lot of the terms that are in there. Mr Penman saw it, of course, because we had undertaken complementary work, where his work was on the policing specifics of the matter, and ours was very much more about the public view of armed policing. Is that a complete list of people who saw the report for publication? I think that some colleagues in our sponsor department in the Scottish Government may have seen it too. Acuracy, are those simple facts, rather than opinion or comment on your conclusions? We work in a collaborative way, so we wanted to make sure that everything that we had by way of evidence was accurate and appropriate. We came to a judgment based on that report, which was unanimously agreed by the scrutiny panel members and has subsequently been endorsed by the SPA board. In that respect, we took account of all the evidence that we had and balanced that. It is based on the information in our different sources, whether that came from the public attitudes survey, whether it came from people giving us written evidence, whether people came along and gave us evidence in person at open sessions that were available and still available on the web for people to view, and, indeed, the academic report that we commissioned. The report is based on those pieces of information. There were some factual things that we wanted to check with other partners, and that is why it was released to them. I can understand some of the technical information, and you want to clarify that you got it exactly right. That is not what I was asking, Mr White. I was asking if the conclusions, in any way, were the subject of consultation with the people that you were writing the report about. The conclusions and recommendations were in the report, as it was circulated, but they were not for consultation in that way. It was consultation on factual accuracy, and the conclusions are based on the group's view of the evidence that we had before us. If it was suggested that the delay for the report, and it was to have come out on 17-18 December, it was suggested that the delay was because Police Scotland were demanding a rewrite. If that was the case, that never came to me. Would you have anticipated that coming to you? I would have thought so, but it would not have been something that we would have considered as such. I can tell you that, as we went through a few different drafts for our own internal review for factual accuracy and other things, the one thing that I can be absolutely certain about is that the conclusions and recommendations did not change. They did not change at all? There may have been minor wording changes that we anticipated as we worked through. Bear in mind that some of that was drafted by SPA officers and then reviewed by the board members so that it was a report that we endorsed and approved. We had our own internal wording changes around that, but the conclusions and recommendations, as I recall, did not change through that process. Did anyone other than your inquiry influence any of the wording in the conclusions? Not that I'm aware of. Mr White, you're the chair of this group. Surely you would be aware of it if it had happened? I should be, and I'm not aware of that happening. That's what I'm saying to you. One of the ways that you would be aware of it is if there was a discrepancy between what you understood to be your final report and what we have in front of us here. There are no such discrepancies. In what sense, what kind of discrepancy are you suggesting, Mr Finlay? No, I'm saying to you. You're saying not to your knowledge that there's any changes. There were changes as we went through a drafting process. I myself made changes and suggestions, as did my colleagues on the panel. We went through a drafting process where SPA officers also made suggested changes at different points, and we had feedback from other colleagues. I think that Mr Penman particularly had some constructive feedback for us around a lot of the issues, because our reports were complimentary and some of the issues he'd looked at to some extent in advance. We had to make sure that the two didn't, as it were, completely conflict with each other unless there was something on which we disagreed and actually we didn't in the end. We had to check around those things. You were undertaking a different report from Mr Penman. Yes, although some of the issues that were in our remit, I could say to some extent, had been strayed into by the conclusions of Mr Penman's report. I think that the thrust is that there might have been technical changes in conclusions and recommendations that none of those were substantive having been seen by other parties. That's correct, convener. If anything, I think that the conclusions and recommendations from an early draft are the thing that most stayed the same, but the group ourselves, we were concerned throughout with the write-up of some of the evidence and other bits to get that right. The narrative. The narrative, so that it fully supported the conclusions and recommendations, and that's where the biggest changes were undertaken through the drafting process. Well, we've got the record now, Kevin. Well, I was going to, in terms of time, you've got another point to make, so continue along that line one more. Several other points to make. On the same thing? On the same thing, yes. And it is about the position. Mr White, you were able to narrate the position, because your report talks about the position pre 1 April 2013. What was the position regarding the deployment of armed officers across Scotland pre 1 April 2013? Well, that's a key date, obviously, in the... It is. Actually, that was much better articulated in Mr Penman's report. Did I mention you, Mr... Well, I believe that the articulation of it in Mr Penman's report is absolutely accurate, from all the evidence that I've seen too. But what was the position, because what's key? And I think time's going to preclude me asking, because I could spend all afternoon asking questions about the various versions we've heard of when things change. What was your understanding of the position prior to the 1 April 2013 regarding the deployment of armed officers? OK, in Strath Clyde police area, the officers had been deployed in a similar way with a standing authority. And we're attending what you and I would think of as more routine incidents. My recollection may have been back to 2009, 10, 11, something like that. There was a standing authority for firearms officers in armed response vehicles in Tayside police authority area, but they had a different method of carriage of the firearms. They carried them in a covert holster, and they also attended some more routine incidents. And there was a change in the northern area to that position shortly before the 1 April 2013. So maybe in February early March, in the other areas. Can you talk me through that change then, how that came about? Because there are different versions of how that came about. How that came about? My understanding is that the chief constable of Northern Constabulary made that change. And there was a report to... And just for the avoidance of that, who is that individual? Was that Mr Graham you're talking about? Mr George Graham? Yes. Yes. He made that change on February March 2013? Yes. So not Mr House at some other date? No. And that's your understanding? That's my understanding. But you have to bear in mind that that was prior to the Scottish Police Authority taking any oversight and governance in that way. Yes, but your report is about the genesis of this whole issue, and you do allude to the situation. That's why I absolutely understand that you take... We allude to it, but we also relied, to some extent, because of the complementary nature of our reports, on the information that was gathered by Mr Penman's report in order to come to our understanding of that part of the reporting. Do you think there's clarity in the public eye, Mr White, as to who actually initiated this decision in relation to former Northern and now End Division? Who was consulted on it and how the whole process ran? No, I don't think there is. So not the purpose of your report to absolutely highlight how that came about? The purpose of our report was to determine what the public view was around the deployment that had taken place under Police Scotland, and to look at how we could improve methods of informing the public around those things in future. In fact, I'll take you to our issues that we wanted to look at, the nature and level of the public concerns over the firearms deployment under the Standing Authority, how effectively Police Scotland had engaged. I won't make you read through, because that's your introduction, page 252, number 2, and your introduction, which everyone can read. I'm sorry that I'm curtailing you a wee bit, but, John, I'll like him back and lead, but I'm going to have to let other members in, because we have only an hour and a quarter, and I've got a whole pile of people. I've got Kevin, Margaret, Elaine, Alison and back to you, John. Can I ask the police officers here what kind of threats police officers face in a weekly basis, which may require firearms deployment? I'll kick-off on that, if I may. We've seen the threat level against international terrorism rise to severe in the last year, and that is a significant reality. I think that what's important to note is that the threat level against police officers has gone up, quite unprecedented in my experience in the police service that against police officers themselves, that is also now at severe, and that's clearly a factor that we need to build in to the deployment methods that we have, and the fact that we need to maintain a specialist firearms capability to protect the vast overwhelming majority of unarmed officers, and it is overwhelmingly an unarmed service that we have. In addition to that, we know that the threat from searing organised crime is significant, and that doesn't just relate or confine itself to the central belt. I think that there's even some coverage this morning in today's media of a significant crime group from London, targeting St Andrews of all places in regard to some crime. We've just completed Operation Cambridge, where there was a serious and organised crime group from Merseyside, who had access to firearms, were specifically targeting the north of Scotland by their own admission, because they thought it might have been easier, but softer up in the north than it would have been in the central belt. The threats against police officers are real, the threats against our communities are real, and what we think we've done with the dedicated ARV policy that we have is that we think that we've built a proportionate response to that threat. It's a tiny minority of police officers who we have within those units, and they're there to protect and ensure the fact that the vast overwhelming majority of our officers are unarmed and remain unarmed, but we do need that capability to counter some of the threats that have just outlined. You mentioned St Andrews there, DCC Livingston, and I have that press report in front of me, finally enough, where six folk were arrested, including a 16-year-old boy. I think that for some members of the public, they would find it quite hard to believe that such things would happen in a small place like St Andrews, but is it the case that these kinds of incidents could happen anywhere in the country at all? That's exactly the point. It's a very atypical scenario that arose, but it's critical that wherever such situations arise, we've got that capability and capacity to respond to it. Mr Finnie was asking about what was the position prior to 1 April 2013, and in many ways that gets to the essence of where we were. It was a mixed position. It was a mixed bag. Some areas of Scotland at that time had no ARV capability. Some areas had a mixed capability between roads policing and armed officers, so somebody could be involved standing at the side of a road accident with weaponry. Some force areas had no ARV capability. When we looked at Scotland as a whole, we needed to make sure that everybody had that equal access and that same level of protection, but it was done in a proportionate manner against the threat as we assessed that, but, of course, since that date, the threat has actually increased. The threat is real, and it does extend beyond the traditional central belt area. In October 2014, there was the change, and the chief constable announced that firearms officers attached to armed response vehicles would now only be deployed to firearms incidents or where there is a threat to life. From what you are saying, there may be officers deployed throughout the country, sometimes in rural areas. During the course of their duties, what other things can they undertake while they are patrolling an armed response vehicle? Certainly, Mr Stewart, you are quite correct on what we advised in October that armed response vehicles would deal with firearms operations. Any other threat to life instance that I made aware of, for example, there have been a number of suicide interventions where the firearms officers have been the first responders. There have been a number of critical medical situations where the firearms officers who have enhanced first aid skills and carried defibrillator equipment have deployed and literally saved people's lives. What we also ask them is that, while they are not tasked and deployed by area control rooms, we ask them to use their professional judgment over any other instances that they may come across during the tour of their duty. They are still police officers, and if they see a crime being committed in front of them, my expectation of them, as I would expect to any member of the public, is that they will deal with that crime. There have been a number of occasions where they have caught people in the proceeds of committing a housebreaking and other similar crimes. So they have to rely on their professional judgment before they respond to such things. Would there maybe be a reticence to do some of these things now that there has been such a fury over armed police being found at certain places? No, I don't believe there is. Firearms officers, by their very nature, receive significant training, undergo significant refresher training on an annual basis, where they have to demonstrate significant levels of situational judgment, and that is tested in a training environment. To some degree, you could say that they are tested and trained to a higher degree than any other officer for the particular specialism that they have. When they are out in the streets of Scotland, they will apply the same principles of their decision making model to what they see in front of them as they would to a firearms operation that they have been dispatched to. Is there any way at all that processes can be put in place so that these officers can be called upon for general duties without firearms being on display, which is, obviously, of concern to some members of the public? Certainly that goes into the two areas that are currently under consideration as a result of Mr Penman and Mr White's report on the firearms mode of carriage, which, as we know just now, is currently overt, and also what duties they can engage in when they are not employed in firearms duties. That report has now been provided to me in line with the agreed protocols. They will now be considered internally by Police Scotland before further engagement with the SPA and other stakeholders, but there are opportunities for us to explore both the areas that you talk about. For the record, how many officers at this moment are trained to deal with firearms and how many front-line officers are currently deployed by Police Scotland? I will give you the absolute accurate figures. The total number of authorised firearms officers, both dedicated and non-dedicated, is 538. That is broken down further. In armed response vehicles, at this moment in time, the figure taken this morning, we have 268 full-time armed response vehicle officers. In addition to that, we have 48 training instructors who are also qualified armed officers, and a number of more specialist firearms officers who are also full-time firearms but are not routinely deployed in ARV duties. A couple of things. Is that up or down in the past year? The figure can vary literally on a daily basis. Being a firearms officer is a volunteer status. Officers sometimes decide after a number of years that they have paid their dues, and they must go and do something else, so they will remove themselves from firearms duties. They transfer to other areas. They retire from the police service. A week ago, we had 274 firearms, or armed response vehicle officers, due to a number of issues. That figure has reduced to 268. In 30 March, there is an internal transfer period, which will see that figure rise. The baseline figure is roughly 275, where we sit at for the armed response vehicle officers. The time scale for the report that you will circulate internally to the SPA? The time scale will go internally to Mr Livingstone's Gold Group on 11 March. It will then be subject to discussions at the Gold Group on 11 March. It will be presented to the senior leadership board on 18 March. It will then be subject to discussions. I believe that it is going to be provided to the police authority at the meeting at the end of March. The other thing is, the committee would be very interested in seeing that. We have a role in scrutinising not just ourselves, but Scotland and the SPA. I take it. Just to say that, Bernie is absolutely right about where we are going to take it by the end of this month. Thereafter, this is going to be the test of how we have changed in terms of the engagement and visibility and transparency of the issue. The challenge to us has been that the authority that was introduced and people did not have that awareness and Mr Finlay has made that clear. If we are going to change from the position that we have adopted in October of last year, that we will only deploy to threats to life, to firearms jobs or any spontaneous incidents that requires intervention that the officers come upon and we have an overcarriage. Those are the two issues, the deployment and the carriage. Both as a committee but also in terms of their own parliamentary duties and the communities that they represent have to be part of that. The work that Bernie has already commissioned will be a test for us about how we are then going to engage in a way that is better than we did previously, which we accept. Very quickly. At the point of clarification, can you tell us what the Gold Group that you head up, DC Livingston, actually is? I don't know what it is. Is that a short answer? It's a strategic overview group that I lead that has everybody within Police Scotland on it to manage the two reports that have an action plan that has been commissioned through that, that meets regularly and has a level of grip and authority over the firearms work within Police Scotland recognising the level of interest. It's an internal governance structure that is in place and has a degree of discipline attached to it. Communication is a key theme in the SPA report. It's also highlighted in the HMIC report. In the specific issue of the deployment of armed police it's clear that this wasn't sufficient lacking in context. As a result of this report and particularly in terms of the oversight body that is covered in Police Scotland's strategy to prong strategy looking at external and internal communication how is that going to be resolved so that there is meaningful communication not after the fact but before anything is decided? If I may, I would say that that is probably the key thing that we've brought out from the report that we undertook through SPA and that is that communication should be strengthened and improved and that's all part of ensuring that policing works with the consent of the public in Scotland. It's interesting because Mr Finnie asked me earlier about public knowledge around some of this and even after the media and public interest there was last year our opinion survey found... I'll let you finish, please. Don't be too anxious. I've all got ten minutes each. It wasn't public communication that's covered there. I see there's a strategy to cover it. I see there's community impact to sex but key and germane to this is the role of SPA as the oversight body and the communication with Police Scotland. How is that going to be improved? I'll maybe stick to that, convener. Part of what we recommended was that there was a new agreement between the Police Authority and Police Scotland on how we would hear about issues in advance where there was significant public interest and that Police Scotland would bring those openly to the authority so that we could then assist with ensuring that the public were aware of those issues and can have their say on them. To do that we have concluded a joint agreement between the Authority and Police Scotland which I believe you will have seen and which was agreed jointly at our board meeting recently. That was endorsed and supported by the chief constable at that meeting. We now have to implement that agreement and ensure that that work is taken forward. As part of that Police Scotland also brought a communications engagement strategy and that backs up the work. I think I referred to that. That was a two prong strategy internal or external. My focus is specifically in SPA. Could you give me some examples of how this is going to work which is absolutely fundamental in a single police force that there is an effect of oversight body. I really want some reassurance on how that is being tackled. That is being tackled through the joint agreement on police policy engagement that came to our February board meeting. The specifics are that the chief constable has agreed jointly with us that where there is any issue that we foresee will have any kind of significant public interest that he will bring to the board as a matter of course prior to any implementation of policy change. The problem is as Mr Emory confirmed and stop of search every single time it has been after the event what checks and balances are in place to ensure that it is not going to continue in that way. That agreement has only just taken place in terms of monitoring that that is a test for the future and I think that there are a couple of obvious tests for that for the future. The first is the one that the deputy chief constable just described that where they to make any further changes to firearms deployment policy we would fully expect that they bring that to the SPA as a policy change that they would engage with us and as through discussion with us engage further with the public of Scotland. Similarly a good example that we highlighted in our report was there may be a forthcoming proposal at some point for body-worn cameras to be worn by police officers issued to police officers throughout Scotland we would fully expect that if there were a policy change like that the chief constable would bring that as a matter for prior engagement to the board so that issues around that could be addressed and then raised publicly to gain public support and to ensure that there were no unfavourable impacts from that policy. Mr Penmanon, who wants to come in there as well. Thank you. It's just relating to that very point around something we identified in one of our recommendations. It's a key issue about how do you bring those things forward and our recommendation was to ask Authority and Police Scotland to develop that agreement. You asked about checks and balances. I think that we at HMIC will have a role around what Authority and Police Scotland say they intend to do around that early engagement. I'll certainly be looking to see that that is complied with. Now we have some clarity about what would be there and I would be looking to report publicly should they fall short on that. I can't say I'm altogether really optimistic because of the words I was looking for. Can I just ask one other thing? Key to this whole thing was the insistence from the chief constable until a very late stage that this was an operational matter and not a policy matter. Clearly it was a policy matter. I notice in paragraph 39 in the Summary of Findings a definition of operational should not be too rigid. We need to establish clear working protocols inside that and outside that gobbledygook what exactly does that mean and what will stop the same thing happening again. This is operation not policy. It really was policy. We shied away in our report from defining operational independence because, like a number of members of this committee who have sat on the justice committee for some time, we felt that that would be unhelpful to future scrutiny. The trouble is if you define it too far you leave a number of things in the remit of the chief constable without any other scrutiny around them and we wanted a very open definition because some matters while there will be operational imperatives for the chief constable to take action will require scrutiny after the fact too. We were also very clear and the joint agreement we have and the chief constable fully supports this too and has said so publicly at our board meeting those commit us to having prior engagement on issues that we want to take forward. In the focus on that we want clear working protocols we believe we have those in place they are backed up by Police Scotland's communication and engagement strategy which, as you have heard, Mr Penwin will look at and look at what we do on that but we also wish to put in place a monitoring process about how they are implementing that strategy and we will do that on a regular basis over the coming months and years and we want to see evidence that the work highlighted there, the actions and the implementation that are being taken forward and of course time is what will test this in practice convener there is always the possibility that there is something that Police Scotland do not see as being immediately of public interest I think there are set changes around some of that that are already taking place in Police Scotland and have done through this issue around firearms carriage which from the previous method that things were done in Strathclyde where it was introduced without any particular public engagement there was an expectation that that would flow through to the rest of Scotland and there wouldn't be an issue of concern in different parts of Scotland and we would wish to prevent something like that happening again without proper scrutiny we as the SPA have learnt from that and I believe that Police Scotland have too convener Thank you very much Elaine Fallon about Alison Before I get on to more general issues I just confirm in answer to Mr Stewart's question about what would happen since the decision had been reversed in terms of the deployment of armed officers on routine patrols if in the situation that you were suggesting where somebody an armed officer attended something like a break-in because it happened to be occurring near him is it not the case now that the firearms would remain locked in the armed response vehicle rather than being carried away? No, that's not correct because somebody will be carrying their sidearm under Taser Was it not the case prior to the decision being made that that always happened that they always carried? Yes, from the 1st of April 2013 every armed response officer in Police Scotland has carried a sidearm in Taser Prior to that, depending on the legacy force some did retain them and some didn't have any ARV officers at all That was just the tip of the variety The recommendations 8 and 9 of both reports have fairly general implications not just about the armed policing deployment but fairly important recommendations about democratic accountability They are dressed up in management speak about comprehensive stakeholder and so on and what's the other one in 10 including mechanisms to capture local authority perspectives I do rather wonder what that means in reality because you also in the agreement that I made last week you're committing to entering engagement with communities and their democratic representatives on policies of significant public interest I just wonder why local authorities had no idea what was happening they were not consulted about the deployment of armed police they weren't consulted about the closures of control rooms and so on what is going to be different in the way in which communities are consulted and the way in which democratically elected representatives are consulted about major policy changes How is that going to change? Your observations on our failure to engage and consult I think we accept the context that I would paint now was that the creation of Police Scotland was done in a very, very short time frame in terms of the change of both in terms of a policing model in terms of the governance model what we are absolutely committed to doing more of is engaging with the local scrutiny panels engaging with the existing engagement models that are there to the local divisional commanders the local area commanders those who know their communities know the diverse needs of those communities and when there is a national issue such as firearms or terrorism or online child abuse or cyber, whatever it is we need to make sure that we are communicating those issues and those challenges with local boards and local communities as well so it is a genuine a period of reflection and commitment from Police Scotland that we do need to make sure that we are engaging with the whole of Scotland we are using the networks that are there because it is the local commanders the local police officers who know their own communities and making sure that what we judge to be the optimum balance between localism and access to the specialist support in the atypical cases when you need it we have the right balance struck there so we will commit we will learn from it, we will make sure that we use the existing networks that are there because we probably did not use them Police Scotland is the service that was there prior to day 1 it was based on the men and women who were policing communities who you all know prior to day 1 so we need to make sure that we utilise those existing routes that were there because we did not when we made this change and we have learnt from that so in terms of if there could be a major policy changes under consideration what happens it goes to SPA then it comes back to the local communities what is the sort of process that would be undergone in order to make sure that communities were properly consulted? I was briefly going to say again the test of let's just take the specific example that Bernie's got this piece of work in front of him just now about mode of carriage and about maybe a change to the deployment in line with the recommendation from the HMI so it will come through the police our own internal structure that it will then go locally it will come back to this committee individually, collectively and this particular issue is one that we can see and will utilise will make sure that some of the good intention or management language that is used here how is that going to look in reality when we come and speak to you about modes of carriage and other issues? I'm not just concerned about what you know coming to this committee I'm thinking more about what happens in different parts of Scotland where there have been different legacy forces with different practitives how is that then discussed and communicated? Local commanders, into local scrutiny panels into existing networks into the third sector, the voluntary groups community planning partnerships all the fundamental existing networks as I said existed prior to that we need to make sure that we're maximising that and that will be done I might add to that what we will be looking for as SPA is if where that hasn't already started or where it hasn't fully concluded we will be looking for Police Scotland to evidence the work they've done around that bring us the results of the consultations they've had and add the policing view around that so that we can take fully into account all these views as we assess the policy information that Police Scotland bring to us we also are engaging ourselves with local authorities particularly we've been doing that on an on-going basis since the start of the Scottish Police Authority but we're bringing again our partnership with COSLA into bear and we will be having another partners and scrutiny meeting at the end of this month where we'll be setting out some of those expectations again so that they're aware of the protocols and engagement methods we have in place so that they know how they can bring issues to us should they wish to should they be unhappy with their relationship at the local level but I would hope that Police Scotland can solve some of those local relationships through Divisional Commanders too I was going to give another example from here that sits under my responsibility in terms of changing work about risk and concern hubs and this is to do with identifying vulnerability both children and adults and there's a different process again right across the country the impacts upon adult protection committees child protection committees, community planning partnerships I like other people to understand as well as myself what you're talking about what is a risk and concern hub I know you use it every day but we're back to management speaking what do you mean in real ordinary working terms it's used as a title to try to say exactly what it is but it doesn't sorry a bigger problem so children at risk so a police officer going into a house and identifying might be there for some other reason but they identify there's vulnerable children how do we make sure that we capture that and then engage with other partners or increasingly adults at risk as well where there's sorry no no no we were answering a question engagement with the community we were trying to use that example so in brief there's a significant change about creating standardisation improvement in practice within how the police deal with those issues of concern but also those issues of risk now that'll have a big impact on local authorities on health boards and others but before we make that change we'll make sure that we're engaging because we're doing that through that local network I was hoping to use that as an example I don't really understand you made reference to all the channels that were already there they weren't lost because Police Scotland was formed those channels were there I know that Police Scotland was formed very quickly but given that those existed in the legacy forces and those channels were there why were they not used? that's a good question and a fair challenge and it's a criticism we accept we need to make sure that we reactivate them so I accept that that is a fair criticism how we went about this particular change does this lead back to the chief constable that you're saying we accept but it does seem that that was a huge change and there seems to be a hand there was a hand at the tiller still is that perhaps was instrumental you can't really answer that one I don't suspect in your position but I'm putting the question the chief constable had introduced in regard to the standing firearms authority I'm talking about the whole shebang but that particular one was one of many many issues that we will face with as we went from the chief constable in October to going live on the 1st of April what we didn't do and the chief relies fundamentally on the advice from people like myself and people like Bernie what we didn't do, we didn't realise that the level of sensitivity that that change would have over many other changes Mr Finlay was the first to raise it and we recognised that we should have recognised that that actually would have a significant impact we should have explained it more but it was one of numerous other changes that we were making and we were trying to place a judgement on but the chief constable heads up the organisation but he relies fundamentally on all of us as a collective to support him and to inform him and to advise him so it's not that the chief constable is responsible but he does that with the support that the absolute committed support of his senior team such as Bernie and myself I'll cut let Alison in Mr White on the 1st of October 2014 Police Scotland said that ARV officers would no longer be deployed to routine officers you maybe understand my desire for certainty on this given previous assurances from Police Scotland are you sure that that's the case well I'm not personally involved in going out and checking exactly what those officers are doing I have seen internal reports that Mr Higgins has made to Mr Penman on the result of the recommendations he put forward from his inquiry and I think the other thing that we have enacted is that we now have Vic Emery who is the chair of the authority attending the scrutiny group that looks at that quarterly review of that deployment issue and being part of that group that oversees that so in that sense we're looking at it if you're saying how do we know what's happening out there with every police officer every single day well I'm sure those police officers and they have some part of their duty is to use their judgment about what they do on a day-to-day basis so that's more about review of practice on an individual level and that's an operational matter for policing but were we to hear of things that were taking place in a way that wasn't in line with policy then we would be asking the chief constable and others to account to the authority for that I might just finish this with Mr Clay that would be again a reactive way of responding to perhaps a problem arising so I'm just trying to ask the team what the SPA has done given that this is such a high profile issue and you've done a thorough report into the matter what you're now doing to assure yourself that the assurances that you've had from Police Scotland are actually being carried through there's a number of things that we've asked has happened first of all when we published the report ACC Higgins came along and gave an immediate response to that which although it had some uncomfortable findings for Police Scotland he gave a positive response and we were pleased to see that we have asked Police Scotland through the chief constable to report to our board meeting in March on their longer term reaction to the recommendations that we have made in terms of day-to-day practice we review matters as you all do I'm sure that there are whistle-blowing methods there are methods by which the public can contact the media and I think that this issue did come up through that happening in the first place these are methods that we would look to and in terms of day-to-day review of practice we are a small organisation overseeing a very large organisation but we rely on a mixture of things and Mr Penman's office and work will help too in assisting in auditing what practice takes place and how recommendations are carried forward at an operational level within Police Scotland I might now turn to Police Scotland on the same issue in response to Mr Stewart you said that they are not tasked or deployed by area control rooms but if they see a crime committed in front of them can you quantify how many occasions armed officers have been deployed since October on what would be fully routine duties? Deployed on routine duties since October there have been five occasions where police armed response vehicles were dispatched to calls which didn't fit the absolute criteria of being a firearms incident I'll have to say three of the five incidents that we've identified I personally believe they do reflect a threat to life because they refer to personal attack alarm activations by victims of domestic abuse and the alarm had been activated by that person the alarm had been put in place by the police the person activated it and the control room took the decision to spend armed response vehicles my own view is that that is a threat to life however that's one of the five where reports of a disturbance when the police arrived there was nobody there and the final one was the report of a disturbance within a public chaos where local officers required assistance to eject a number of people now the interesting thing about these five incidents they all happened on the same day they all happened from the same area control room essentially the people involved were the same what happened once a week since October it was one very specific period of time we've particularly addressed the individuals involved in that and there's been no reoccurrence since now in terms of the wider governance around that every day one of my senior armed policing officers, a chief inspector or superintendent will review all activity undertaken by the armed response vehicles every single item of work that they've undertaken to satisfy themselves that they have deployed in line with their parameters in addition to that area control room supervisors area control room staff area control room inspectors have been briefed in terms of the deployment criteria and in addition the firearms officers themselves know what their personal responsibility is so if the control rooms trying to dispatch them to a call which they do not believe meets the criteria of a firearms operation or a threat to life then they will challenge that and they will not attend but that deals with being deployed by the area command rooms but clearly you indicated that the officers were themselves acting on their own accord understandably when they were out and about can you quantify how many housebreakings or other non life threatening events that they themselves took upon themselves to intervene in in this fair I have some papers here if I can just find a particular particular section well in the gap I might turn to sorry I have sorry so since the 1st of October armed response officers have involved themselves in 1644 instances where they have proactively engaged with members of the public that will include charging people for offences such as Davengers driving drink driving and other such like offences in terms of how many times they have assisted divisional officers or come across where there hasn't been a police report at the end of it they've turned up to assist with a missing person search then I don't have the particular stats to hand okay so that's quite a different story really so the assurances that we've had that police officers are not out on routine issues is given a lie by these figures 1644 incidents where police officers carrying arms are interacting with citizens in the situations that are not life threatening I think to put that context ma'am in year 1 of police Scotland that figure was over 30,000 so I think we can demonstrate that there's been a huge reduction in the number of those such interactions it is just another example though of us not being given the full facts we've been given an assurance by Police Scotland that this was not happening and it clearly is happening whether it's on a reduced scale or not it is still happening ma'am with respect from October the message that we have consistently said in Police Scotland is that the armed response vehicles will deal with firearms operations threat to lives and use professional judgment over anything else that they come across in 1644 times they have come across instances where their professional judgment has determined that they should take action and I would say that we haven't had that fact and that's what has been consistently said since October okay welcome to Mr Penman Mr Penman your report concluded one of the key findings of your report was that the overt courage of side arms and tasers by ARV officers is the best and safest method of courage and more broadly we consider the overt courage for ARV duties promotes openness and transparency with the public why then Mr ACC Higgins are you considering the covert courage why are you taking the time to go through that Mr Penman do you want to comment? That was based on some of the technical aspects about where the weapon the gun is carried on people if it's covert and getting that out so it was deemed to be in terms of best practice and in consultation with Police Scotland that we felt that that was the safest and best place for that the transparency issue for me is once the firearms are being carried and people are aware of the firearms I would have a concern then the extent to which officers are armed I agree with that I understand that why then ACC Higgins are you considering a report to the Mr Penman's report and the Police Authority report make it quite clear that the conspicuous nature of the firearm has caused some public concern in some areas and it has asked us to review our mode of courage to carry out a full and frank transparent review of mode of courage we absolutely have to consider the covert courage options as well and then assess the safety implications of covert courage verse overt courage as well as the public transparency issues around them but to simply carry out a review of our overt courage and not consider alternatives certainly wouldn't be in the spirit of what Mr Livingstone has articulated at what Police Scotland will achieve in the future I mean certainly in all the concerns that communities have raised with me it's not been that the firearms have been visible but they've been deployed so people wouldn't want them to be hidden away and not to know that they were being carried that doesn't solve the problem at all at one final question I know what's short for time Mr White again Mr Penman's report revealed that there were armed officers in the time that they were deployed in this way Has the SPA done any further impact assessment of that particular finding? We haven't done around that what we have undertaken is the public attitude survey and I think that's the first time that's been done on this issue at all so that shows us that while there are people who are concerned about the carriage of firearms by some police officers there was also a slight majority who were in favour of that happening and probably quite critically there was a view amongst people in Scotland that what should they need a police officer to attend an incident they would want the nearest police officer to attend whether they were carrying a firearm for other reasons or not A very short one, John It's a comment to Mr White and it was to explain what the public anticipated I'm here to do, Mr White was to understand how a situation comes about that police officers in Scotland were deployed in villages at fets at charity events my neighbours are coming across them standing in supermarket queues with firearms and that was the purpose of many questions and I assure you you would be here all afternoon answering the other ones I understand we won't moment briefly on your summary findings at 27 and 28 in your report which talk about the information you were provided with and it wasn't sufficient depth to make a decision similarly and I have to say to use parlance from the criminal justice act you haven't got your story straight any of you because there's lots of different versions of who did what, where, lots of different versions I remind you this was a short question so you can make a question It's a very short question and all these different versions can you give us that there won't be a repetition of this because if you say it's something of consider of importance well clearly Mr House did not think this was of importance to highlight and have an open discussion these were slipped through with mealymouth explanations that no one could possibly interpret would have been the routine deployment of armed officers to non-fire arms incidents so what reassurance can you give us, please well the Deputy Chief Constable's already explained that matters have moved on considerably from that period back in late 2012, early 2013 we also have the joint agreement that we have put in place as of our last board meeting and particularly I'm reassured by the views being put forward by Police Scotland around that joint agreement and the fact that they buy into that joint agreement can I just take one very brief point there's a comment in your statement on the issue of community impact impact assessments nowhere in any of the answers about how things were going to change was there any use of the term community impact assessments which is specifically mentioned in your report in any of the answers we've given today we fully expect community impact assessments to be undertaken that is a recommendation we've made and we expect Police Scotland to come forward with that information and as they do that and asking them to show us the output of that so that we can scrutinise that I've got just a couple of minutes I'm going to try and get into your questions even though they don't get answered we'll have them on the record but can I see what seems to come across to the committee is that Police Scotland, things may have changed and probably have because of the stushi was pretty cavalier and dismissive of the SPA and the SPA doesn't seem to have known accountability that's the way I see it from early days is that all this thing came out stop and search of armed police nothing to do with the SPA it came out because of the press and members of the public and members of Parliament I think what we're looking for now is a much more robust SPA and a much more communicative Police Scotland not just to the SPA in the Parliament but to the public and we await for that to be delivered we certainly hope that's going to happen because I have to say and I'm looking at the SPA today I don't think I'm not taking you personally Mr White I don't think it did its job in ensuring that that was being done and kind of was able to put in a side position by the collective of Police Scotland just blasted on I don't know if that fairly in some way represents the way the committee feels that the SPA was not actually at all and not insisting that when things came ahead big decisions like this that they were in the game at the beginning now I'm not asking you to answer that I think that's just a point that I think the committee feels were not at and I want to let Christian and Graham ask their questions and we might not have time to answer them but we'll get them on the record so you get answers back Christian do you have a question? Yes thank you very much Corwin I just wanted to explore a little bit the position of the armed officers themselves are we are we thinking about if we can't find a solution to the problem that those police officers will stay in the police station and stay idle until they are and will that have some repercussion on the recruitment of other police officers? Right that's that question, Graham First of all I'd like Ian White in his response to confirm that I gave evidence to himself and his colleague very much in the tenor of the frustration expressed by the convener this afternoon I think that my question is at paragraph 38 a clear accountability framework exists I think that we would accept that Ian White is probably the expert in accountability as far as this situation is concerned so with that hat on he's spoken about recommendations he's spoken about consultation does Achieve Constable have the authority to make such changes in policy in the future without prior endorsement from a Scottish Police Authority? That's a question and you've got a question as well I have a query really I suppose for yourself convener I have a number of other questions that I would like to ask this afternoon we are not able to do it justice today I would like to reconvene the committee on further exploration I think a good issue would be if members have further questions we will write in the first instance for responses that doesn't by any way say we're not going to meet again but we can ask your questions Alice and anybody else and then we could reconvene with their answers in front of us on top of it if you wish it's just a way of normally doing allowing people to many more questions if it was a normal committee meeting we would carry on all I'm saying is to give the opportunity to ask your questions let's discuss this at the end of the meeting the manner in which we try to do that's more effective for the committee which I know is always trapped by the fact that we've got to be in the chamber at 2.30 can I say a thank you for your evidence so far I'm sure that there's still a great deal of discontentment in this committee and that we're very much watching the guardians are being guarded by us if you like it, put it like that thank you very much