In April Nicola Sturgeon said “no chief constable is or ever can be allowed to be a law unto themselves”. From that moment it was clear Sir Stephen House’s fate was sealed. His resignation yesterday came as no surprise. If anything, it was overdue.
Sir Stephen had already indicated he did not intend to seek a second term after the expiry of his current contract next September, but his resignation now allows Police Scotland to take stock of its successes and failures since it was established two years ago.
Amid the controversies that have dogged Sir Stephen’s tenure, those successes should not be forgotten. Merging eight forces into one was always liable to prove a complex task, nevertheless it has been achieved. More importantly, recorded crime is at a 40-year low and the service has maintained essential services even as its budget has been sharply reduced.
Nonetheless, the failures have also been significant. On Sir Stephen’s watch, law-abiding citizens in Scotland were vastly more likely to be stopped by police officers than was the case in any other part of the United Kingdom. A statistics-driven culture of targets was blamed for this mania but it also emerged that Police Scotland was not even able to keep careful track of its own data.
More importantly, despite assuring the public that the practice would be curtailed, officers continued to stop and search children. This policy contradicted the police’s proud boast that Scotland enjoys a tradition of “policing by consent”. By definition, eight-year-old children lack the means to give their informed consent to a search. This, like the habit of deploying armed officers on routine patrols, rightly undermined public confidence in the police.
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More recently, the death of Lamara Bell, trapped in her car and undiscovered for three days even though the police had been alerted to the fact her vehicle had crashed on the M9, was blamed on human error and staff cutbacks. Defending the police, Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary who appointed Sir Stephen, said: “Errors happen and officers fall from grace but that happens in all walks of life.” So they do, but Ms Bell would have lived had the police done their job.
Considered individually these difficulties might not have required Sir Stephen’s resignation; collectively, they rendered his position untenable. Clearly, Scotland’s chief constable had lost the confidence of its first minister.
On Sir Stephen’s watch it sometimes appeared as though ministers served at the pleasure of senior officers, not the other way round. Accountability and transparency were notable for their absence. Police Scotland looked to be untouchable, happy to pay lip service to political direction but happier still to ignore it. The Scottish Police Federation even complained it was “frightening” that politicians “believe they are in a position” to comment on operational police matters.
Questions remain. The Scottish Police Authority (SPA), notionally responsible for overseeing Police Scotland, has hardly distinguished itself since the creation of the single, unified, national force. Far from holding Police Scotland to account, the SPA often appears to prefer making excuses for the police’s shortcomings. A change in culture and attitude is required.
The same might be said about MSPs at Holy- rood. The parliamentarian who emerges with most credibility from this affair is Willie Rennie. The Liberal Democrat leader has consistently highlighted problems with Police Scotland and, for his troubles, has been derided by some SNP MSPs whose loyalty to their party trumps their sense of the public interest.
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The public dearly wishes to trust its police force; a new chief constable can begin the process of rebuilding that trust.