No doubt it appeared straightforward when it was first suggested: let’s bring Police Scotland and the British Transport Police together into one force and under one command. However, like so many apparently simple ideas in politics, the reality has proved to be much more difficult than anyone expected.
The merger of the railway police force with Police Scotland is due to take place in 15 months yet there are so many areas that still need to be sorted out — from pensions to data systems and from command structures to cross-border working — that it seems impossible that the merger can go ahead on time.
To retreat now would be a political humiliation for Michael Matheson, Scotland’s justice secretary, but perhaps he should put politics to one side and consider the bigger picture.
The Police Scotland merger with the British Transport Police was always going to prove difficult, even if Scotland’s police force was running like a well-oiled machine. However, everyone in the country knows that Police Scotland is in a state of crisis. Its chief constable is on special leave while investigations are completed into allegations made against him of bullying. A further set of investigations is also being undertaken into an assistant chief constable, who is suspended at present. Relations between the force and the watchdog body, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), have been strained from the outset and the authority itself is on its third leader in just over four years.
Scotland does not have a chief constable behind his desk at the moment and since it took months for him to be interviewed over the complaints against him in the first place, there is little evidence that his saga is going to be brought to a swift conclusion. Given the turmoil in Police Scotland and the upheaval at the SPA, with a new chairwoman and new board members due to be installed soon, it seems inconceivable that anyone would expect another wholesale change to go ahead in the next year, but that is what SNP ministers still appear to want to do.
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The merger itself might be a good idea. It might deliver the kind of seamless police service and cost savings that ministers believe it will. However, it has to be done right, and for that reason — if for no other — it should be put on hold at least until all parties concerned have agreed that the systems are in place to cope with it.
The nightmare scenario for ministers is that they plough on with this merger next year, it all goes wrong and they have to spend another three or four years cleaning up the mess. That would erode confidence not just in the police but in the government.
It would be far better, surely, to get it right, however long that takes, than to get it wrong by sticking to what appears now to be a hopelessly unrealistic timetable. SNP ministers do not tend to listen to appeals from the Tories at any time but tomorrow is one of those occasions when perhaps they should. The Conservatives are going to use their parliamentary time to call for a pause in the merger plans.
If the Scottish government fails to listen, then the present crisis in Scotland’s policing structures could drag on for years and years — and those same SNP ministers will have no one to blame but themselves.