Delivering the next phase of police reform

Strengthening community policing

The test of change for our enhanced community policing model commenced on 29 September in Forth Valley (C) Division.

The model has been developed based on the findings of hundreds of interviews with officers, staff, partners and members of the public and through an industry standard service design approach.

The Enhancing Community Policing model establishes three core teams - Community Policing, Response Policing and a Community Investigations Hub.

The Community Investigations Hub's role is in coordinating and managing non-urgent demand, carrying out investigations and operational tasks for less serious incidents. The Hub enables us to tackle issues that communities tell us are important to them but previously have not had the response they deserve due to the volume of urgent demand on police officers.
T

he proof of concept in Forth Valley will continue until the end of the year and will be evaluated for any learnings as we look to roll this model out across the country.

Body worn video national roll-out

The national roll out of body worn video reached its halfway point at the end of October (Wednesday, 22 October) as officers and staff were equipped with the devices in Edinburgh and The Lothians and Scottish Borders divisions.

For the first time BWV was used to capture footage of violence and disorder around Halloween and Bonfire Night too. The equipment can help to de-escalate incidents, improve public trust in policing and reduce complaints, as well as support officer and staff safety, and bring wider benefits to the criminal justice system.
With the whole of the east of Scotland now using body worn video this marks a key milestone since the project commenced in Tayside.

Since its introduction in March 2025, over 140,000 recordings have been captured by the devices with almost 32,000 hours of footage uploaded of which over 8,500 media files have been exported to our digital evidence sharing system, DESC.

Body worn video will be rolling out into the west of Scotland in early 2026 as the number of officers using the devices increases.

Digital evidence sharing capability

The roll out of our digital evidence sharing capability (DESC) came to a conclusion at the end of September as it was introduced into Argyll and West Dunbartonshire (L Division) and Renfrewshire and Inverclyde (K Division).

DESC is the enabler for many of the innovations and improvements that are being rolled out including body worn video.

The efficiencies that DESC brings has seen us save many officer hours as evidence is easy to upload for victims and witnesses and fewer phones seized as a result too.

A recent survey of DESC users has said that it made their operational duties easier.

Work is ongoing to encourage retailers and various organisations to embrace DESC so that evidence can be easily provided, and we can capture and review evidence easily and efficiently.