Overview

As we approach the traditionally busy festive period and the end of 2025, I want to thank officers and staff for their service throughout the year, which has been set against an intensifying operating environment.

Poverty, geopolitics, cybercrime, and civil unrest is driving a high level of demand and the challenge for policing is evolving rapidly, illustrated by increasing online harm and threat, violence associated with organised crime, and a high level of protests.

My report reflects some of those challenges, and highlights action and outcomes driven by the hard work, skill and commitment of our officers, staff, and volunteers during October and November.

I detail a number of criminal justice outcomes following murder investigations. Although homicides remain at an extremely low level in Scotland, each one is a tragedy for the victim and their loved ones and each presents its own investigative challenges.

Our commitment to achieving answers for families continues to be illustrated by our very strong detection rate in relation to what are devastating crimes which also impact wider communities.

I want to thank the officers and staff, including forensic colleagues, for their skill, professionalism and resilience in these crucial cases.

My report outlines human trafficking operations, money laundering, and further arrests in relation to Operation Portaledge, an investigation into targeted attacks in the East and West of the country.

I also provide an update in relation to policing around criminality and disorder associated with the Bonfire Night period.

A significant partnership drive, supported by strong community policing, sought to address the root causes of criminality and disorder which has been experienced during recent years.

Under Operation Moonbeam, Police Scotland was prepared to respond this year, while officers in many areas of Scotland were equipped with Body Worn Video as our national roll-out passed the halfway point ahead of Halloween.

Although we made a very small number of arrests, we recorded a strong reduction in fireworks related calls to the police compared to last year.

I want to thank our officers and staff, fire and rescue officers, other blue light colleagues, and partners at local authorities and the third sector including Crimestoppers, and communities for the support and cohesion demonstrated.

This positive outcome underlined the value of proactive, community based policing and I outline progress on an embedded, enhanced community policing model, with a test of change having commenced in Forth Valley at the end of September.

We are listening carefully to the experiences of officers, staff, the community and partners in Forth Valley as we assess the impact of the model to capture any learning as we move forward. I am grateful for the Authority's ongoing interest in this work and we will continue to report as progress is made.

While we are hearing some positive feedback, I have underlined my desire to invest an additional 600 officers in local policing over the next two years to address harm and vulnerability, contribute to community cohesion, ensure public trust to share information and public confidence that policing can prevent crime and tackle anti-social behaviour.

This is part of an overall resource requirement to strengthen our workforce, address pressure on our people and our policing performance and deliver on our vision of safer communities, less crime, supported victims, and a thriving workforce.

Investment will enable policing to strengthen our response to digitally enabled and globally connected crime to target sex offenders, organised criminals, and extremists who are radicalising, recruiting, exploiting and abusing our children, and bringing illegal drugs and violence to the streets of Scotland.

We must continue to improve our response to violence against women and girls and I outline work, including policing's role in campaigning to call on men to reflect on their behaviour, to prevent offending and tackle misogyny.

We have set out further details on our resourcing requirement for the coming years to the Scottish Parliament's Criminal Justice Committee in a written evidence submission and during a session earlier this month.

Throughout our evidence, we underlined the success of policing reform as an outlier in the Scottish public sector, as well as evidencing ongoing efficiencies and affirming our commitment to continuous improvement.

A flat cash scenario is not deliverable. It would require an immediate recruitment pause, and attrition of our workforce would lead to a significant reduction in visible policing, prevention work, delays in responding to calls from the public and a severe impact on our ability to respond to major events. Difficult decisions would be required.

Detailed engagement with the Authority and communication with the Scottish Government at ministerial and official level will continue ahead of the Scottish Budget in January.

Police officers, staff, and volunteers are the key to the success of policing. My report outlines our latest intake of recruits earlier this month which maintained officer establishment at around 16,500.

Lastly, I outline some changes to our Chief Officer Team's responsibilities.