Introduction and context

INTRODUCTION

Police Scotland has publicly acknowledged that racism, sexism, misogyny and other aspects of discrimination exist in policing in Scotland and that it is an institutional matter. As well as the public statement Police Scotland have, through the Policing Together Strategy, and more recently the Vision 2030, made a public commitment to becoming an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory organisation.

The foundation of policing is built on trust; contextual truth matters because there can be no trust without truth. Context setting is therefore critical to Police Scotland to ensure that our information is captured, presented and understood within the wider contextual and evidential reality. The Policing Together Performance Report attached (Appendix A) draws information from various sources to provide information on our progress and impact.

Police Scotland have made no secret of the fact that culture change takes time and therefore patience and perseverance are needed to maintain momentum through encouragement, optimism and hope. This can only happen when we are able to bring to life and articulate the progress being made, setting our work within the contextual reality.

This report is intended to update Board members on Policing Together progress and performance.

CONTEXT

Through our Policing Together programme Police Scotland have made a clear and sustained commitment to understanding the lived experiences of our workforce.

Across 2021 and 2022 we held Talk Truth to Power sessions with Diversity Staff Associations and undertook extensive engagement to develop our Policing Together Strategy. We provided mechanisms and safe spaces to receive candid and honest feedback and suggestions on how to improve inclusion across the service.

Across 2022 and 2023, we commissioned internal surveys to further inform our direction and understand experiences, key issues and their extent, including;
• Raising a workplace issue and our grievance process survey (2022)
• Understanding sexism and misogyny colleague survey (Aug 2022 - Reported to SPA May 2023)
• Colleague survey on institutional racism and discrimination (2023)

Additionally, Police Scotland were subject of several external inspection, audits and independent reviews, including;

• Human Rights Baseline Assessment (May 2023)
• HMICS Inspection of Organisational Culture in Police Scotland (Published Dec 2023)
• EDI & HR IRG (x2 interim Reports Presented to SPA - May 2023 and October 2023 and Final Report Aug 2024)
• Deep Dive SETM and VAWG (Aug 2024)
• BDO Audit EqHRIA (Nov 2024)

The Policing Together Strategy, the Equality Outcomes and our public acknowledgement of institutional racism and discrimination came from listening to candid and tough messages from our communities, including our own officers and staff, from reviews, audits and inspections and from legal and conduct cases, as detailed above. All feedback received helped shape the Policing Together programme of activity ongoing across the organisation.

The insights gathered, and inspections and review findings, informed our Policing Together Implementation Plan and our Sex Equality and Tackling Misogyny Action Plan.

Translating our commitment to becoming an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory organisation into tangible practical improvements has required the investment of resources (inc. a divisional merge), the creation of structures and governance (inc. creation of the SPA PTOG), and the support to prioritise systems and processes which bring insights and understanding, enabling evaluation of progress and impact (inc. annual survey, culture dashboard). All these key requirements have been established since Police Scotland’s public acknowledgment and have provided the foundation to deliver tangible improvements.

In August 2024 at the midway point of Policing Together Strategy the vision was refreshed to incorporate an external focus on service delivery and the pillars were reviewed and refreshed to incorporate a Learning Pillar and a Communities Piller (retaining Leadership and Communications Pillars).

At the October 2024 SPA PTOG summarised progress reports were presented for each of the previous pillars (leadership, training, preventions, communications) to demonstrate the activity delivered and being taken forward. This was also provided publicly at the SPA People Committee in November along with a SETM Summary Paper. These reports provided an overview of where we had been and captured the breadth of work ongoing but also acknowledged the need for evidence of impact and influence beyond just positive feedback.

Given the bolstered governance and resources within Policing Together programme, a decision was taken to incorporate Sex Equality & Tackling Misogyny (SE&TM) under the wider Policing Together reporting framework, incorporated into one streamlined plan.

As demonstrated above, there were several reports capturing feedback relating to policing culture. As such a significant mapping and alignment exercise was carried out to draw all recommendations and actions from external inspections and audits together, bringing all EDI, culture and Human Rights actions under one co-ordinated and streamlined Implementation Plan, including the SETM action plan.

The Policing Together programme leads on the co-ordination of all work across the organisation to deliver cultural improvements in the Service and across society. We report progress 6 monthly to the SPA People Committee and quarterly to the SPA Policing Together Oversight Group.

On 28 August 2025 Police Scotland presented its newly formatted 6 monthly Policing Together Performance Report to the SPA People Committee. The report has been updated (section 5) and is attached at Appendix A.

The public interest and scrutiny of this area of Police Scotland’s work rightly continues to be high. This can be seen by the recent media attention on the IRG’s deep dive into Sex Equality and Tackling Misogyny (SETM) and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). This report to the board presents an opportunity to publicly address recent reporting and update on activity being undertaken within Police Scotland.