Report Detail

Background

This report presents data, insight and action on areas of strategic risk to organisational capacity and capability, and is aligned to the Chief Constable’s focus on ensuring that we meet the 2030 Vision.

The report draws on Q1 People Dashboard data on absence, duty modification, flexible working and case management, and:

provides insight, and benchmarking where available;

describes how we’re responding;

identifies greenshoots of improvement where observed.

Addressing these areas enables us to create conditions for a Thriving Workforce that help our people stay well, return to work successfully when they are absent, and receive the right support at the right time. By strengthening management capability, improving the quality of interventions and targeting support where it is most needed, we are taking a proactive and evidence-led approach to improving attendance and workforce wellbeing.

Beyond the information presented here, our other suite of reports to Committee provide further detail describing our commitments and progress to deliver the 2030 Vision and a Thriving Workforce.

Further detail

Based on the Q1 People Dashboard it is clear that whilst workforce capacity pressures appear to be easing in some areas, long-term absence, deployability constraints and case durations remain significant organisational risks.

Abstractions

Capacity pressures remain:

Total abstraction hours reached their highest level in the last four quarters (3.26 million hours), driven principally by annual leave, training and absence.

We are reducing reliance on overtime, but workforce availability remains under pressure due to employees being unavailable for operational deployment for a variety of reasons.

We are witnessing a seasonal increase in re-rostered rest days due to large-scale summer events and protests. Levels are being closely monitored.

Long-term absence is now the dominant attendance challenge:

Overall absence remains stable at 7%, but long-term absence continues to rise for both officers and staff against Q4.

Officer long-term absence increased to 39,078 working days lost, while staff long-term absence increased to 16,920 working days lost.

In contrast, short-term absence reduced for both officers and staff against Q4.

Working days lost due to psychological disorders (short- and long term absence) have increased year-on-year from 25,154 (2024/25) to 31,816 (Q1 2026/27).

Psychological disorders account for over 20,700 long-term working days lost among officers alone.

There is some evidence that the World Cup has had an influence on absence rates during Q1. There are spikes of absence reporting on particular dates in June.

There is focus and action via a Capacity short life working group (SLWG) and action plan that seeks to deliver a 1% reduction in absence during 26/27 by:

Ensuring due diligence – that line managers are carrying out return to work and attendance support meetings.

Equipping our line managers - Providing guidance, toolkits and skills development opportunities through management development programmes, ‘Focus-On’ sessions, and two-way engagement so managers have the skills, confidence and support to intervene early, hold strong meaningful conversations and use HR tools and processes effectively.

Focusing on hotspots - Systematic use of enhanced People Plan/Case dashboard data, and working closely with national and territorial divisions to identify hotspots, understand trends and establish root causes so interventions can focus on where they have the greatest impact.

Duty Modifications

Deployability and duty modifications remain high:

There are 2,915 individuals on duty modifications, with growth continuing year-on-year.

Adjusted duties remain our core challenge with 974 officers (33% of all officers on duty modifications) on permanent adjusted duties (primarily disability related) and non-deployable. We have a further 871 officers on adjusted duties who are deployable (with restrictions). Whilst this cohort continues to grow, that growth is slowing (from 4.2% in Q3 25/26 to 1.2% in Q1 26/27).

Numbers on recuperative duties is reducing - from 688 officers in November 2025 to 586 officers in June 2026 (down 14.8%)

Officers on recuperative duties for more than 12 months reducing - from 154 officers in Q1 25/26 to 133 officers in Q1 26/27 (down 13.6%)

We continue to drive forward with the duty modification action plan and will soon launch a communications plan – see substantive paper on agenda for update and next steps.

Flexible Working

Flexible working remains a topic of strategic focus to understand impact on workforce capacity:

27% of employees on formal arrangements, significantly above policing benchmarks.

This is in line with the UK public sector benchmark (25-30%), but higher than other police organisations (6-12% of officers and 20 35% of staff).

Application approval rates have reduced by 2 percentage points to 89% in Q1.

HR has recently completed a comprehensive review of flexible working arrangements across Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to understand the benefits and the impact of current levels of flexible working levels and arrangements. The headline findings of the review suggest:

Flexible working supports wellbeing, retention, and engagement

There is no consistent organisational-level evidence linking flexible working to reduced service delivery.

Impact is not evenly distributed, particularly in smaller teams and specialist functions where reduced hours are experienced as variation in resource availability.

The next phase of work will focus on ensuring that the facts and evidence from the review are understood across the organisation. Strategic HR Leads will engage directly with Command Teams to

promote a consistent narrative and reinforce a key principle: decisions relating to flexible working sit with line managers, who must balance individual circumstances with business and operational need.

Looking ahead, a significant challenge for HR is understanding and influencing the perceptions of first-line managers. Whilst policy and process are well established, feedback suggests there remains an opportunity to build greater confidence and consistency in how flexible working requests are considered and managed.

To support this, Strategic HR Leads are delivering focused learning sessions on flexible working across the business. These sessions will complement the recently developed Flexible Working Toolkit and are designed to equip managers with the knowledge, skills and confidence required to navigate requests effectively.

Case Management

Workplace resolution activity is improving, but formal cases remain slow:

New employee relations cases fell by 58% compared with the previous quarter.

Informal resolution is increasingly successful, accounting for 38% of closed grievances, while mediation referrals increased to 10 in Q1 compared with 25 across the whole of last year.

However, grievance and disciplinary cases still take 5-6 months on average to resolve, with some extending beyond nine months.

Our formal grievance rate is approximately 0.5 grievances per 100 workers compared to 1.35 per 100 workers across UK workers.

Over the course of 26/27 we will continue to implement our casework improvement plan and are seeking to engage with Scottish Government to simplify our Performance Regulations to support increased usage across our organisation. Please refer to item 4 for a substantive Annual Employee Relations/ Case Management Report.

Conclusion / Next Steps

This report demonstrates our strategic use of organisational insight and evidence-based action to enhance workforce capacity and capability. By focusing on reducing absence and abstractions, strengthening managerial capability, and implementing a comprehensive Health and Wellbeing action plan, we are striving towards a high-performing, resilient workforce. All initiatives directly support the Chief Constable’s

2030 Vision, ensuring our leaders and teams are well-equipped to meet evolving organisational demands. Our approach remains proactive and transparent, aligning with workforce risks and audit recommendations, and positions us strongly for future challenges.