Report Summary
As a public body, SPA has a specific duty to publish relevant information to demonstrate our compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), part of the Equality Act 2010. We publish information relating to our recruitment practices and information about employees who share protected characteristics from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.
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Board Diversity
The Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 allows for Scottish Ministers to appoint up to 15 members to the SPA (minimum 10). The terms and appointment dates of members vary and therefore gender representation can change throughout the year.
The Authority can confirm that as at 1 April 2025, the Gender Representation Objective of 50% female non-executive members is met.
Since 1 April 2022, four members stepped down at the end of their term, including the Chair. Two members resigned from post early.
Two recruitment process has been run by Public Appointments Scotland since 2022 to fill member vacancies. In January 2024, a Public Appointments campaign was launched seeking four new members. Three appointments were made early 2024. In December 2024, a Public Appointments campaign was launched seeking a new Chair for the Authority. A new Chair was appointed from 7 April 2025.
Between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025, nine members had their appointment terms extended, six of which were female. Two female members resigned prior to 1 April 2025, before their terms ended, and two female members stood down at the end of their term.
The recruitment process for appointing members to the Scottish Police Authority is entirely independent of the Authority and rests with the Scottish Government’s Public Appointments Team. Information in relation to the number of applications received, the number of successful female applicants or details of any positive action steps taken to encourage applications from women will be held by the Scottish Government’s Public Appointments team.
The Authority plays a supporting role throughout the recruitment process with communication support and engagement activity to promote the vacancies and the work of the Authority.
The Authority is committed to positively engaging with the Public Appointments team in seeking to address any barriers to the appointment of a diverse Board.
We have used the data available to confirm that current representation means that we have met the “gender representation objective”. In terms of encouraging applications our focus has been on encouraging applications from diverse groups rather than focusing solely on female appointments.
