Police Scotland’s Quarter 1 Performance report found that public confidence in policing was up by over 20 percentage points during the first quarter of 2020-21.
A survey of over 22,000 people found that 63% of people agree or strongly agree that they had confidence in their local police.
The report also showed that complaints against police officers during the period from April to June were up by more than 14% year-on-year with more than a quarter of these related to Covid-19.
The complaints concerned officers failing to physically distance, failing to enforce physical distancing by the public and not wearing PPE. They also involved “allegations of incivility” over officers attempting to “engage with individuals regarding their presence in a public place”.
Officers made nearly 60,000 interventions under coronavirus legislation and more than 40 premises were ordered to close whilst over 3,000 fixed penalty notices were issued.
Over 230 people were arrested and 340 people were “returned home using reasonable force”.
Hate crimes were up with a “significant number” of these related to neighbour disputes “which likely result from heightened tensions stemming from the pandemic situation”.
Deputy Chief Constable Fiona Taylor said officers had discharged their duties with ‘courtesy, compassion and common sense.’
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
