Partners in Scrutiny: Local Police Scrutiny Arrangements in Scotland, Final Project Report

This small-scale project was designed to examine the development and working of local police scrutiny arrangements following the creation of Police Scotland and in light of public concern regarding their efficacy. The project was supported by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) and ran between October 2015 and March 2016, the fieldwork being completed by January 2016. This report begins by setting out in detail the context for the project. It then outlines the project itself, which was conducted in two stages, and its findings. Stage one of the project was a mapping and overview exercise. Through mapping we identified the different ways in which Local Scrutiny Committees (LSCs) had developed since their creation on 1 April 2013, and through overview interviews with key stakeholders we gleaned some of the current issues around questions of local scrutiny. From stage one we were able to select three local sites for more in-depth qualitative study that would form the basis of stage two. The report outlines the process of this site selection and the data collected in the three sites before moving on to present the findings in two sections. In the first section we establish the main themes and issues to emerge from the fieldwork in a summary findings section. In the second we present in more detail the various perspectives expressed to us during the course of the project. We conclude with a discussion of these perspectives from our external standpoint as researchers, offering some reflections on their meaning and importance, and making some recommendations that flow out of them.