FORMER SNP leader Gordon Wilson yesterday launched a fierce attack on Police Scotland, saying the service had “fallen apart” and should be subject to a “root and branch” review to restore public trust.

In a hard-hitting discussion paper, Wilson also described the Scottish Police Authority as “toothless” and said it should be abolished and a beefed up justice committee at Holyrood should instead help to hold the force to account.

Wilson’s intervention is the boldest critique of Police Scotland to date, and its publication coincided with further revelations about the M9 crash in July – suggesting Lamara Bell, one of the two victims, had desperately tried to escape from the wreckage.

She was eventually rescued 72 hours after police were first alerted, but died later in hospital.

“Rarely in the history of any police force, including London’s Metropolitan Police at its worst, has any force performed so badly as has Police Scotland,” Wilson wrote in his paper.

“Scandal after scandal has exposed Police Scotland to justified parliamentary and press scrutiny. It has reached the stage of lack of credibility where when performing well it receives little credit.”

There have been calls for radical change at the force after the controversies that have dogged it since it was formed in 2013.

Policies such as the routine arming of police and use of stop-and-search have been widely condemned.

The force also came in for severe criticism over the death in police custody of Sheku Bayoh in May.

Wilson, who led the SNP from 1979 to 1990, launched the paper through the Options for Scotland think tank.

He said Police Scotland needed to be de-centralised, with four regional forces created, and local authorities given more oversight.

The former MP for Dundee East also criticised the SNP Scottish Government, saying MSPs, ministers and civil servants must “accept responsibility” for the force’s failings.

He said: “Rarely in the history of police forces has everything fallen apart as in the case of Police Scotland.

“The problems cannot be resolved by cosmetic actions such as a change in chief constable and calls for the resignation of the current chief Sir Stephen House are puerile and nothing more than shallow political posturing.

“Real thought is needed and this is why I am launching an Options paper setting out substantial ideas for change in the hope that it will stir debate.

He added: “The problem goes much deeper than Sir Stephen House. Here, the Parliament, ministers and civil servants must accept responsibility for the framework and legislation.

“To ‘retire’ Sir Stephen in a cosmetic move will do nothing to tackle the real difficulties of Police Scotland.

“These stem from over-centralisation. When creating a single national force, no account was paid to the reality that although Scotland is a small country, it nevertheless is a varied one. Different policing practices had been devised over the years to suit local conditions.”

Wilson added: “What will not serve is an attempt to paper over the cracks by merely appointing a new chief constable or chair of the Scottish Police Authority while failing to address the depth of the problems stemming from over-centralisation. It is time for ‘root and branch’ reform.”

Criticising the SPA, he said “the body has proved toothless in promoting local policing over community policing ... it has yet to justify its existence. Is it necessary?”

His recommendations include de-centralising the force by establishing four regional forces, each of which will have its own chief constable, giving councils joint oversight, scrapping the Scottish Police Authority and transferring national oversight to the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee.

Scottish Labour Public Services spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “This is an absolutely extraordinary intervention from a former leader of the SNP. For one of the big beasts of Scottish nationalism to say that the biggest public sector reform of the SNP Government has been a failure, shows the extent of which Police Scotland has lost public confidence.”

SCOTTISH Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Alison McInnes MSP said: “This is a damning verdict by Gordon Wilson on the SNP Government’s short-sighted and illiberal police reforms.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Although there have been challenges, policing in Scotland continues to perform excellently, supported by the 1,000 extra officers that we have delivered.

Recorded crime in Scotland is at a 40-year low, violent crime is down 10 per cent in the last year alone and crimes of handling an offensive weapon have dropped by 62 per cent since 2006-07.”

A spokesman for the SPA said the reform of policing from a multi-force structure to a national service was a long-term process and realising the benefits of operating as a single national service would take time, though progress had been made.

“There is evidence that many key areas of policing in Scotland are stronger today than they were under the previous multi-force system, and that has been done alongside successful efforts to end duplication and necessary work to reduce the costs of policing,” he said.

“However, we also acknowledge there have been issues and difficulties, and that there is more of that journey of reform ahead of policing than behind it.”

Regarding the specific recommendation to abolish the SPA, he added: “The SPA has a key role in the oversight of policing in Scotland and in holding policing to account.

“However, Parliament established the SPA with a wider range of duties and responsibilities than that of a watchdog.”

He added that those responsibilities extend to strategy, performance, financial accountability, and a range of statutory obligations such as the delivery of forensic services.