THE overall crime rate in 2020/21 for Scotland was 45.1 per 1000 people compared to 77.6 per 1000 for England and Wales.

A fall in England and Wales, from 89.8 per 1000, was the first dip after seven years of climbing figures and may be a one-year blip, due to pandemic factors. The crime rate in Scotland has fallen steadily from 82.6 per 1000 in 2002/03.

These are remarkable figures suggesting that something very different is happening in Scotland after more than a decade of SNP rule here and of Conservative rule in England. While trends in reported crime cannot be simply explained by a single factor, policing must surely be important and is clearly an issue which a government can do something about.

Richard Lewis, Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys and lead on performance for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, expressed serious concerns in The Guardian last week about comments by the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon pays tribute to 'extraordinary' Queen after death at Balmoral

Lewis criticised the comments as “headline-grabbing” and “lacking in substance”. He is particularly concerned at the notion of imposed targets such cutting homicide by 20%. Lewis is also deeply concerned about the claims of an “uplift” of 20,000 new officers when, in reality, this will merely restore the level of staffing in 2010, as the Conservatives came to power. These insensitive, ill-informed comments from Truss remind us of the loss of tens of thousands of officers and support staff under then home secretary Theresa May and her hostile, confrontational, suggestion that the Police Federation was “crying wolf” over the likely impact of these cuts.

The surge in crime thereafter tells the true story and it seems to be one that Truss has not learned from.

Scotland’s continuing steady reductions to a level far below that in its otherwise quite similar neighbour tells a story of a very different approach in the Scottish Government’s relationship with its police force.

Before exploring that relationship further, there is the simple matter of staffing, so important in tackling crime. In 2019, Scotland had 316 officers per 100,000 population while England and Wales had only 207. So, with 33% less crime, Scotland had 50% more officers per head of population. Also, staffing in England and Wales dropped from 251 to 207 per 100,000 in 2010, while in Scotland it had only fallen from 328 to 316 in the same period. While the abovedifferences in resources differences matter, psychological factors matter too and, in particular, can affect morale at all levels.

Two are noticeable in Scotland.

First, there are expressions of satisfaction by political leaders, in police performance. In 2020, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon praised Police Scotland for its “quick and decisive actions” in containing a major incident in Glasgow city centre. In October 2021, she praised Police Scotland’s campaign to reduce sexual violence as “powerful and important”.

Second, and equally important, is the absence of top-down targets imposed without consultation on their feasibility. We all want crime levels to fall but nothing is to be gained from telling police officers that it is a target just for them.

The Scottish Government trusts its police force to do what it can and provides it with the resources it can afford but, as all the research tells it, crime will fall if you create a better, fairer, more equal society.

To this end, within the constraints of the devolution settlement, the Scottish Government works to reduce crime at the same time as it works to reduce inequality with a wide range of initiatives such as its additional child payments, more affordable housing, free school meals for all and the reduction of rough sleeping to half the UK rate.

Allan Dorans, the MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, is a former senior officer with the Metropolitan Police and is the SNP spokesperson on policing