Estate Transformation: Local Area Consultations

In the future we will have an estate that... 

• Visibility and presence: Maximises local visibility and presence driving highest possible confidence levels in community policing. 
• Wellbeing focus: Provides significantly improved user experience through fit for purpose workspaces driving smarter working and improved well-being.
• Collaboration: Enables integrated cross-agency services through co-locating with local partners driving better services and cost reduction. 
• Biodiversity consideration: Supports our duty to biodiversity driving reduced environmental impact across all sites and incorporating biodiversity initiatives covering strategic and operational processes. 
• Productive and mobile: Enables our people to be empowered and productive, working from modernised well-serviced workspaces driving digitally-enabled processes, mobility, shared corporate services. 
• Economics optimised: Facilitates maximum income and reciepts to be reinvested from commercial and surplus assets driving enhanced future estate and policing services in local communities. 
• Cultural change: Facilitates co-location within the community driving an embedded service which enables a joint working ethos and ends 'us' and 'them' silos. 
• Commercial innovation: Is financed through commercially innovative approaches e.g. Joint Ventures, Third Party Income and Gain Shares driving best value outcomes and improved policing for local communities. 
• Strong governance: Is supported by a strong central governance framework with appropriate delegation driving aligned and transparent timely decision-making and delivery of estate change programme. 
• Optimised, modernised estate: Provides a smaller, more efficient local operation driving improved responsiveness to community demand, accessible public interface and fit for purpose facilities. 
• Empowers: Empowers Divisional Commanders, within a national governance framework, to design and implement effective estate solutions in a timely manner driving accelerated improvement. 

Our estate transformation will be achieved through working with our local partners, enabling Divisional Commanders to lead the planning of their Divisions. 

In doing so, our Local Policing Divisions will listen, understand and respond to the concerns of communities, partners, and colleagues. 

No, this is part of the delivery of our Estate Strategy which was approved in 2019 by the Scottish Police Authority.

Policing should be responsive to current and future needs and part of this is ensuring we have our staff located in the areas where they are needed most. Centralisation of services has played no part in our decision making process when we have identified which offices should be considered for disposal.

Police Scotland inherited a large estate which was based on legacy arrangements.  This estate was developed over a significant period of time when demands on policing were very different from current and anticipated future demands.

The demands facing policing and the public expectation of policing in Scotland has evolved over time and will continue to evolve, however the estate which is crucial to the delivery of policing services, has not evolved and has largely remained as is. 

We are proposing to dispose of the stations highlighted. The review was done at a local level with divisional commanders and looked at a number of factors including local demand and where local resources could be located to continue to provide policing services.

We understand and are sensitive to community concerns around changes involving police buildings and as we bring forward proposals we will engage and consult with the public.

Local engagement will be based on an assessment of the impacts of the service change to the public and local community and will be developed with Divisional Commanders – and with consideration of Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act. 

Like many organisations, the way the public interacts with us has changed with the majority of requests for service coming to us via the telephone rather than by visiting a police office. It is important that we locate our staff in the areas where they are needed most. While reviewing our current estate, we have considered the level of service that is required at each location and the anticipated demand.

We are committed to maintaining a presence within our local communities, through police officers being able to patrol and respond to community needs. There are a range of alternative approaches we can consider to meet the needs of our different communities.

At the heart of our proposal is the desire to meet the needs of our communities and ensure that we have our staff located in the right locations. The review of the Police Scotland estate was conducted to ensure that the estate is fit for purpose and reflects the changing nature of policing and can support service delivery to local communities. That being said, hard choices are being taken to deliver effective policing within the revenue budget available to us and we are now accelerating plans to dispose of a number of police stations across the country.

In a challenging financial time we have to give consideration to reducing unnecessary expenditure. The majority of the stations being considered for disposal are not fit for purpose and have significant running costs. This is not a sustainable position.

When reviewing their estate, each Division considered a number of factors including the demand for service from relevant locations and where resources need to be deployed from to enhance service delivery. We have identified that many of our buildings no longer meet current operational requirements.

No. The review of our estate is driven by a desire to meet the needs of our communities and ensure that we have our staff located in the areas where they are needed most. Like many organisations, the way the public interacts with us has changed with the majority of requests for service coming to us via the telephone rather than by visiting a police office. We are committed to maintaining a presence within our local communities, through police officers being able to patrol and respond to community needs.

Our strategy seeks to move towards police stations co-located with partners where possible, to ensure services are delivered in the most efficient and effective way.

We now have more than 60 co-locations with partners, providing more sustainable, more modern, and safer workspaces for our people.

We have great examples of successful partnerships in the North East, Perthshire, Forth Valley, and Ayrshire among others and this will continue to be an important part of ensuring policing in Scotland is sustainable.

Taking every opportunity to co-locate with partners is not only the best way to deliver savings to the public purse, it also facilitates more integrated and effective public services with better outcomes, particularly for the vulnerable in our society.

Your response is anonymous and you will not be identified through the information you provide unless you choose to identify yourself in your responses. Any data that identifies you will be removed and not stored. 

At the end of the survey, we ask for personal details to ensure we receive a comprehensive range of responses. Please note that you do not have to answer these questions.

By completing this survey, you agree to Police Scotland using your anonymised data for analysis and reporting that will improve the service we provide.

Police Scotland is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We have robust procedures in place to ensure that any data that you provide is processed and stored securely. We will never pass any data that identifies you on to any third parties without your express consent. We also meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 (General Data Protection Regulation or 'GDPR').

This information is available in Easy Read. If you need this version, you can download it from the bottom of this page.

BSL videos are embedded throughout our National Conversation activity and people who use BSL are invited to contribute their views on any local buildings or police estate in general via this activity. Consultations on each building are moving quickly and the information about each evolves as each building consultation becomes live. Therefore, it would be not be helpful to have out of date information within our BSL videos. The turnaround time to have BSL videos created is a challenge for us. We are continually trying to improve the accessibility of our engagement with technology available to us. Please get in touch and we will do our very best to help you.

Please contact us if you need to complete the survey in a different way. You might find helpful information on our accessibility page.