LGBTQI+ Citizens' Panel

Police Scotland response:

We support this recommendation and will build on developing practice within the Service to develop a National Community Engagement Plan which will include LGBTQI+ communities.

The National Community Engagement Plan will be mindful of the recommendations of the Citizens’ Panel, however not solely focused on LGBTQI+ communities. Direct reference to these communities with sign posting to specific resources via the creation of an internal ‘knowledge hub’ for officers and staff. One main engagement plan will have more benefit than a plan for each community or protected characteristic as we must consider intersectionality and progress, broadly, towards our Equality Outcomes.  This will also support the roll out of our ‘Policing for our Communities’ programme which includes our Enhancing Community Policing project.

As part of our new Enhanced Community Policing Model being rolled out across the country, we are putting a focus on effective community policing. Community police officers will be equipped with the skills and tools to build and sustain close relationships with communities, to understand issues and work together to address threat, risk and harm. This includes a new community policing ‘toolbox’ and further guidance to enhance our approaches.

We have recently developed and rolled out a digital Community Engagement Form where all our colleagues engaging with communities can record that engagement has taken place – including where, who with and any outcomes or next steps. This is, for the first time, giving us a ‘birds eye view’ of all meaningful community engagement taking place across the country. This makes it easy to identify any gaps and provide support to operational local policing teams to address any concerns or needs.

We are launching a Responsive Research Fund funding call in April 2026 through our Scottish Institute for Policing Research network to help us understand community relationships and networks in more detail – so that we can work together with and within communities to provide an appropriate service where required. Whilst we can’t say if any applicants will apply to focus on LGBTQI+ communities, we are clear that we must continue to understand the needs of all our communities and research and engagement is critical to this.

Police Scotland response:

We can’t support this recommendation in full at this time, but we are exploring other opportunities to ensure the clear message from your recommendation is explored. We have outlined some of our considerations below.

Our focus remains on ensuring that all police officers and staff are able to deliver excellent policing services for everyone across Scotland. We are committed to becoming an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory police service. As part of this commitment, our focus is on ensuring we enable all colleagues to have the right learning and development opportunities to understand how we police with our values and standards at the heart of everything we do. We are mindful of how we deliver effective policing with intersectionality considered.

We have recently rolled out several e-learning modules on equality and diversity, values and standards, including examples of how our values and standards show up in everyday interactions as part of the Police (Ethics, Conduct & Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2025 (PECSS Act 2025) learning package. In addition, we are embedding Human Rights training for colleagues focused on understanding what we do to uphold and protect individuals’ Human Rights in accordance with the Human Rights Act.

Our national Policing Together EDI team provides a central ‘one-stop-shop’ of officers with advanced knowledge and skills in EDI matters and colleagues throughout the service can approach them for advice and information as required. This includes maintaining our national cadre of Hate Crime Champions and Hate Crime Advisors, albeit we recognise hate crime is not the only crime our LGBTQI+ communities face, like everyone else in our society.

Further data collection, research and engagement as a continuous process will help better inform us of the types of issues faced by LGBTQI+ communities. Our Policing Together EDI team can assist in sharing this across the service; the work we are doing with the recommendations from this Citizens’ Panel is an example of this in practice.  

Finally, the Policing Together EDI team’s knowledge can be utilised for advice and guidance. The team will ensure appropriate resources are available for all colleagues to access via the knowledge hub previously mentioned so that officers and staff can access out with usual Monday to Friday business hours.

Police Scotland response:

Police involvement in pride events is under review, across the UK, following a legal case involving Northumbria Police whereby the court ruled that they were wrong to have uniformed officers participating in a Pride march under the Progress Pride Flag, as it was seen as compromising the police’s duty to act impartially.

We have commenced work on an ‘Impartiality in Policing’ review and a Short Life Working Group has been established which will consider the future of Police Scotland’s participation in Pride against the legal judgement and amongst many other things where impartiality can be scrutinised. This may not exclude police from attending pride events in a community engagement capacity in the future. The Short Life Working Group, made up of key colleagues across the Service, will make sure to engage with communities and stakeholders as part of their work. The group’s findings would be included within any guidance supporting officers with their engagement for further clarity.

Police Scotland response:

We accept the importance of this recommendation, but there are practical considerations we must consider as it may not be practical to implement as per your specific recommendation here. We want to assure you there is other work that we are progressing to ensure that communities can be engaged and involved in our decision making, for example through our newly established Independent Police Advisory Council which will continue to grow and evolve over the coming months.

This was established as part of our Policing Together Implementation Plan to support and guide our strategic direction and decision making. This Council is made up of a range of community members with relevant lived and living experiences and they participate through the lens of their personal protected characteristics or specialist knowledge. The work of the Council will continue to grow and evolve as it embeds within the Service and our governance arrangements.

On the basis of your recommendation, Policing Together EDI colleagues are considering re-instating the LGBTQI+ Advisory Forum as part of the portfolio action plan. This involves representatives from the community (community leads, partners, and possibly members from this Citizens’ Panel) who join a quarterly forum to discuss community concerns, have access to colleagues to raise concerns, ask questions and gain a better understanding of our engagement plan, crime report processes and support services utilised by Police Scotland. It’s a place to discuss what we are getting right and where we need to improve.

In addition, we also facilitate our suite of Ethics Panels, including our Independent Ethics Panel and Youth Ethics Panels, to support us in understanding a range of needs and experiences to shape and test our decision-making.

If any gaps in our knowledge or understanding are identified, we will seek appropriate ways to address these through our established research, insight and stakeholder engagement functions within our specialist Strategy, Insight and Engagement business area.

Police Scotland response:

We accept the importance of this recommendation, and we will incorporate this within further appropriate opportunities to remind all colleagues of the sensitivity of this personal information.

Our colleagues are trained in appropriate communication skills and will take time and listen to people we are there to help. This is addressed in our values and standards, especially our value of ‘respect’ – understanding people’s different needs is a core part of a range of our learning and training products. As a wider example, we recently launched a learning and awareness video as part of the work we are doing to embed understanding of neurodiversity in policing. This included a section on communication and respecting individuals.

We will ensure there is relevant information and signposting to the other ways people can report crime or ask us for help, including online and through the network of Third-Party Reporting Centres across Scotland.

There is a Third-Party Reporting Centre review and improvement plan ongoing, established by Scottish Government, and this is developing networks for centres to increase specialist knowledge and capacity as well as being easier to access for communities.

Our Learning, Training and Development colleagues will, considering your recommendation, explore what is already incorporated into probationer training for all new police officers.

Police Scotland response:

This largely relates to our response above regarding the information we provide to our colleagues on communication and respecting every individual we interact with.

All new officer recruits to Police Scotland are trained to note details in a sensitive manner with an emphasis on not making assumptions. This is part of an officers initial training module at the Scottish Police College.

Our Strategic Learning & Development Governance Board (SLDGB) provides strategic direction across all learning and development across Police Scotland.

Contact, Command and Control (C3) Division (our Service Advisor colleagues who you speak to when contacting police) and Criminal Justice Services Division (relevant for detained persons and police custody) do not ask for a person's title when taking details, they request a forename and surname. Officers and staff within C3 are trained to make notes on the call should the caller indicate they wish to be known by something specific. The notes are passed to the attending officers along with other pertinent information. Currently, the strategy for C3 is a simple, repeatable process that allows call handlers to quickly and efficiently illicit information from the caller to ensure the correct assistance is given.

We want LGBTQI+ communities to know that if they wish our officers to refer to them by a different name or pronoun to please make us aware when contacting us and we will pass this information on to our officers.

We will review further opportunities to remind colleagues about why this is important.

Police Scotland response:

We understand the importance of this recommendation, however fully implementing this as stated will not be possible. We have summarised below what we are doing instead, and we hope this provides you with some reassurance.

We recently presented on progress as part of our Policing Together Implementation Plan to the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) Board. This will continue annually. ACC Catriona Paton is the Chief Officer with responsibility for our Policing Together programme and associated workstreams.

People from all communities must know that when we talk about keeping people safe, we mean them. Everyone should feel able to speak to or engage with the police. We also want people from all communities to see policing as a potential career.

We will continue to consider the ways in which we can demonstrate progress, including through quarterly performance reporting to the SPA Policing Performance Committee. We are developing measurement tools to help us understand progress and impact, such as our new ‘Culture Dashboard’ and this is work in progress.

Police Scotland response:

We understand the importance of this recommendation and know that the Chief Constable’s apology was an important step in policing recognising its role in the recent and historical injustices and discrimination that members of LGBTQI+ communities in Scotland have faced. As we consider the ways in which we can demonstrate progress, including through quarterly performance reporting to the SPA Policing Performance Committee, our inclusion calendar communication activity and other internal and external messaging in this space, we will continue to be mindful of understanding where policing has come from and what more it has to do.

Police Scotland response:

The Continuous Professional Development (CPD) team, based within Learning, Training and Development, provide a range of learning opportunities which support colleagues' professional development, such as Learning Nudges and Empower Hours.  The CPD team also facilitate access to the ‘How To’ web-based learning platform which allows officers and staff to take a proactive approach to professional development.

The CPD team also provide Empower Hours which are short CPD sessions that will focus on key knowledge, skills and behaviours that are essential to being at your best.

The Policing Together Learning Pillar team are supporting reinstating ‘Inclusion Moments’ to be released quarterly, which are being developed with the assistance of our diversity staff associations to raise awareness of discrimination across protected characteristics. Inclusion Moments are essentially a facilitation guide or plan which can be used by anyone across the Service to have meaningful dialogue about inclusion within teams.

Police Scotland response:

This is underway. We are developing a new digital colleague engagement platform because we want all our colleagues to feel more connected and engaged. We know that we have work to do to get this right. There is an opportunity to develop individual profiles on this platform, clearly display skills and specialisms as well as ‘badges’. We will explore opportunities to incorporate badges and skills/specialism tags on the platform to show progress or specialist knowledge for working alongside LGBTQI+ communities, as well as other protected groups.

Raising the importance of our Policing Together approach, we have also established a new ‘Policing Together’ category at the annual Chief Constable’s Excellence and Bravery Awards. Nominations are received regarding positive EDI and wider projects related to our Policing Together ambition.

Police Scotland response:

We agree that we need to understand the effectiveness of the values and standards campaign. We report on areas where our values and standards have not been met to re levant governance boards internally and externally. This is monitored by senior leaders including Chief Officers so that we can understand where the campaign is making a difference or where there might be gaps.

Our new Culture Dashboard will also help us understand key insight in more detail relating to where our values and standards have not been met. This will help us address issues and design appropriate interventions.

As part of the PECSS Act we have updated the standards of professional behaviour and code of ethics for Police Scotland.

Police Scotland response:

We understand the importance of this recommendation, but we are already subject to external reviews and independent scrutiny. For example, in 2023, we were subject to HMICS Thematic Inspection of Organisational Culture in Police Scotland. We are continuing to work through the recommendations made because of this inspection. You can track which recommendations have been closed / complete and which are still open / in progress on the HMICS website.

Our roll out of Anti-Racism Training to all Police Scotland employees is ongoing with over 4,000 people trained to date. There is an evaluation form issued as part of this training. As this progresses, we are reviewing what other gaps exist and how we can ensure our workforce is anti-racist and anti-discriminatory. 

Our Culture Dashboard, mentioned previously, will enable us to constantly monitor and understand what’s working and where there are areas to focus on, potentially negating the need for the requirement of reviews.

We work closely with our colleagues in Statutory Staff Associations, Trades Unions and Diversity Staff Associations who hold Police Scotland to account and help inform our discussion and decision-making regarding our policies and process. Further, a whole range of reporting tools and mechanisms, including anonymous options, exist so that we have a range of anti-discriminatory internal processes. We have recently distributed training on Whistleblowing to remind colleagues about this option, too.

Police Scotland response:

We are clear about what we are doing to build an inclusive service. For example, our People Strategy sets out to ensure our people are supported through a positive working environment, enabling them to serve the public. We are working on delivering the range of objectives in meeting the outcomes set out within our People Strategy 2024.

Whilst everyone has Human Rights, and we are clear that whilst working within Police Scotland, our values and standards guide everything we do.

We want all our colleagues to know that they belong in the Service, and they are valued. Whilst everyone has Human Rights, and we are clear that whilst working within Police Scotland, our values and standards guide everything we do. These are aligned to our Competency and Values Framework, Code of Ethics, Standards of Professional Behaviour and Code of Conduct (for police staff). People are entitled to have personal views and opinions, but we are clear that we must treat everyone in line with our values of integrity, fairness and respect.

Through our Policing Together programme we are embedding a range of opportunities for colleagues to learn more about our diverse communities and how we can better meet people’s needs. Our Professional Development team also host a suite of Empower Hours where colleagues can join and learn about key areas, which includes culture, equality and inclusion.

Police Scotland response:

We are progressing various workstreams which encourage a learning environment. There are a range of options available in relation to performance, complaints and misconduct. We have focused over recent years to embed a culture of early resolution. Mediation provides a confidential and voluntary mechanism for colleagues to raise workplace concerns and seek early resolution, particularly where relationships or communications have begun to deteriorate. By addressing issues at an early stage, mediation supports constructive dialogue, helps prevent escalation into formal procedures, and contributes to healthier working relationships.

Effectiveness of mediation is demonstrated through year-on year uptake levels, completion rates, and reduced progression to formal processes (such as grievances), with learning used to inform preventative people interventions.

Mediation continues to be actively promoted across the organisation. Business areas are regularly encouraged to utilise the mediation service and it is promoted regularly via the Mediation Team, People Direct and our Strategic Leadership Team and Senior Management Teams. We have recently introduced a Workplace Relations Organisational Learning Group to ensure that any learning arising from workplace relations cases is appropriately considered, actioned and cascaded.

Where complaints are received by members of the public and are upheld, we encourage a learning culture and seek to address any organisational or individual learning to prevent reoccurrence. Where individual learning is identified, line management will be asked to progress this with the individual, which may take the form of advice, guidance or training. A record of this learning is maintained, and common themes are fed into the newly established Professional Standards Learning and Development Group for dissemination across all divisions and departments. Where matters relate to misconduct there are a range of outcomes available, however in more minor cases there is the option of Improvement Actions.

Our response to recommendation 3.2 in relation to CPD is also relevant here. Colleagues also participate in regular (at least annual) ‘MyCareer’ conversations with line managers to support reflection on performance, this is a good place to discuss opportunities for wider supper and learning needs.

Police Scotland response:

We partly accept the importance of this recommendation, however Police Scotland avoids the use of the term ‘bad apples’ as it could be considered to downplay serious issues.

Professional Standards and the Anti-Corruption Unit have an extensive focus on prevention and deliver this in a variety of formats. They host a series of Sergeant and Inspector forums delivering briefings and case studies on relevant subjects, which are selected based on a review of trends or matters of concern. This is supported by the quarterly publication of ‘The Standard’, an internal newsletter which focuses on identified issues and learnings for all colleagues, and the regular publication of misconduct outcomes.

Where any concerns about behaviours or cultures are identified in a specific team or area, bespoke inputs can be delivered by Professional Standards or Anti-Corruption Unit staff to address these.

Professional Standards have also recently refreshed the Whistleblowing training, ensuring staff are aware of the variety of mechanisms to report wrongdoing within the organisation.

Professional Standards also continue to work with Digital Division and our Analysis and Performance Unit to develop a new Proactive Support and Intervention Programme (PSIP). PSIP will draw on available Police Scotland data to provide a systematic mechanism to identify opportunities for early intervention, ensuring a considered response based on the risk posed by an individual. This will help to prevent escalation of issues and allow Police Scotland to ensure appropriate action is taken and that suitable safeguards are in place.

From 1 April, 2026 all police officers, special police constables and all police staff can undergo vetting by Police Scotland's Force Vetting Unit, within the Professional Standards Department, at intervals of not more than ten years during their service/employment or 'if a reason to do so arises'.  This change has been introduced by the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2025 (PECSS Act 2025) and introduces organisational ability to apply vetting conditions and dismiss officers and staff for serious adverse information that cannot be risk mitigated.  All conduct and/or discipline matters that arise within Police Scotland will be reviewed by the Vetting Unit under the PECSS Act to ensure any vetting sanctions are considered and implemented.

Police Scotland response:

We accept the importance of this recommendation. That is why we are supportive of the changes that will be enacted over the course of 2026-27 under the PECSS Act 2025 and are working hard with the Scottish Government on the new Conduct Regulations, which will see Gross Misconduct enquiries continuing for officers who have left the service. You can find out more about the new legislation online.

The Act covers misconduct and a range of other matters, including a new Duty of Candour for police officers and the organisation as a whole. The new Duty of Candour means officers have a duty to be open and truthful in their dealings, without favour to their own interests or the interests of the police service, subject, in particular, to the reasonable assertion of the privilege against self-incrimination. Constables will attend interviews and assist and participate in proceedings openly, promptly and professionally, in line with the expectations of a police constable. Whilst this was a general expectation for public servants previously, the Act now makes this a legislative requirement for police officers.

Police Scotland response:

We understand why you have made this recommendation, and we agree that learning and training delivery format is important to get right.

Learning and training across Police Scotland, as a large organisation, is complex. We must balance our resources with demand, and this is something we continually review to ensure colleagues are equipped in the right way and at the right time to deliver effective policing for our communities. We will consider this as part of the work outlined in response to recommendation 5.1 (7) and as part of our continual evolution of learning products.

Some of our learning products and training already include elements of lived experience, this has shown to have made a positive difference to participants’ increased knowledge and awareness, and we will continue to embed this in an ethical and trauma-informed way where it’s appropriate to do so.

Finally, we propose to explore this recommendation as part of our LGBTQI+ Reference Group to ensure we appropriately consider how to get this right.