Survey on Police Scotland Football Engagement Strategy

Police Scotland asked how you want us to engage with you about football policing to help us to write a new engagement strategy which will make sure football supporters and our communities are involved in how Police Scotland works at football.

We asked for details of any experience of football-related engagement you have already had with Police Scotland, including what you thought we did well and what we did not do well, along with suggestions for improvement.

We asked if you wanted to hear from us about football policing and suggested some outcomes that could be worked towards.  For those who do want to hear from us, we asked for opinions on some suggested outcomes, what topics you would like us to engage with you about and how you want us to do this. 

Your opinions and suggestions will make sure that our football engagement strategy will be directed at meeting the needs of football supporters and the wider public as well as encouraging positive relationships between police and public at football. 

We received 6,817 responses from a mix of football supporters (95%) and non-football supporters (5%) and 57% of those who replied live or work in an area where football takes place. 

77% of people said they had not previously engaged with Police Scotland about football. Of those who have previously engaged, it is clear that many of your experiences have not been positive and this is something we will try to improve on in future.  

41% of football supporters said that they want Police Scotland to engage with them about football policing in the future. The most popular methods are:

• for the engagement to be carried out via their club - 30%
• using Police Scotland local social media accounts - 20%
• passing on information from other sources such as traffic and travel information - 16%
• face-to-face meetings - 15%    

6,817 responses were received by the deadline. 

We have published our Football Engagement Strategy - this can be downloaded from the 'Related' section below.

We listened to everyone's feedback and incorporated this into the development of our strategy. If you have any questions, please contact us using the contact details on this page. 

We are grateful to all who participated and thank you for taking the time to provide such a wide range of responses.