Scotland’s new chief constable has pledged to “strike a balance” between nurturing a national force and providing effective local policing.
Phil Gormley, who recently took over from Sir Stephen House, was speaking after visiting staff at the new North-East division for the first time since he was sworn in last month.
The chief constable, who also met with the region’s civic leaders, said it was crucial that his officers policed “by consent” in the communities they serve across the region.
And the former deputy director of the National Crime Agency reserved special praise for the way the new division had responded to last month’s flooding emergency, just days after it was launched.
He said: “I’ve been really impressed and what has been really reassuring is it’s not just me who’s been impressed.
“One of the issues I’ve discussed with the chief executives and the leaders of the councils was the ability for police to respond in a way that wouldn’t have been possible under the previous arrangement.
“That’s one of the really important things for me: to make sure that we build the ability to respond nationally to national incidents like flooding or a serious event, be that terrorism or serious crime, in a way that protects people, whilst maintaining a local policing model that’s relative to the communities they serve.
“Because, clearly, the policing challenges in parts of rural Scotland are very different to Glasgow and Edinburgh and that’s the balance we need to strike.”
Critics have accused Police Scotland of becoming increasingly entrenched in the central belt at the expense of the north, most recently with the news that control rooms in Aberdeen and Inverness will be closed.
Responding to these concerns, the chief constable said the single force was an essential component in combating the kinds of new threats facing the public.
He added: “The previous arrangements were really good for the last century, but the world we’re moving into and the sorts of threats to the communities of Scotland – from cyber to child sexual exploitation, from serious and organised crime – demand that we have a different kind of policing response.
“In order to develop that, we need a national force and what I see here in Scotland is a really intelligent response to those sorts of threats.”