COMMUNITY COUNCILS’ GOOD POLICING PRACTICE HIGHLIGHTED
The regular monthly meetings of hundreds of community councils around Scotland were highlighted as examples of good practice in community policing by ASCC in evidence to the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament on 27 May 2008. The regular monthly meetings at which local residents report their concerns to local police officers and the police report back to the community provide one of the most important regular and systematic channels of communication between police and the communities they serve, according to ASCC Vice-President Norman Bonney, who gave verbal evidence for ASCC at the inquiry. In the future, he stressed, building stronger community councils can also assist in improving the quality of local community policing.
In their evidence Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary stated that it saw its role as ‘working with others to improve communities’. This, of course, is much the same role that community councils set themselves and emphasises the close relationship needed between the police and the communities that they serve.
Evidence to the ASCC from its members and from the ASCC Executive Committee indicates that community councils see police attendance at their meetings as widespread and positive although they also shared the concern expressed by some other witnesses about the regular turnover of local police officers and, in a few cases, their non-attendance at their meetings.
A video recording and written record of the proceedings can be found on the Justice Committee pages of the Scottish Parliament website for 27 May 208 at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ . Some major public libraries also hold the written record of Scottish Parliament proceedings.
