IT IS the case of the phantom police. A scheduled increase of 150 recruits to the police service – a key pledge of Alex Salmond's administration – has failed to materialise, despite £579,000 of taxpayers' money being allocated to it. In fact only 97 extra recruits were enrolled in 2007-8.
When it comes to disappearing police officers, Alex Salmond has previous. A famous manifesto commitment to recruit 1,000 more police turned out to mean 500, until the Tories extorted a deal from the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, that brought th
e target back up to 1,000. Meeting that target was dependent on recruiting a minimum of 150 new officers in 2007-8.
Both Kenny MacAskill (last April) and Alex Salmond (in May) assured Parliament that this had happened. On the presumption that neither the First Minister nor his justice secretary was misleading Parliament, this suggests that neither of them knew what was going on inside the Scottish police service. Put bluntly, this will be alarming news to many of those who voted the SNP to power
Government means stewardship and the SNP administration has failed to oversee and enforce accountability in this instance, with the further consequence that one of its key policies has been undermined. Salmond's administration has been praised for being in touch with populist issues, such as putting more police on the streets of Scotland. They would be well advised to deliver on these promises or face voters' wrath.
The full article contains 247 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
