15:33 Friday 02 September 2016
Police Scotland has released the results of a survey carried out to gather the views of their performance from the general public. The report, prepared by the Analysis and Performance Unit, covers the period April to June this year and overall 10,075 people across Scotland took part. A total of 848 people responded to the survey with regards to D Division, Tayside, and of them 274 were from Angus.
Breaking the numbers down further: Arbroath East & Lunan – 38; Arbroath West & Letham – 37; Brechin & Edzell – 16; Carnoustie & District – 33; Forfar & District – 39; Kirriemuir & Dean – 39; Monifieth & Sidlaw – 47; Montrose & District – 25; The Ferry – 30. Questions in the survey covered a lot of ground, including what information people currently access and would like in future to from Police Scotland; how they prefer to contact and be contacted by officers; and perception of Police Scotland at a local level. According to the survey 58.6 per cent (497) were not aware they had a Local Policing Team in their area, which explains the next results, 65.6 per cent (556) did not know how to contact the aforementioned team and 620 respondents wanted to see more information on Local Policing Plans.
Confidence levels for police to respond to highlighted concerns were mixed – Very High (6.3 per cent); High (19.8 per cent); Neither High nor Low (31.7 per cent); Low (26.5 per cent); Very low – (15.7 per cent). In terms of reporting a crime, overwhelmingly respondents still wanted a direct link – by telephone (580); directly to an officer (512); or at a police station (406). Email lagged behind at 239, social media 191 and the Police Scotland website 180. Main local priorities for policing were also collated in a weighted scale, top of the list was Anti-Social Behaviour and disorder at 13.2 per cent; followed by drug-dealing (11.6 per cent); house-breaking (9.5 per cent); violent crime (7.1 per cent) and child abuse (7.1 per cent). Bottom of the list was hate crime, with just 1.1 per cent of respondents seeing it as a local priority.
By comparison the top national policing priority for Tayside respondents was National Security at 14.7 per cent. Just over half of applicable respondents (53.8 per cent) said they were satisfied with the response of local Police to their concerns in the last year. Overall perception of local crime was thought to have remained the same according to 45.5 per cent (386), while 25.5 per cent (216) thought it had increased slightly and a further 11 per cent (93) thought it had increased a lot.
In comparison 9.2 per cent and 1.5 per cent thought it had decreased a little and a lot, respectively.
Respondents also said that seeing officers in their area made them feel safe (23.7 per cent), reassured (44.2 per cent); neutral (31.5 per cent); concerned (17.6 per cent) and tense (5.1 per cent).