Fawr mewn gweld cymysgolol y Ddylingaeth Aelodau Gallwg dwyedd yr ystafell yn 2017. Rydym yn digwydd i'r Lleon MacArthur a Oliver Mundell. Yn digwydd y stafell, nr 1, mae'n ffasilio wrth i'r stafell 5 yn private. Felly gydag ein ddwyllgor i'r stafell 5 yn ffasilio'r llawr didnol yn private. Agenda item number two is the justice sub-committee on policing and its feedback from the convener of the justice sub-committee on its meeting of 23 February 2017. Following the verbal report from Mary, there will be an opportunity for brief comments and questions if there are any specific areas of work that members wish the justice committee to consider in more detail, that can be discussed under the work problem agenda item at the end of today's meeting. I refer members to paper one and ask Mary to provide the feedback. Thank you, convener. The justice sub-committee on policing met on 23 February 2017 when it took evidence from Derek Penman, her magistrate of Constabulary in Scotland on the update report on police call handling. The sub-committee heard about the significant progress that has been made by Police Scotland since the first report on call handling was published by HMICS towards the end of 2015. Call handling is an issue that the sub-committee plans to return to at a later date, and I'm happy to take any questions. Do members have any questions for Mary? No questions. Therefore, we shall move on to the next item, which is agenda item number 3, limitation, childhood abuse, Scotland bill, witnesses' expenses. I ask members to delegate responsibility to me for arranging for the SPCB to pay under rule 12, 4, 3 any expenses of witnesses who provided evidence on the limitation of childhood abuse, Scotland bill. Agenda item number 4, our next item of business is our first session of evidence taking on the railway policing Scotland bill. I refer members to paper 2, which is a note by the clerk, and paper 3, which is a spice briefing paper. I also welcome today's witnesses, starting with Charlotte Vitty, interim chief executive of British Transport Police Authority, chief constable Paul Crowther, British Transport Police UK, assistant chief constable Bernard Hagans, operations and justice, Police Scotland and finally, but last but not least, John Folley, chief executive of Scottish Police Authority. I thank the panellists very much for their written submissions and go straight to questions. Douglas Ross, George Stevenson. First of all, I will start with Mr Folley and ask how important an issue the Scottish Police Authority believes the integration of BTP in Police Scotland is. Douglas Ross, it is a very important issue for us. We have been engaging and participating with colleagues since the outset. You saw engagement and participation. Can I ask why you did not respond to the call for evidence to this committee? We felt that it was more appropriate to give oral evidence to the committee. Is that standard practice for the SPA not to submit written evidence to read prior to the oral evidence? No, there is not a standard practice. That should be an exception. It is not an exception. You have done it in the past. We have done it in the past. The witness replied, please, in full. I am trying to get some replies. We view each matter separately. We took the view that, in this case, we were participating heavily in the implementation plan, which is governed by the programme board, of which the SPA is a participating member, and I personally sit on that programme board. That is how we govern this at the moment. Can I ask ACC Higgins? Do you believe that your submission was fair and impartial, your call to evidence? Yes. Do you think that, saying things like it is a sensible move and there will be no detrimental impact, it is suggesting that you already support the plans to integrate BTP with Police Scotland? That is my opinion. It is a sensible move because, if you read the full submission, Mr Ross, what I said is that Police Scotland looks after the entire transport network in Scotland, the sea ports, the airports and the road network, so it would seem sensible that we would also look after the rail network. You said on 1 November, however, when you came to this committee, that you would take no decision prior to Parliament making its view clear. Parliament has not made its view clear, but do you think that, in your submission, you have made it abundantly clear that Police Scotland supports this move without waiting for Parliament to take its decision? We would never be as presumptuous as to take a decision that is still to go through the parliamentary process. However, I was asked a question in the written submission about my view about whether or not Police Scotland could police the rail network and whether or not we could do it efficiently and effectively. That is what my response reflects. The SPA has suggested, not through written evidence, that any concerns over the integration of the BTP into Police Scotland will be offset by your experience in merging eight police forces. What are the top three issues that you took from that merger that will offset the concerns about the possible implications of merging the BTP in Police Scotland? I think that, Mr Ross, the first concern or the first issue would be in relation to people. I think that it is very important that we address the people matters. Clearly, in this situation, the BTP Federation has raised concerns over the clarity that is required in relation to pensions in terms of conditions. That is absolutely acceptable and we support that view. One of the work streams that is governed by the programme board is looking at just that issue. We are awaiting some clarification from the Scottish Public Pensions Authority, who are due to give an update at the meeting at the end of the month. In terms of the logistics, that is very important. We need to make sure that we get the logistics right. Perhaps not associated with the merger of the eight forces, we will need to sit down in this instance with the railways organisations and form a relationship in relation to that. My question was quite specific. I was asking you to give some reassurance to this committee, members of the Scottish Parliament, to people watching this, who have concerns about the merger of the BTP into Police Scotland. You have said that those concerns are valid concerns, but we have experience in merging eight police forces and two other bodies into one single police force. Therefore, I am asking for cast iron examples of how you will offset those concerns based on your experience in merging eight police forces and two other bodies into Police Scotland. You may believe that it has been a success, others believe that it has had its failures and is still having its failures and difficulties and therefore have concerns about further integration with another body. In relation to that, Mr Ross, I would respond that we are extremely confident that we will deliver that successfully. My view and the view of the Scottish Police Authority is that we have successfully delivered the merging of the eight forces. I can accept your point that other people may have a different view, but that is my view. We have experience of exercises such as this and I am absolutely confident that we will be able to work with partners including the Scottish Government, including the British Transport Police and the British Transport Police Authority and Transport Scotland to deliver. I want to clarify the question that you asked me, Mr Ross. Having referred to my written submission, the question that I was asking asked me to assess the impact that integration would have. The question implies that that would be us looking into the future, that this has taken place and how we would please Scotland cope with that. My answer reflected the intent of the question and there is not necessarily supporting a process that is still to go through the parliamentary process. That is interesting that your evidence has changed within five minutes. No, I do not think that it has. No, I do not accept that at all. I believe that your first answer was to say that your written submission… We will not go into that. Before I move on to your British Transport Police colleagues, what is both ACC Higgins and Mr Foley's response to DCC Hanstock, who said to the committee in Westminster that we are looking at this issue? We have not been able to identify any operational or economic benefits of merging BTP into Police Scotland. Do you agree with that comment? That is Mr Hanstock's view and I respect his opinion and I respect him as a professional police officer. However, the reality is that, within Police Scotland, Police Scotland is the second largest force in the UK with some 17,000 officers and assets that are simply not available to the British Transport Police D-Division. Those assets, while we will deploy them on request, will be routinely deployed should integration take place. That leads to a greater effectiveness, a greater efficiency and, in my view, a greater ability to deploy more resource to locations that currently do not receive them. That is my view but, as I say, I respect Mr Hanstock as a police officer and his professional opinion. Similarly to ACC Higgins, Mr Ross, I respect Mr Hanstock's view. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on operational policing matters. That, I believe, is a matter reserved for police officers. I am not a police officer. In relation to the economics involved, clearly we are still working through that aspect of it at the moment. I have seen nothing to date to suggest that it will be indeterminate but it is being worked through. I cannot comment on that aspect of it in full. Are there assets available to D-Division at the moment that would not be available to Police Scotland or currently are not available to Police Scotland? I think that Police Scotland has the full range of specialist capabilities available to them, as you would expect any police force to have. I think that the point that we have consistently made in our evidence is that it is the network-wide approach to policing, which is probably the most difficult element to replicate in terms of the proposals for merger. In terms of operational capabilities, Police Scotland would have everything that they would need to do so. It is more around that network-wide assessment of the need across border policing elements of it, which are, if you like, more of a tactical manifestation of the assets that are available. Is that why, at 2.3 of your evidence, you say that BTP's analysis reveals that offensive-involving cable theft take on average 33 per cent longer to manage and fatal incidents can take 50 per cent longer by the non-specialist policing? That data emanates from some research that we did in 2011 that looked at a range of incidents that were attended by geographic forces. So, not specifically Police Scotland, this is UK-wide. Incidents attended by non-BTP resources, typically, if it was a cable theft or an incident like that, are dealt with, it takes two thirds longer if dealt with by a geographic force in our experience. In the case of a fatality, it can take 50 per cent longer. In the case of a security-related incident, say, an unattended item or a threat, typically, this is UK-wide, a geographic force will err towards closure of the station rather than a risk-based approach. That is research not specifically around Police Scotland or in the Scottish context, it is UK-wide. If you can wind up this line of question, because I will bring others in. I will put in a supplementary. I will ask a final question to Mrs Vitty, if I can. We heard Mr Foley saying, although not able, I think that I am fair to say to give any concrete examples of how he would offset any of the concerns about merger, given the inexperience of merging eight police forces, but you state in your evidence quite clearly that this is not the same as merging eight police forces. This is quite different. Could you maybe expand on that for the committee? Yes, absolutely. I think that the chief alluded to the fact that we are a specialist police force. We have different capabilities from the Home Office forces, certainly towards our approach to the railway, obviously. That alone makes us unique outside of the Home Office forces. I believe that the way that we approach our strategy and how we integrate and operate with our rail companies is a really strong quality of ours, and we get a lot of value out of that very close relationship. The reassurances from Police Scotland would not necessarily mitigate all the concerns that you have, because you see those mergers, Police Scotland being established and BTP coming into Police Scotland, has been quite distinctly separate. I think that as part of the programme board, we are absolutely putting forward how we approach to do our business, because we think that that is really vital to make us a success for the Scottish Police Authority to understand how we approach it so that they can potentially mirror and align with our approach. Right, three supplementaries. If you could be brief, if it's going to be too long and I think you're wondering off, then I'll stop you. Fulton. Thank you, convener. It's just a very brief supplementary. Can I ask the panel members if it's their understanding, as it is mine, that all political parties agreed to this devolution through the Smith commission? As I say, I'll take a brief answer on that. If I can totally accept that the Smith commission recommendations taken forward in the Scotland Act bring about the devolution of the functions of British Transport Police within Scotland. There's absolutely no doubt about that and we totally support that. The means by which that's done have been the subject of this debate. British Transport Police will support whatever the decision of Parliament is to make that happen. Is that twice of legislative, administrative or a mixture of both? John Finnie. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel, and thanks for your evidence. It's just a quick supplementary, if I may, to Mr Crowder. You made reference, Mr Crowder, to the evidence about the time taken if it's not BTP that attend. I wonder if a twofold question, if I may please, if there's an opportunity with Merger for that better experience to be shared more widely and I understand particularly in relation to fatalities, BTP have an excellent record of dealing with that. There's an opportunity for that. As a representative of the Highlands and Islands, a vast track of land, the reality is that, and I think it would be inappropriate to discuss the resources you do have necessarily in that area, but the reality is that it's Mr Higgins' officers that are most, that are going to attend really in the vast overwhelming majority of instances. I'll take the first question first, if I may. The approach that we take to dealing with incidents is steeped in what I call the transport policing ethos. I believe that there's something substantially different about transport policing than geographic policing because it requires a comprehensive understanding of the impact of how an organisation fulfills its statutory functions. The approach that we have is embedded and steeped in the organisation over decades of transport policing. It is our single focus and therefore it's our expertise. That ethos can be shared and it's right to say that at the point of Merger that ethos would be within those people who transferred into Police Scotland. There's no doubt about that. The challenge, I think, is how you maintain that ethos and continue it beyond the first year, for example. If you look at some of the turnover figures within BTP and indeed some of the figures around the people who will be approaching retirement age around the proposed date of Merger, then there is an interesting and significant outflow of expertise and transport policing ethos and that needs to be replenished. It's replenished in an organisation that has that as its sole focus. I think that it will be a real challenge to replenish that ethos in an organisation whose focus is in many other areas of policing rather than transport policing. In the first instance, I've got no doubt that those people who transfer across would continue to adopt the same approach. It's how that's sustained in the future. Indeed, if, as is proposed, people are able to move into other functions within Police Scotland, that's beneficial to those individuals but perhaps also diminishes the transport policing ethos. I think that some of the challenges that we've been pointing out. On your second point, it's a fact that in some areas of Scotland, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, geographic forces often first at the incident, BTP adopts those cases and implements our approach to the way that we deal with things. My example around how geographic forces, if they deal with incidents in the past, have demonstrated that they can take longer, our strategy is get there as quickly as we can, implement our transport policing ethos and make sure that the policing of the transport network is done in the way that takes account of the impact on the running of the rail. That, of course, could involve a three or a four-hour drive for resources from some considerable distance away, whereas Police Scotland could have resources along the way. Was there some mention before bringing in my specialist fleet of high performance cards to make sure that the British transport police could get the officers who have the expertise to a particularly challenging incident? I was led to believe that, given the geographical business, there were high performance vehicles available to police transport because they had to get the people with expertise to cover a large distance. I think that it was taking on the point that it's not necessarily who's geographically nearest but ensuring that the right person attends with the right expertise. Absolutely. There is no doubt that, across the UK, geographic forces often attend in the first instance on behalf of BTP. Often we are influencing in the background and speaking to control rooms about what the approach should be there, but I don't for a minute dismiss the support that we get from other forces. I was on the point that John Finnie raised there. It was really to ask, how are British transport police officers currently deployed in Scotland? Where are their bases? I represent a rural area as well. I think that it would probably be one of those cases where it would be the geographical force that would potentially be the first on-scene. On the back of that, you talk about the ethos, how the ethos could be shared. It's also to ask Mr Higgins how you see other's concerns being maintained beyond the first initial transfer and just how you would see that operating into the future and how that ethos would continue into Police Scotland if that's what goes ahead. BTP resources are distributed at a number of locations across Scotland. The major bases are in Edinburgh and Glasgow. There are places in Dundee, Perth, Aberdeen and other locations. The concentration of those resources are in those major conurbations and cities. I don't think that we have at any stage said that much of the day-to-day policing of incidents that happen on the railways could not be dealt with by Police Scotland. I don't think that we have said that at all. I think that we make a particular point about the challenges that we identify, about those specific disruption-related incidents that come to bear and also particularly the cross-border elements, the bits with the services that cross between Scotland and England. It's a particular area of focus of mine in any transfer of responsibilities. Those arrangements and the policing powers that will exist for the officers, whichever way they're travelling across that border that will be created, are full and are protected such that people can effectively protect the public going forward. I hope I've answered your question in that respect. I understand that you have your resources focused on each of the city areas, but how does that look on a day-to-day basis further up north when you're outside the central belt? What sort of numbers are we looking at here? I haven't got those numbers to hand. I can supply them to them. It's more thinly spread in the outlying areas. On the back of that, would it not be the case that, if BTP and police were part of Police Scotland, if we were able to train more officers in that respect, it would be better in that first response to an incident if more officers of Police Scotland underwent specialist training in that regard, as well that we would have more officers on the ground, more readily available to deal with those situations as they occur? I think that you hit on one of the issues that, through the joint programme board, we're taking forward. There are some specialist training requirements for people who operate within the railway environment, specialist training around track safety, how to operate in what is a particularly dangerous environment, not insurmountable by any means, but that will require a great deal of thought about how those officers are trained and distributed across Police Scotland such that they can respond and be able to deal effectively with things in a very different environment, not insurmountable but one of the challenges that are highlighted. My sevens are a couple of points that I'll hopefully clarify. The first one is around ethos, and Mr Crowe is absolutely correct. There is a very strong ethos within British Transport policing, and it's one that we would want to retain. If you look at the history of Police Scotland, the ethos is pretty much the same across the whole force area, which is around keeping people safe and protecting Scotland's communities, which I'm sure is the same desire of British Transport Police in terms of the travelling Scottish community. One of the strengths of Police Scotland isn't necessarily our single ethos and our single keeping people safe, but it's the multi-cultures that we have within the organisation. The culture of policing in Mr Finney's area in the Highlands and Islands is completely different to that policing Glasgow City Centre or Edinburgh City Centre. The culture within my firearms unit will be different to the culture that is within our community safety officer, but the diversity of the culture within policing makes it a strength because it is reflective of the communities that we serve across what is a third of the UK landmass. We would be embracing what clearly is an excellent and good practice within the British Transport Police and, unashamedly, squeezing the good practice in terms of how fatalities in the line and other crimes in the line are dealt with. There is no doubt that, within 90 minutes, BTP can have the line opened up. There has got to be some absolute learning there. It's not about bringing British Transport Police in and throwing everything that they have done over the last couple of hundred years out with it. That would just be foolish. To give you some assurance around that, when Police Scotland merged the smallest force in the UK at the time was Dumfries and Galloway, it had the best process for dealing with licensing inquiries. My understanding is that it's not my area of responsibility. The processes that were in Dumfries and Galloway have now been rolled out across the whole nation. There is evidence that we look to see where the best practice is and we roll that out. In terms of your point about training, should the will of Parliament be that this legislation is passed, we will go on an upscale programme for existing officers. In addition to that, in every new recruit to Police Scotland, we will extend the initial probationary period from 11 weeks to probably 13 or 14 to incorporate the additional training that current British Transport Police students studying at the Police College Tulley Island receive once they have passed the Scottish training. Your point is correct at post-19. Every Police Scotland officer would be trained in policing the railways. I'm not making light of the task and how that would be. We would rely heavily on British Transport Police in supporting us and delivering that training and actually making sure that their training was fit for purpose. That would be our plan, which would ultimately mean that pretty much every officer in Scotland would have some knowledge of how to police the railways, with a great many having a specific and specialist knowledge, over and above those who would be deployed on a full-time basis within the transport environment. I don't want to rein in your parade, Mr Higgins. Having been down to Dumfries and Galloway as part of seeing how Police Scotland was operating, the overwhelming complaint was that local issues and the responses that they had already developed and were working very well were being overrode by what they saw as Strathclyde region was large. I have no doubt that the objective was, as you have just said, perhaps we are some distance away from ensuring that we have achieved that. That is fundamental to looking at how we can integrate BTP into Police Scotland. Stuart Stevenson, I have a close family member who is a constable at Police Scotland, and he is full of policemen north and south of the border. I want to go into the issue of specialisms with perhaps particularly the two chief constables. Perhaps Chief Constable Crowther, first, just simply to ask within British Transport Police, the GB network, have you specialisms within that service? Absolutely, yes. Within British Transport Police, we have the full range of specialisms that you would expect to find in any police force—counts, terrorism experts, intelligence, firearms, safeguarding—just about everything that you would expect to find. In an organisation that places across a transient population, 3.2 billion passenger journeys last year, which is an interesting statistic in terms of how you engage with people and how you deal with that influx and the threat that perhaps surrounds crowded places that go with those people. We have a range of specialisms, particularly in areas to deal with fatalities and suicide prevention that have been developed specifically for our environment. It is a natural part of any police service that it will be necessary to develop specialisms to protect those and to make sure that they deliver on their particular requirements that they have to undertake, intelligence being particularly in transport, I guess, one of the more important ones. Yes, and I imagine in the same way that Police Scotland develops its own structures and processes to deal with the different elements of communities within Scotland that Mr Higgins referred to, we have to develop specific structures within our organisation that allows us to integrate and engage with 43 police forces in England and Wales and Police Scotland. There are various local authorities in the structures that go with that, including the intelligent sharing networks that take account of travelling criminals and transient issues that go with the transient nature of the population. I would be interested to know roughly how many specialisms there might be currently in Police Scotland. Clearly, you have made reference to firearms. I identified for my own purposes one area that I think has benefited from the merchant, which is wildlife crime, where it used to be Tayside and now it is Scotland-wide, dogs, traffic, and these are only the ones that I can think of. Presumably, Police Scotland, like British Transport Police, is well used to having protected resources for particular specialism, developing, nurturing, training for these. Is that a correct characterisation of Police Scotland? I would say that, in UK terms, we are probably one of the most well-equipped forces in the UK in terms of not just the number of specialisms that we have but the number of people trained in those specialisms. We have specialisms that probably are not relevant to this debate, which other forces in the wider UK do not have. For example, we are one of the few remaining forces in the UK that have a mounted section in a diving marine unit. As I said, it is not relevant to this debate, but we invest heavily in specialisms to make sure that we can deal with any eventuality. The nearly 70 ferry services that operate in Scotland are the ones that, within your remit, are a very important part of Scotland's transport infrastructure already. We have the border policing command at the look after both the airports and the sea ports. Again, we have specialist officers deployed to all those locations. Does that permit the development of particular and specific ethoses in those specialist units? I would imagine that a firearms officer has a particular approach to the way he or she may do their job that is quite good. Is that particular to that unit and the same might be true for other units, as it might be if you become responsible for railway policing in the future? I guess that it goes back to my earlier answer. Across the whole policing network in Scotland, there are different cultures that reflect local circumstances but also the duties that the officers are carrying out. Firearms officers, for example, are very precise. There is no room for manoeuvre, no room for mistake. Policing is far more flexible, far more fluid and far more involved with the community. Two different cultures need to do their job, but the overarching ethos is all around public safety. It is about keeping the communities of Scotland safe. To me, one glove does not fit all, and you have to react to local circumstances in the operating environment. I am very much respectful of the operating environment in which the British transport police officers currently operate, and we would not want to lose that. I will pick one area, such as intelligence, which is an important part, because transport in general has been a subject of terrorist attack in Scotland as elsewhere and public order at the other end of the difficult days. Where intelligence is concerned, if the railway is brought in, that presumably reduces the number of communications that the central intelligence services have to have and can bring perhaps a wider view that may benefit Scotland. It is up to Mr Foley and his team and yourself to deliver on that, but there is that opportunity there that can be delivered. Police Scotland, as I said with the Metropolitan Police, is the largest force in the UK. As such, there is a massive responsibility to support the UK counter-terrorist network, which we are a key and pivotal player in. For example, our crime campus at Garkosh is the state of the art, where we have a number of partner agencies, both from law enforcement and wider government agencies. We have direct linkage into real-time intelligence with the agencies all across the country and down in London. Again, we feed back into that as well. For example, our counter-terrorist police operations room, where a counter-terrorist operation could run from any part of the UK, is one of a limited number of such facilities in the whole of the UK. You have the scale to do those big things, but also protecting small things. For example, how big is the wildlife crime unit? We have an assistant chief constable who has portfolio responsibility for it and is dependent on where you are in the country. For example, in Mr Finney's area, we have a full-time officer, but throughout our whole 13 local policing divisions, we have at least one single point of contact officer who has that subject matter expertise. In relation to transport to police being integrated into the operation, we have got an example of what is a really very small unit that nonetheless is able to operate within that very large unit that is Police Scotland and has accessed all the resources. We have in that, without talking too much about the detail of that, an example of how things can be done. We have a number of small units that operate nationally across the entire force. Public protection officers are domestic abuse teams, small in number but high in impact, and they are located in every geographical area in the force. Stuart Steeves mentioned terrorism and the Garchosian it is state of the art. Does the liaison work well just now under the current arrangement with British Transport Police? Yes, as the answer. We have run a number of operations over the years with British Transport Police, whether it be crime related, whether it be football related, and there has never been any problem with that. What tends to happen is that British Transport will put an officer into our event room or our control room and they will be the single point of contact. There is that real-time live interaction and it has never been an operational challenge at all and it has worked very well. The question is then why mess with that, why change the arrangement when it is operating and it is such an important area UK wide? Again, that is a matter for Parliament to determine. What we are saying is that, should Parliament determine that this is to happen, those are the arrangements going forward, which would be currently at our intelligence cells in Garchos. We have access to real-time live information, which then has to be relayed out of Garchos to British Transport Police or other partners who are not represented within the Garchos crime campus. In the future, if BTP Scotland was part of a wider police Scotland, there would be no need for that really. The information would be put directly to the point where it is required. I think that this is a really interesting element of the discussion, if I may. There is a risk that we fall into a little bit of a trap of looking at this from a geographic policing perspective, in that police Scotland has got first-class counter-terrorism capabilities and worked really closely with us and other forces, security services, etc. What we are talking about is the challenge of assessing the terrorist threat across the network, trains that start in Scotland and finish in England or vice versa, and how decisions are made about threat and risk in relation to matters that could be in one or other of the jurisdictions but have a significant impact depending on what decision is made elsewhere. One of the significant challenges that we will be working closely with Police Scotland on is to be really clear about decision making. If there is a bomb threat or a risk to a line of routes, who is the decision maker in terms of that process, such that there can be no doubts about where that decision is being made and that there is a proper assessment of the implications of that decision along the route of those particular trains? That is the nub of the issue from my perspective. It is about that network-wide perspective rather than the very specific and very skillful set of capabilities within Police Scotland. Mr Crowder, you will be responsible at the moment for trains that run through several police jurisdictions. Be wrong to suggest that there are not any set of circumstances that have not already been encountered about areas of responsibility? At the moment, we are responsible for the trains and the rail network that runs across England, Wales and Scotland. The issues that I am referring to do not tend to occur because we make the decisions. If there is a bomb threat in relation to the rail network, we make the decisions, not the geographic force. You will make that decision in conjunction with the geographic force, because there will be implications for that threat outwith the rail network. Indeed. We take into account that we would liaise particularly closely with the Metropolitan Police, counter-terrorism command and security services and the geographic force in terms of what might underpin the particular threat or any background information. Ultimately, that decision is made by us. My concern is that I understand people's different perspectives on that, but we are wrong to give any suggestion that there might be a grey area on such an important matter as terrorism. There are issues about demarcations that must exist already. You talk about the different relationship there, the geographic force yourselves and UK security services. I think that what I am highlighting is that the proposals add an additional layer of complexity, which are not insurmountable, but become a really important element of the planning for such a move as proposed, because it will be different to the current structures. There is no breaking decision making currently, so we need to make sure that the added complexity does not add risk to it. It is not insurmountable, but I highlight it as one of the key areas that we must focus on. There is equally an argument that could be made if you have three players in the decision making process, so you have a UK strategic, you have yourselves, which I appreciate at the moment as UK, and you have the geographic force. Moving from three to two takes out a layer, and that would be beneficial. I am not quite with you. If you have two people making decisions of that importance, surely that is better than necessarily three people or three command structures to be satisfied. I am not sure whether three comes in. You said that there is liaison at a UK strategic level with the lack of security services. Yes, so what we are talking about, bomb threats that come in, typically or other threats, we would liaise with other agencies that might have intelligence or information that is relevant to the decision. That would be a natural course that any police force would do. The decision is made by British Transport Police in that regard. What I am saying is that we need to ensure and work really closely to be clear about how that decision making will be made in the future. It is not insurmountable, but it is a very important element that we need to work really closely with Police Scotland to develop. I think that my question is probably for Charlotte Vitie and Paul Crowther. I would like to ask you about the governance arrangements immediately following the devolution of railway policing. Do you think that that will go seamlessly? Has everything been planned for that? The public will be aware of any difference. The joint programme boards are part of one of the strategic boards, the governance. We have two years to make sure that we are working together supporting the Police Scottish Police Authority on how we approach our governance, in terms of how we work with the travelling public, the railway staff and the rail industry. We have come to that board very actively. We are making sure that we are highlighting all the risks to make sure that this is its success, rather than it being something that they find out later on. We are trying to approach it in a very open and transparent way. There has certainly been invited to our authority boards to look at how we do our governance. I think that the governance and the financial issues are primarily the focus of the authority, but I agree with everything that Charlotte has said. The reason that I am asking is that, obviously, what you are saying is vitally important, but from the public's perception, they want to know that they are going to be safe on trains and that there is nothing changed because of a difference in arrangements. Are you quite confident that that will happen and that the public will be reassured that everything is going to be fine? We spend an awful lot of time working on our strategy and doing lots of consultation. I know that the Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority have released their 10-year strategy, and I think that it is really important that we start to look at how we can align our strategy with their moving forwards to ensure that there is seamless. That is a priority for you? It is a priority for us, obviously, because it is leading up to devolution. However, the responsibility post one second past the devolution date will absolutely lie with the Scottish Police Authority, which we will support. Maybe I could widen it to the Scottish Police Authority. Indeed, there is my guy. We have recently published our policing 2026 strategy, as you will be aware. We have introduced a policing committee within the authority, which is welcome. It is something that I have been promoting for a number of years. The transport police will form part of the governance of that policing committee that should have passed through Parliament. We have a chair on the policing committee, who is George Graham, who is a former chief constable and former Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. It is well chaired by someone who knows policing, and I think that that is a positive. I believe that the public can take assurance from the proposals that we have in place to govern. Can you clarify whether discussions with rail operators have begun? Have they raised any concerns about the transitional period or how it is all going to operate? If I could perhaps come in there, we have a meeting with rail operators tomorrow involving the transport secretary. That is the first time that I personally will have met the railways authorities, and hopefully one of the outcomes of that meeting will be a plan to move forward to get me and others into a room with the railway people moving forward to discuss the matters of importance. At the BTP, I am sure that I will have met and do meet on an ongoing basis with the railway people, but I shall let go. I sit on the part of the rail delivery group, Police and Security Board, and we report on them regularly.  What is vital for us is that they understand how we support in a process up until devolution, and then really about what we are safeguarding and making sure that we support post devolution with the remaining England and Wales functions. I want you to start by asking a very brief follow-on question to the question that John Finnie asked. I wonder if Mr Higgins and Mr Crowther could give me an example of currently what collaboration exists between BTP and Police Scotland. How would you speak to each other and collaborate if there was an incident online currently? There are two types of collaboration, ma'am. The first one is a pre-planned event. In the last year, there have been 11 football matches where travelling supporters from either England or Scotland have made the journey. We have deployed Police Scotland officers down to England in support of the host force. Equally so, English officers have come up here, and the rail network has been critical to that. We have the planning arrangements for, for example, the old farm game this Sunday, which, again, will see fans from both sets of supporters using the rail network. In our event room on Sunday, there will be an officer from British Transport Police providing that single point of contact, right in the heart of the event control, making sure that the joint operation between us works seamlessly. That is a pre-planned event. A spontaneous event tends to be contact from the control centre, either our own control centre to Birmingham or vice versa, to say that we have either come across an incident and asked for BTP officers to attend and assist, or exactly the traverse British Transport Police contacted us through their command centre to ask us to go and assist until BTP officers either get there or alternatively to assist actual BTP officers. It is fairly straightforward, I would say. I support everything that Mr Higgins has said. What will be different going forward is that those officers that are bringing or taking football supporters, for example, to or from Scotland would be a mixture of British Transport Police officers, England and Wales, and what would then be Police Scotland. One of my key aims is to understand the legislative framework that will provide the powers to those officers, whichever way they are going, to make sure that they are fully fledged constables, able to carry out their duties wherever they might be on that journey. There are existing legislative proposals arrangements, for example, that exist throughout the UK for constable to act to arrest in any part of the UK if that is the case. I think that there are some particular issues that we need to consider in this regard in that officers on board trains escorting supporters, if we use that example, will find themselves between England and Scotland, sometimes not knowing precisely where they are, where they are from the last station in England travelling to Scotland or vice versa. I am keen to ensure that there is no ambiguity about what powers people have, what legislation they are acting under, which laws they are enforcing during that process. I think that it goes beyond the existing arrangements for cross-border jurisdictions that are currently in place. I think that a really good example is the way that we police the channel tunnel, and there are specific protocols in place that make it very clear at that point of time where an officer does not know whether they are in England or France, who can do what and what jurisdiction they are in. I am keen to ensure that the legislative arrangements that are put in place for this cross-border policing are as clear as they are for when we are policing into France. Have you been given an indication that, if the integration goes ahead, the BTP will have the opportunity to be fully involved in that process? I am assured that the jurisdiction arrangements can be dealt with within section 104 or section 90 order. I am sure that I will be involved in that, and I will be scrutinising carefully to make sure that we learn the lessons of other jurisdictions where we police across borders. Mr Higgins, can you confirm that that will be the case? Certainly, as Mr Crowther said, there are existing legislative arrangements that, for example, Police Scotland deployed several hundred officers in support of the G20 conference in Cardiff and the G8 conference over in Northern Ireland, which allowed them to operate as officers of the law in that jurisdiction. There is current legislation. Again, Mr Crowther is quite correct. When an officer is on a train, he might not know particularly what part of the country they are in, so it is vitally important that the cross-border legislation is all-encompassing. Again, we are content that we are fully engaged and fully aware of those discussions. A couple more, but if that is all right, I will make one brief and one longer. Has consideration of the integration being given when the policing 2026 strategy was drawn up? Yes, that is the short answer, but I could expand it slightly. The 2026 strategy is a consultation document just now. It has not been finalised. I had a chat with Malcolm Graham, who is the Police Scotland lead on it. My view is that it would be presumptuous of us to put in a 10-year strategy something around the integration of British transport police before Parliament had the chance to debate it. I thought that it would be disrespectful of the Parliament process in that regard. However, be assured, should it be the will of Parliament that this happens, then the integration of the BTP will form a critical part of our sustainable policing model moving forward. Currently, British transport police have different terms and conditions from Police Scotland. Will the staff be guaranteed the BTP staff that transfer over? Will they be given a guarantee that they will keep their existing terms and conditions? I am going to unashamedly pass us over to the Police Authority to answer. However, I have been assured by senior members of the Scottish Government that that is the desire. They are working furiously to ensure that the current conditions and service of all staff in British transport police will be honoured on transfer, but perhaps Mr Foley could give you a more detailed answer. As Mr Higgins said, the intention is, so far as I am aware of the Government, to ensure that there is no detriment to officers and staff, and we have mentioned this in this committee before. Where we are at the moment, I mentioned at the beginning, we are looking at the pension situation, so the Scottish Public Pensions Authority to present in relation to options towards the end of this month. We have the next programme board meeting, and clearly that forms part of terms and conditions, but overall we will be looking at that aspect, but I believe that that is the intention as we move forward. I will come back to Mr Higgins. In a previous answer, you said that people currently train in Italy Island for 11 weeks or so, and that if BTPs are integrated in Police Scotland, the training that people will be given will be extended to 13 or 14 weeks to include training on transport issues. After 2019, will you have one force with one set of terms and conditions? Currently, within Police Scotland, there are a number of officers that retain legacy terms and conditions. For example, I am one of a dying breed of officer that retains a housing allowance, and the officer that joined on or after 1994, I think it was, no longer received a housing allowance, however I joined in 88, so that is a grandfather right that will stay with me until I retire. I am entirely comfortable that people transferring and retain their rights is no different to current legacy arrangements within Police Scotland. How will you deal with that? It has been reported that there are some officers with BTPs that do not want to transfer to Police Scotland. Have you done any work to try to establish the number and how you will deal with that? No. At my level and the chief's level, it is right for us to be having these discussions until Parliament decides whether the legislation is going to be enacted or not, then I thought that it would be inappropriate to engage with the staff on the ground. However, should Parliament decide that that is to be enacted, that will be very much one of our first key tasks, to go in and sit down and speak to the staff and listen to the concerns and give them reassurance. In many ways, similar to the legacy arrangements when Police Scotland came together, there was nervousness across the country that people working in Inverness were suddenly going to get transferred to Glasgow, and that simply has not materialised. What we have said to people within Police Scotland is that, if your will is that you join Northern Constabulary and your will is that you want to stay within that geographical area for the remainder of your service, then we will respect that. However, it is all about early communication at the right time, and my assessment being respectful to British Transport Police and the parliamentary processes now is not the right time for Police Scotland officers to go and engage with current BTP officers. Mr Groddor, do you want to come in? Yes, thank you. Up with my concern that we ensure that the public continues to be protected as best we can, is my concern about the way that my staff are treated in any transfer. During what has been two years or more of quite discombobulating times for them, if I can use that term, they have excelled and they have shown their professionalism, and performance has increased at a time when you might expect that people were somewhat dismayed by the uncertainty. There is a particular difference in this transfer than there would be in any other, as you are probably aware. The constables of British Transport Police are employees. They are constables and employees rather than crown servants. That presents a particularly interesting conundrum in terms of how they are transferred into Police Scotland. There are a range of options that could flow from that. My understanding is that the intent is to transfer them in their current status, so as employees of the Scottish Police Authority is one of the favourite options. People understand that. I am keen that whatever happens thereafter in terms of synchronising terms and conditions that people have treated fairly and with the respect that they deserve. I am encouraged by the Scottish Government's commitment to the triple lock approach around terms and conditions and pensions. I think that there are some particularly interesting twists and turns in how this transfer can take place. From the staff's perspective, the earlier that those can be shared with them, the quicker we will be able to work with individuals to understand what that means to them in their individual circumstances. Can we just be quite clear that it is unlikely that the transfer of undertakings legislation will apply? That is one of the reasons that is such an issue. That is my understanding, yes. Why would not the transfer of undertaking? I am not sure that I understand myself why it does not apply. The legal advice that I have seen is that it does not, but that the Cabinet Office guidance, which is effectively used the same principles as 2P, would apply. Mr Foley, can you shed any light on why? Yes, the principles would be the same. That is something that we have all signed up to. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the officers and staff are treated fairly as if they were transferring under the 2P regulations. No one can give me a direct answer of why 2P does not apply? No, but I can undertake, convener, to give you a written response to that subsequent to the meeting. That would be very helpful. Thank you. Fought in the supplementary. We are back to an earlier point in Mary Fee's line of questioning, so I apologise for that. We heard a good example earlier from Mr Croweller regarding the border arrangements between England and France. I was really quite heartened to hear that that is not regarded as an issue and regarded as a positive factor. That is something that I would like to see going forward from all stakeholders involved when the devolution occurs. From Mr Higgins' point of view, is the French England arrangement something that Police Scotland will be looking at? Absolutely. Again, it would be foolish not to look at best practice elsewhere. We are on the border with England, and if you look at our divisions in Gide Division in particular and Dumfries and Galloway, we have very strong working relationships currently with the lights of Cumbria, Constabulary and Northumbria. It is not unusual for one of those forces to be first responders to provide assistance to Police Scotland. Recently, we had a robbery at a bank, and it was a Cumbria police dog van that came to assist in tracking for the suspect. There are arrangements already in place for cross-border policing, but to answer your question, yes, the French channel tunnel interest is great. Thank you, convener. Touching on some of the earlier themes, which were encouraged by Mr Foley's statements earlier about the appropriate implementation consideration, consideration is already taking place. I know that we had the discussion about pensions at the previous evidence context, so it is good to hear that things are moving forward on that. Getting back to the ethos and the specialist nature of the skills that are required in the area of policing, I just wanted to touch on the issue of abstraction that was raised at certain points. Obviously, the economies of scale and the operational capability advantage that the merger into Police Scotland will bring. I just wanted some reassurance and comment on the issue of whether officers will be abstracted from other parts of the operational requirement of Police Scotland and whether any consideration is being given to that in terms of the upskilling that you talked about earlier. Yes, we want to build the capacity and maintain the current specialist knowledge that is there, but consideration needs to be given to make sure that resources are allocated appropriately. Certainly, Mr McPherson, I will address that directly. First, I have gone on record publicly to say that any British transport officer migrates into Police Scotland, then their legacy right to Police the Railways will be honoured. If they choose to remain within the railway environment for the remainder of their career, then that will be respected. We will sign service level agreements with the rail operators, which will require us to provide exactly that, the level of resource that we have agreed with the rail providers. I said in my written response that the chief constable, in times of crisis, reserves the right to deploy officers as he sees fit. The reality is that, for example, if it was a terrorist attack, the resources at the rail network are going to be strengthened and not diluted, because the rail network is a key national infrastructure. If we had a major incident that was a security-based, then rather than remove officers from the transport network, we are going to increase it. Similarly, with the upskilling of officers, that will allow us to deploy into the rail environments where currently, as the chief constable has mentioned, there are areas of Scotland where that does not currently exist. As part of the routine duties that those officers would patrol, it gives them the added advantage of being able to operate in that environment. The crux of your matter is that I will give an assurance that any British Transport Police officer that transfers into Police Scotland and wishes to remain with a railway network will be honoured and respected. Thank you, and that assurance is hugely welcome, as is the determination to increase the capacity. I think that that was good to hear that piece earlier. Can I specifically about delays in the various forms? I notice that that comes strongly through the BTP and the BTP submissions. They have particular expectations at looking at the various situations that may cause delays. If I took, for example, abandoned luggage and hoax calls, where it is estimated that the cost associated with the temporary closing of a station is in the region of £2 million, and the impact, obviously, on the operators and their financing. Can you talk in some more length about that? I guess that that goes to the heart of many of the issues that we have talked about today. It is about network-wide decision making. It is about appreciation of the impact of decisions, not just at the location but elsewhere, and it goes to the heart of the transport policing ethos and understanding it. As you will imagine, there are thousands of unattended items left on the railway every year. Each one of those is a potential suspect bag and a closure. We have network-wide, well-rehearsed approaches to how we deal with that, and indeed how we deal with bomb threats, which might seem like something from the past, so prevalent during the distant Irish Republican campaigns in the 80s and 90s, but it is not unusual for us perhaps to have to assess 20, 25 or 30 bomb threats in a month across the network. That requires a thought process based on risk management so that we react appropriately to those incidents that need to be reacted to, and we also react proportionately to what are in effect benign incidents, and you can sort out the real incidents from the ones that might otherwise distract. I guess that goes to the heart of the approach, is how you take those decisions. Equally in terms of the way that we deal with fatalities, if I look back in our past, as you know, I've been in transport policing for 37 years, in our past we didn't have necessarily as finely tuned approaches as there is now. I'm going back a long time now, but national policing protocols in the case of death guide policing towards, assume it's a murder and work downwards, when actually with a very thoughtful, evidence-based approach, you can allow people to make judgments around what the likely cause of a fatality is, and therefore determine the response accordingly. That takes lots of training, that takes lots of leadership and support, and I guess goes to the heart of what we've identified during all of our evidence. We don't doubt Police Scotland's professionalism, but it's how you maintain that, and how you deliver that, taking into account the net-wide implications. In particular, suicide seems to be something that has been finely tuned over the years, and a programme of suicide prevention is now very much at the heart of PTP. Could you talk to that in some... We have a specialism that we've developed around safeguarding of people who might harm themselves. I'm the national police lead for National Police Chiefs Council for suicide prevention, and we've developed a range of initiatives that identify those at risk, implement measures to divert them away from it, but also to deal with the consequences in terms of not just the very tragic and sad death of that individual and reporting to the coroner, but also the consequential impacts on the network. Last year, either my officers, or rarely employees, or sometimes members of the public, made 1,279 lifesaving interventions. A lifesaving intervention is literally someone who is restrained from jumping or is removed from the tracks in close proximity to death. 1,279 of those are delivered by a very clear focus on safeguarding of people who are drawn to the railway for some very sad and tragic reasons. That's one of the specialisms that we've developed within the British Transport Police. Just before we move on to a supplemention that will Police Scotland integrate the national rail suicide prevention programme? Absolutely. As Mr Crowther said, you can't argue with the number of suicide interventions. Within Police Scotland, we have a large number of negotiators. Our negotiator cadre is deployed right across the entire Police Scotland estate, and one of the key training elements that they have is in the go to suicide intervention. Anywhere where we can grab best practice and implement it, because ultimately it's about saving lives, we'd absolutely do that. I'm supplementary, Rona, then Mary. Yes, just a brief question. Is there specialist counselling available for British Transport Police at the moment, and will that continue? Is it different from the counselling that I assume police officers get? Thank you. It's a really important element of our wellbeing support to our officers. We ask them to do some very, very difficult things. Some of my officers individually deal with 12 or 15 railway fatalities each per year, each of which are pretty traumatic, as you might understand. But there are a range of other people who are also involved in this. In terms of dealing professionally with the incident and supporting the brief families and reporting to the coroner, is to make the assessment of how we can try to keep the railway running while we're doing that. For example, my control room staff will speak directly to the driver of the train to get the first account of what's happened. You can imagine that's often quite a traumatic first account, so that's another group of individuals that we need to take care of. There are CCTV operators who, part of our assessment process, are tasked with viewing the CCTV, which is a particularly difficult task, and, of course, they are affected by it. We have a system which we call Trim, which is a trauma risk intervention programme, something like that, it's drawn from the military, and it's a scheme by which we have officers, body officers trained across the force who make an initial intervention with people who've been involved in such incidents, and from that we can make referrals on to professional services as required. We currently make the first intervention to around 300 members of staff a month, such as the range and the impact of this sort of activity. Clearly we do that in Scotland as well. That will clearly be one of the areas of operational practice that we'll be sharing with colleagues, because it's a vital part of supporting the staff that do a really difficult job on a data basis. So, just to clarify, it will continue after the devolution of railway policing. We'll certainly continue within BTP, and we'll share our experiences with Police Scotland. I'm pretty certain that they would want to do something similar. Currently, ma'am, in Police Scotland, similar to Mr Crowther, we have Trim process, and we also have our Employee Assisted programme. Policing's not a very pleasant occupation. There's no doubt about that. We have road fatalities. We have sudden deaths of infant children. It's a cancer that their days spent in darkened room viewing the most horrific offence of actions against children. So we have to have something in place to support them psychologically as well as emotionally. Currently, Police Scotland, like BTP, has a very robust Employee Assistance programme and a Trim process. Okay, thank you. Thank you, convener. I just ask, perhaps Mr Crowther and Ms Witty would be the best people to answer the question. Was any model other than complete integration put forward for consideration? And is there another model that you think would work, other than complete integration? So we've made a number of submissions to the Scottish Government during the process of the discussions around this. As I said at the beginning, we completely get, understand and support the principle of devolution. There are different means of achieving that. I think we've given some professional advice about what those options might be. But we'll work with whatever option is taken forward, as you'd expect us to, to deliver that in the interests of the public. Perhaps I'll stop there. Okay, thank you. I just add that, throughout this process, leading up to devolution data, it's really vital that we are able to articulate and communicate with the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland the risks, because it is a very complex process, and that shouldn't be seen as anything more than making sure that this is excess, because we have to align our operations from that D-day. So I think that it's really key that we continue to do that. Thank you. That's one thing for being in Douglas. Clearly, the railway operators are people that you have to work in partnership with. Delays, as I've already mentioned, and handling them to minimise them without compromising stationery is paramount. Can I ask Mr Higgins, if there's an accident in the motorway of some kind, is there any cognisance taken on the effect of the delay and how to handle it as effectively as possible to ensure that, when the traffic is still back, the impact economically is huge apart from the devastation of the accident itself? That's something that's, if you like, in the DNA of British transport precinct in mitigating any delays, because otherwise the whole railway system is going to grind to a halt. Can you comment on that aspect? Yes, convener, acutely aware, the latest figure I held was told is that if a major road, the M8, M77, M90 is shut, then it costs the Scottish economy potentially a quarter of a million pounds every 30 minutes. So my road policing officers deploy on the basis that they need to get the road open as soon as they possibly can. But if you've got a fatality involving six or seven different people over three cars with two people still trapped in having to cut them out and rescue them, then it's not quite as straightforward as you would like it to be. Often the delay in reopening the road isn't actually the investigation, it's actually clearing the road and repairing, for example, the crash barrier because it's not safe to be driven on until the damage that's been caused to the infrastructure of the road is repaired. All those factors combined to make a fatal road accident invariably the road will be closed longer than it would if it occurred on the railway line. But the short answer is yes, we are acutely aware of the economic impact, but we also have a duty to ensure that the cause of the accident, to give the family of the disease some assurance that it's been properly investigated and reported to the Procurator Fiscal. Douglas? First of all, I'll ask ACC Higgins and Mr Foley. You've made it very clear during this morning's session that you are only looking ahead based on Parliament's decision, whatever that is, and you've looked at how you would mitigate some of the concerns that have been highlighted. But since you're taking an impartial view on this, have you identified any risks, any potential pitfalls in merging BTP into Police Scotland? Any at all? Yes, of course. Mr Crowther alluded to it as well. Sorry, I was asking for Police Scotland.  What I was going to say is that Mr Crowther has alluded to the fact that there's a massive turnover of staff in British Transport Police and there is a risk that on transfer that skill base will be diluted. It's my job to make sure that that doesn't happen. There is a risk that the terms and conditions might be diluted. But again, I think that we've made it clear that we are hoping that the Scottish Government will address that. And there is a risk in terms of the financial side to ensure that Police Scotland is properly compensated for taking on this additional responsibility. So those are all risks that we recognise, but a lot of it will be dependent on what the legislation says in what happens post the debate in Parliament. If I could respond as well, Mr Ross, in relation to the potential of a financial risk, I have officers going down to work closely with BTPA officers on Friday to look over the cost allocation model. So we won't have greater transparency after that. But clearly there is a risk there, but we don't believe that it's significant. But we will have to look into it further. And those are all risks you've fed into the Scottish Government as well. You're saying that you agree with those risks and you've fed that into the Scottish Government. There is a programme board which I referred to earlier, Mr Ross, and yes, these risks are discussed in detail on that board. And actions are taken to mitigate against risk, whether that be to, for example, SPA or Police Scotland or BTP or BTPA. We will work together and collectively, not only with the Scottish Government but with the Westminster Government as well. So maybe to stick with Mr Foley and a potential risk, an independent evaluation of Police Scotland and Police and Fire Reform stated that Police Scotland representative saw themselves in a consolidating and integrating phase and that the real transformation of the service delivery is yet to come. It then went on to say that those associated with transformation are seen as being at least as significant as those already encountered in integrating the services. Given that analysis which has been done, given the uncertainties that still remain, is now the right time to be bringing on board another element to Police Scotland? Is now the correct time for BTP to be integrated with Police Scotland? As we discussed earlier, we're talking about a period that is two years away from integration and my belief is that we can achieve that if that is the task that Parliament sets us within that timeframe. From an operational point of view again, Mr Ross, it would be inappropriate for me to comment. I'm not a police officer so if you don't mind, part of the question could be answered by Mr Higgins or Mr Crowther. I agree with Mr Foley in this. Two years, frankly, is a luxury just in what we've had to do previously in terms of bringing together Police Scotland. So I'm confident that the transition would occur and it would occur in collaboration in partnership with British Transport Police. Can I ask Mr Higgins? You say in your evidence that following integration in the short to medium term it is the intention of Police Scotland to retain the current specialist skills and knowledge built up by BTP officers. What's the long term intention? Mr Ross, that's what I talked about is that training for policing in the railway network will form part of the initial training for all officers that join Police Scotland. Rather than having a small number of officers with specialist skills, we will have 17,000 officers with the ability to operate within the railway environment and within that a smaller group of officers with the specialist skills in terms of rail investigation, rail death etc etc. So based on that answer and that written submission that I've just read out, are you saying in the long term there will not be the current specialist skills and knowledge available to Police Scotland that's currently available from the British Transport Police? I haven't said that at all. I have no idea why you're even asking me that question. I'll explain then because you make it quite clear in here that this is the short to medium term and that you will retain the current specialist skills and knowledge built up by BTP officers. Yet you go on to say in the long term it will be an additional training of all officers for two to three weeks during their course at Tulley Island. Are you honestly saying that officers coming into Police Scotland with an additional two to three weeks training will have the same expertise and specialist skills and knowledge built up by current BTP officers? What I'm saying, Mr Ross, quite clearly is that I'm mainstreaming the training that BTP officers in Scotland currently receive and I'm quite sure that within the BTP specialism we will have investigative officers who are specifically trained like, for example, my crash investigators who go to fatal road accidents to deal with fatalities on the rail network as well as having the general two to three weeks training which will allow a greater number of officers to operate on the rail network we will invest to ensure that the current level of skill available to investigate such things as fatal road or fatal rail accidents will continue. And what level of investment will that be? Well, we would need to look to see what the demand is and make sure that we have a, you know, for example I have something like 600 road police officers that police on the rail network not every one of those 600 police officers 600 road policing officers is a crash investigator but we have enough crash investigators to investigate the number of fatal road accidents in Scotland roads so similarly we will have a number of officers that are able to work in the rail network the way my road policing officers work in the road network and within that team we will have a number of bespoke officers that can take on the specialist investigations up to the crash investigators that do the fatal road accidents currently Chief Constable Crowther Can I ask you about the Police Scotland 2026 consultation document and I'm just using this as an example not within the document but following the document's release it was established that up to 400 police officers in Scotland could be lost and some of that work and some of their replacement will be from people who don't want to join Police Scotland. They have specialisms of IT etc but they don't want to be a Police Scotland officer Do you currently and I presume you do the majority of your officers don't want to be police officers they want to have a specialism within the transport police and do you think that there is a danger that people who have that interest who want to join a transport police force will not be encouraged to join a Police Scotland that's only giving them a couple of extra weeks training as part of a general training programme to become Police Constables because I see sheaking his head once you've spoken I'm not sure I'm qualified to speak about what the future might hold in terms of the planet Police Scotland have I think Mr Higgins has and will answer that What I know about the current people in BTP is that they joined BTP they could have joined a geographic force and they didn't and they're very proud to be transport police officers if they transfer they will continue to be proud transport police officers and deliver a great service I guess one of the interesting challenges for me and indeed to share with Police Scotland is in the transitionary period so what we don't yet know is what the impact might be of people joining in the intervening period with the prospect of transfer into Police Scotland they may not be a problem or it may be a disincentive we simply don't know and so we will need to work that through and I think in our evidence we highlighted that there may well be a case for us to discuss at some stage with Police Scotland if there were gaps that began to appear which could come about either through some challenges in recruiting or indeed some existing BTP officers may seek to transfer to the England and Wales element of BTP and we'd need to we'd need to fill gaps I've still got to deliver policing until such timers it's not my responsibility and there could become some circumstances where we might need a conversation to say are there some Secondes that come to us in the direction of control during that period so I think this is an area that we don't yet know how it will play out it's something we've identified something that we have to jointly plan for as we go forward to come in with supplementaries but just to be clear is it Police Scotland's intention to have a dedicated transport police unit within Police Scotland would then the option of people from British Transport Police to join that unit be available and is there a guarantee that they would not be deployed anywhere else just now they work for British Transport Police they're on the railway they've got the expertise if there was such a unit would there be a guarantee that because of pressures of numbers in a certain area in Police Scotland they wouldn't be taken away from that work I'll certainly answer that convener and perhaps address your points as well, Mr Ross as I said earlier in my evidence I have given assurance that any member of British Transport Police that transfers into Police Scotland they're right to police the railway environment until the retire will be respected they will not be moved unless they volunteer to go elsewhere on an ad hoc basis will they be removed out of the station to go and police the community beat in Cathcart no heaven forbid we have a major incident would they be deployed to support the policing of that major incident potentially yes is there intention to have a bespoke transport unit within Police Scotland absolutely we see it very much sitting alongside a road policing unit to separate entities but sitting within that overarching command and in terms of moving forward we would train every officer give them the two to three weeks training which all BTP officers in Scotland currently get in addition to their 11 weeks I think that's mudding the waters a little bit that's a good thing to do then it doesn't begin to meet the expertise of the actual trained unit now you've said anyone transferring the intention would be not to deploy them if new members joined the specialist unit that are already in Police Scotland would they be deployed routinely if there was the need I'm sorry I don't follow is there a distinction between the people the 284 officers that I believe are currently employed policing Scotland under British transport police I understand you to say till they choose to retire that unit they would not be deployed what other officers joined the unit that was from Police Scotland would they be expected to be deployed if it was deemed necessary no because they would be treated no different for example in the road policing unit they would be a bespoke specialist unit dedicated to policing the rail network and we also would have to maintain the service level agreement that we have with the rail providers what I'm saying is that we will train every new recruit to have an awareness and ability to operate within the rail environment but we will maintain a specialist unit of the 284 officers or what we determine with the service providers what the appropriate level is and within that unit they will receive the additional specialist training to allow them to carry out crash investigations I think there's a very strong and clear parallel with how a road policing unit currently operates in policing the road network That's helpful, now there's a number of supplementaries John Dews to have a supplementary Thank you, convener and it is around the issue of training Mr Riggins and I accept the individual's knowledge is time limited but it certainly was the case that British Transport officers undertook exactly the same training as geographic force officers when you talk about this additional training is that the same training and at the moment as I understand having completed their time at Tulley Island British Transport officers then go off to do this in tens, two or three weeks Are you talking about exactly the same two or three weeks and is that why you refer to seeking the assistance of VTP in the provision of that training? Yes, currently Mr Finlay all officers VTP in Police Scotland complete the 11 week initial training course at the Police College Tulley Island thereafter Police Scotland officers go to their divisions and the British Transport Police officers have this additional three weeks training that's the three weeks that we want to replicate at the Scottish Police College so we'll rely heavily on the assistance of VTP to develop that course and just look to see how we can deliver that So accepting that we have this cohort of officers presently who are British Transport officers who you've given an undertaking to maintain within the railway policing environment there will be retiros, there will be people who will leave what I've raised that's no different arguably you're supplementing that diminishing resource with additional resource We have to look ahead 284 officers can get swallowed up very very quickly in terms of retiros and transfers elsewhere so we have to plan to deliver to the high level of turnover and that's not unique to British Transport any small unit of that number there is always a high level of turnover so you have to plan for that reduction and make sure that you have appropriately trained and equipped officers able to step in and fill those gaps and take up that role and finally, if I may on the issue of deployment both for Police Scotland officers and British Transport Police officers there are officers who perhaps from constituent forces were not enthusiastic about the movement to a single police service in Scotland who have subsequently moved literally from one end of the country to other as a career development through choice that's the case isn't it okay, thank you okay, and then Ben followed by Stuart and Fulton thank you, convener on the back of some of the points that were made earlier I noticed in the BT PE evidence that there was a commitment to work constructively and that is hugely welcome should the will of Parliament be to proceed with this devolution and implementation and also your statements earlier Charlotte Witty about wanting to highlight risks in good faith in order to address those risks and spoke about the risks as well I just wondered if you could elaborate perhaps more on what high-level discussions are going on, what procedures are being put in place, what mechanisms are being taken forward in order to address some of the risks that were highlighted by both of you either in your written evidence or in the evidence session here today The main areas of work at the moment are within the joint programme board and individual work streams there are seven of underneath that and within our business we have mirrored that exact structure to make sure that we are really driving out these areas in order to make sure that we're communicating effectively with that programme board and we've mirrored it in terms of resource from the authority and also resource from within the force so actually we're capturing both the governance and authority requirements and also the operational elements of the business on the table If I could perhaps respond as well Mr McPherson The programme board is made up of representatives from the SPA, BTPA Scottish Government and the Westminster Government BTP in Police Scotland have now recently joined that process the reason for not being involved earlier was just because a lot of it was concentrated around a legislation and what might be required so there was a heavy civil service involved in that as Charlotte has mentioned there are seven work streams and the work streams are shared almost you might want to describe it as that so SPA and BTPA will be involved in some and there's a bit of a mix over there and there's a risk register which is set up the meetings are regular the next one is towards the end of this month they are well attended I'm on the programme board as is Charlotte and we have senior representation so we're managing the process effectively to a timeline It's really important for us to make it clear that for our business some of the emerging risks are happening to us right here and now we have to change our way that we are working and negotiating some of our commercial contracts because obviously there's no point in signing a five-year national contract we have to make sure that we are agile to be able to deal with the devolution date so the risks emerging are about us communicating effectively with the Scottish Police Authority but also managing our own business with the pressures that we are currently facing and through all those mechanisms and those discussions is the same sense of good faith and constructive collaborative spirit and determination through all the discussions that's something that's shared absolutely, paramountly, by all sides Yeah, it's an open forum so we're able to share our views amongst each other and identify areas where we think we need to do work to perhaps overcome potential difficulties it's a well project managed as you would expect to see under those circumstances We have a special resource to work through and support us in this process and it's no one's best interest to not come to table together and that's absolutely what we're doing Absolutely, thank you for that reassurance Close off on it Mr McPherson it's became apparent just to give you a sense of where we are with it the momentum has picked up quite a bit of pace in my view over the last couple of months certainly I have officers attached to this and the feedback from them is that the collaboration and co-operation that they have with colleagues across that group has increased significantly so that would suggest that there is a sense of momentum as we move forward A positive effect Mr Ross raised the risks associated with a putative loss of 400 officers in Scotland over the next few years I wonder Mr Crowther in relation to the 28,400 police who have been lost since 2013 in England and Wales whether that has translated into any risks and difficulties for British transport please I think I'd draw two points from that if I may the number of resources that have been lost to policing in England and Wales has primarily fallen to geographic forces and we saw an HMIC report last week that spoke of many of the difficulties that are being found within police forces there are clear arguments and viewpoints around whether or not the two are connected of course in respect of BTP actually we've encountered a different experience as you know the train operating community directly fund their budget so the police authority independently sets the budget and then it's levied according to a charging model to the industry and those are PSAs, police service agreements we enjoy around 20 million pounds of extra funding enhanced police service agreements which those fairly hard-nosed commercial people decide to fund in addition to what we already do because of the value of LACI in what we deliver so in many respects and I had this conversation with the inspectorate who are currently inspecting us the graph that shows the financial profile for many geographic forces in England and Wales tends to go downwards whereas ours has gone upwards so it's an interesting commentary on the service that people believe that they get from British Transport Police Can I, since you've raised it and hadn't been aware of this the 20 million enhanced payments what's that actually buying as briefly as possible because surely I don't know it can buy a range of different facilities so some police service agreement holders buy in specific neighbourhood teams that they want to enhance it might be police community support officers which of course we have in England and Wales not in Scotland or officers in other circumstances we've been doing a lot of work with Network Rail to identify how we can contribute to their effective running of the network so I seconded one of my best chiefs of attendance for a year into Network Rail to help them develop a national disruption strategy and a net result of that is around £8 million of additional investment from Network Rail into BTP and infrastructure that we work very closely with Network Rail to avoid disruption elsewhere in places like Transport for London for example as part of our wider public value ethos so we believe that a safe and secure so low crime high confidence network is a good thing but also a reliable network is a good thing because it's about the economy social inclusion so with Transport for London we've got some interesting initiatives where we they fund us additionally that we've got response police officers who are trained as medics and so whilst they're out they're answering normal calls London Underground has a particular challenge with people taking ill on trains during the rush hour a tube train held up trains back up in the tunnels and you create a critical incident behind it so we deploy police officers with medical training who are able to take command of an incident and actually get people off trains to allow that to be running and give immediate first aid before the ambulance service arrive or indeed we jointly crew effectively a joint incident resolution team and response people from the railway so that they turn up together they get the advantage of the blue light route to a scene and then you have all the people who can solve an incident quickly on scene together working very closely together so many of these are steeped in a very clear financial case for keeping the network running I'm just wondering if I can get a view from Police Scotland on how the recruitment for the new transport unit would work would there be an opportunity for individuals to state a preference and to bend that at the point of entry into the police or would it be more that will there be an area that they would choose to specialise in and be supported and trained then to do so I think it would be a combination Mr MacGregor firstly in terms of how we would maintain the figures within the transport unit any future applicant to Police Scotland will be very well aware during the application process that they could very well find themselves posted to the transport unit currently any new recruit coming into Police Scotland is asked to nominate three preference areas where they would wish to work I haven't really thought it through normally it's geographical area so they would like to work in the Glasgow area or the Lanarkshire area or the Ayrshire area I haven't actually thought through whether or not we would include the opportunity straight off the bat for them to get into the transport hub it's a fair suggestion but what I am absolutely certain of similarly for when we're recruiting for road policing we just keep in that parallel we invite people to apply to undertake duties within road policing and then once they're successful we'll give them bespoke training like advanced driver training and crash investigation and I see a similar path into the transport unit equally so potentially it might be a preference at the initial point of application so new recruits can say their first preference is to work in Glasgow but actually they would quite like to work in Glasgow within the transport unit I don't see any huge difficulty with that Can I just finish with one last cross-border issue that's the issue of tasers September 2006 BTP announced it taking the decision to deploy taser devices to some of its officers in Scotland I think taser devices give officers extra level of protection to protect themselves from the public when faced with extreme violence and every force in England and Wales including BTP routinely deploy now there's a policy within Police Scotland only to permit authorised farms officers to deploy tasers could you perhaps comment on how this would play out From a Police Scotland point of view, convener, you're absolutely correct currently it's only my offer lies firearms officers that carry a taser should integration occur then one of the first things that I will have to do is assess the threat within the wider real network and see whether it's still appropriate in terms of the wider Police Scotland threat assessment we would continue that practice Potentially there could be a different a different policy deployed north of the border from south of the border I think then the immediate question is does that make if there's tasers in one side of the border not deployed by the transport police in the other one does that make it more vulnerable I would take a slightly different perspective what I would say is it would be a consistent policy for all Police Scotland officers and it would be about the availability of tasers within the rail network which could be delivered by the existing firearms officers and that's not to say that when we carry out the threat assessment actually we agree that it's still appropriate to continue the carriage of tasers within rail stations so perhaps someone who was a deployed firearms officer would be subconty or would be a permanent member of I'm not quite sure how this would work exactly am I saying problems where none exists well I think that the fundamental question would be come April 19 if that's the decision it wouldn't be there's tasers in stations in England in Wales and there's not tasers in Scotland it would be what is Police Scotland's capability to meet every threat in every environment whether that be in Salkie Hall Street or Union Street or within Central Station or Wavelay Station it would be what's the best way to mitigate threat now the best way to mitigate threat is potentially to continue to have a taser deployment within train stations but currently Police Scotland only issues tasers to authorise firearms officers and the British Transport Police my understanding is that they are taser trained officers but they are not firearms officers Mr Crowder is right so the people who carry taser within British Transport Police are not exclusively firearms officers some of clearly we've got firearms officers and they carry taser as well I think and as Mr Higgins said they'll need to make their assessments of the threat and risk our approach is based on a transport specific strategic threat and risk assessment of terrorist threats we seek to counter 24 identified attack methodologies and we deploy resources and capability according to those attack methodologies that we think are pertinent to the rail sector the transport sector I won't give you the full history lesson but the Britain's railways have been attacked by terrorists for three centuries and we know that internationally transport hubs and the transport network are an attractive target to terrorists because of the economic impact and they are crowned places so that is what drives our deployment as responsibility passes clearly the responsibility for making that assessment passes and I'm sure Mr Higgins will make appropriate judgments supplementary and they would need to be very very short John Nand Douglas it's just to say to both the operational police officers our risk assessment is an on-going process now clearly an idealist like me wants a situation where in 2019 not only are the tasers back locked in the cupboard but the guns are back too perhaps unlikely but it really is entirely academic to be discussing a threat level in two years hence would you agree short answer is yes Mr Finlay thank you thank you while I understand Mr Finlay's argument I think we should always look at all the eventualities and possibilities and would it be a concern for BTP if Scotland decided not to have tasers officers routinely deployed with tasers and stations in Scotland yet they were south of the border would there be a concern that there could be a higher risk taking police or starting north of the border than south of the border I'm not sure I'd make that link I think we would work really closely with Police Scotland to understand what the nature of the risk was and come to appropriate decisions about how that would be dealt with I think there was an interesting element it goes to the earlier point around cross-border operations and what happens to officers from either force who transcend into the other jurisdiction carrying taser or indeed firearms when you look at some of the attack methodologies deployed elsewhere there are all sorts of tactics that have to be deployed and one of the key things we must sort out is what that interoperability looks like and how it's best managed it's been raised and it will be considered very much in the forefront to be considered Mr Higgins, will the determination of BTP south of the border play into any thought process that Police Scotland would take would there be a consultee if Police BTP still believe that it's a threat that they require officers to be armed with tasers south of the border will that come into your or your successor's consideration Yes it will come into the assessment Mr Ross just the final question can ask BTP if it's received a response to its request for urgent clarification on future cross-border policing arrangements I've received an assurance from Department for Transport that it will be dealt with within the legislative arrangements so not yet but you hope it's imminent I'm assured that we've dealt with I'm keen to see the legislative draft when it comes forward Thank you very much that concludes our line of questioning what's been a very helpful session we now move into private session next committee meeting will be on 14 March when we'll hear from the Minister of Community Safety and Legal Affairs on the limitation childhood abuse bill and continue to take evidence on the railway policing bill and briefly to allow witnesses to leave and the public gallery to clear