JUSTICE Secretary Michael Matheson faced serious criticism yesterday when an SNP member told how her daughter quit the police due to exhaustion.
The senior Cabinet minister was accused of “letting down” serving officers at a heated session at his party’s autumn conference in Glasgow.
The woman, who did not want to be named, tackled Matheson on pressures facing members of Police Scotland during a fringe meeting hosted by the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), which represents the country’s cops.
She told how “relentless” 10-hour shifts without breaks and “never-ending paperwork” had eroded her daughter’s quality of life to the point she could not go on in her “dream” job.
The meeting heard: “This was her dream to serve Scotland as a police officer. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out well.
“She is now physically and emotionally exhausted.
“She resigned about six weeks ago because there was no prospect of improvement in the service coming any time soon.”
The mother said her daughter – whose identity is not known – had often gone without meal or toilet breaks while serving and had struggled with “defunct” IT systems and well-used response vehicles that lacked satnav but had 130,000 miles on the clock.
She went on: “She didn’t think the job would be a walk in the park, she was well aware of what she was taking on and I feel she’s been very let down.
“She’s not complaining but I am angry because, Mr Matheson, I’m a member of the SNP.
“This isn’t a Tory government in Scotland, this isn’t a Labour government in Scotland, this is my party in Scotland and you are letting down your officers.
“What, Mr Matheson, would you say to my daughter who must be feeling let down, what would you say to her and to the other officers [who] are on the edge of nervous breakdowns?”
The question came after SPF general secretary Calum Steele said many officers are suffering from workplace pressures and do not feel valued.
He stated: “If you look at our police service just now, you will find a large percentage of officers that are downtrodden, they are tired, they are exhausted, they are fatigued, they feel unloved.
“It is difficult to genuinely say that that’s the kind of police service that the country needs, but it’s also not the kind of police service that they themselves need to be working in.”
Responding, Matheson suggested the issues could be traced back to the creation of the single force under his predecessor Kenny MacAskill.
In 2011, MacAskill said the move away from eight regional forces would protect frontline services against the backdrop of significant cuts to Scotland’s budget.
Yesterday Matheson, who was given the justice brief in a 2014 reshuffle, said: “With the creation of a single force, one of the areas which has not been adequately addressed within the service is around the whole issue of the wellbeing of our police officers and their needs and to recognise that the service needs to address these issues that they have as a matter of concern.
“The service has put a lot of work into that in recent times in order to try and address these issues, but there is clearly significantly more that the service needs to take forward in order to address these matters.”
He added that the Scottish Government has protected the police budget, “to make sure that we can try to provide as much resource as we can, particularly during a period of austerity.”
He continued: “I recognise though that does not resolve all of the financial pressures and challenges that exist within the service, but as a government we are trying our best in order to try and meet that demand where we can financially.”
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