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Our second panel of witnesses consists of senior representatives of Police Scotland. I am very pleased to welcome Chief Constable Jo Farrell; Katy Miller, director of people and development; and Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs, who has responsibility for people and professionalism.

I intend to allow around 60 minutes for the evidence session, and I invite the chief constable to make a short opening statement.

Thank you very much, chief constable. As usual, I will ask the first question and then open it up to members. You mentioned in your introductory remarks the long-term vision for the service and the three-year plan to deliver the next wave of policing reform, which is welcome. Can you expand on how that piece of work will impact on officer and staff wellbeing and to what extent that will be addressed in that work?

Thank you very much. That is very helpful.

I will kick off our questioning by picking up on a point that you made early in your opening remarks. It is about your work to ensure that clear plans will be in place at Police Scotland, one of which will be the wellbeing action plan. I am interested in hearing a little more about what that will involve.

I would also like to raise a point that I raised with the chief constable, and which David Threadgold also mentioned. Police officers feel that there is a disconnect from their immediate line managers, which can potentially impact on their wellbeing and on opportunities for a preventative approach to work as it could do. Do you intend to scrutinise that aspect in the context of how Police Scotland is delivering such plans, particularly with regard to mental wellbeing?

I want to come in on that. It is good to hear about the importance of measurement, as you said. I suppose that a lot of that is around the delivery of wellbeing responses and approaches. However, the example that I spoke about earlier was perhaps more of an operational matter.

I am particularly interested in leadership training. You spoke about managing the workforce. There is clearly a leadership role in that. We also spoke earlier about the amalgamation of eight forces into one. There was a cost-cutting exercise in that. Was some of the training that was previously delivered across forces interrupted or withdrawn as part of the amalgamation and was some of it leadership training? I might be wrong, but I have been curious about that, over the while. I am interested to hear a wee bit more about leadership training, particularly in the context of mental health and wellbeing, and in checking in on how that training is being delivered and is bearing out. It is almost about whether there is a quality assurance process around training.

Has there been any evaluation of the your leadership matters programme or are there plans to do that?

Before I bring in Fiona McQueen, a couple of members have supplementary questions on the budgetary side of overtime.

We could pick that up in our pre-budget scrutiny, if it would be helpful.

Good morning, and welcome to the 28th meeting in 2024 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have no apologies this morning.

The focus of our meeting is on policing and mental health. It is an issue that the committee has been looking at as one of its priorities in this parliamentary session. We have been concerned about the impact that the work that is carried out by police officers and staff can have on their mental health and wellbeing, and about the growing demands on policing from people in distress in communities. We want to be reassured that there is adequate support for officers and staff in the important roles that they carry out for us. Recent events have more than demonstrated what the public ask of police officers and staff, and the committee is keen to ensure that they are provided with the support they need.

I refer members to papers 1 and 2. We have three panels of witnesses, and I intend to allow around 60 minutes for each panel. I would be grateful if questions and answers were as succinct as possible.

Our first panel consists of representatives of the police staff associations and trade unions. I am pleased to welcome Superintendent Suzanne Smith, who is the vice-president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, and Mr David Threadgold, who is the chair of the Scottish Police Federation. We hope that David Malcolm, who is a branch secretary from Unison, will join us shortly; he has been slightly delayed. Thank you all for providing written evidence.

I will start with a general question to set the scene. I will come to David Threadgold first, then move on to Superintendent Smith.

Do you think that the wellbeing support that is provided to officers and staff has improved since the committee last considered the issue back in November 2023, and what more needs to be done?

Leadership and training is a really important issue that we will come back to later.

David Malcolm has now been able to join us, which is great. It is good to see you, David; I will let you get settled.

David Threadgold, I was particularly interested in your opening remarks that you would like to see more of a focus on a preventative approach.