02/08/2011 Newsnight Scotland

that seems to be a lot of trouble. On tonight's programme, it is about

Bobby's, not boundaries. The Justice Secretary continues his

tour of the country tried to convince everybody it is... No

fears about fewer bobbies on the beach. And our reputation impaired

Bank's report considerable profit but continued to cut jobs. We will

discuss the matters with Scotland's leading financial institutions.

If it is too many, how many is enough? The Justice Secretary Kenny

MacAskill has been touring police forces to assess the future of

policing in Scotland. It was Strathclyde's turn to do, and Mr

MacAskill says the status quo is wasteful and speculation is

mounting that we may be about to have a single national police force.

First, Kenneth Macdonald has this There's been a murder or more than

one, but not more than there used to be. Crime has been falling for

That has not stopped the just a secretary from pounding a bit about

Scotland's police forces. The shape of Scottish police forces must

change. Local policing that we have to preserve and protect ensuring

that we have national resources that we are consulting about. I am

missing and learning but we recognise that the challenge in

Scotland is to maintain a visible police presence and in the face of

huge cuts from London, the only way to do that is to make sure it is

the boundaries that go, not the policeman on the beat. Scotland

currently has eight territorial police forces. It is eight sets of

back office functions like personnel and payroll. Those it

forces could be amalgamated into just one Scottish national force.

Some of the service are in favour of that. We believe that we have to

provide local policing services first and then look at the

management there after. With costs, that is where the cost savings can

be made. It is also about the distribution to make sure that

every community has the same support available and that there is

a level playing field. The theory is that collapsing eight forces

into three or even just one will save millions of overheads which

will be put back into frontline policing. Critics say it would cost

millions to reorganise and other crime figures suggest that where it

matters, the situation is not broken. Reports suggest that

Scotland is safer now than for almost 40 years. Adjusted --

unadjusted figures show that by this year, the figure was below

324,000. We currently have the most

effective policing that Scotland has seen in the time I have been in

the service and that has been by evolution, working with the

Department and partnership and doing exactly what people say we do

not do, collaborating and using resources carefully across

boundaries. I over the past six years, police officers have risen

markedly in numbers. It was a shade over 15,000 in 2005. There was well

over 70,000 this year, a rise of 8%. The thinking is that shrinking the

force... Might create the biggest saving of all. Creating too much

pressure for a person in charge is seen as a problem. When I took the

post, I made it clear that I would never willingly allow this story to

be about me, the leader as opposed to what the people who work for me

and what I'd do. I saw the destruction this can cause other

thing that is wrong. A lot can be read into Mr MacAskill's visit to

the Strathclyde force. It covers Scotland's biggest city and some of

the rural communities as well Scott and is a bear raids country

and that is why I am in a Strathclyde today -- Scotland is a

The Justice Secretary says he is still listening and only the status

quo has been ruled out. He will announce his plans next month, it

Joining me now from Edinburgh is the leader of the Scottish Liberal

Democrats, Willie Rennie and in Inverness is the best MP MSP, John

Finnie, also a member of the justice committee and is a former

policeman -- SNP MSP. We know that one of the Chief Constables thinks

that a single police force would be a bad idea for local communities,

the Northern Police Board agree, and the majority of rank-and-file

police officers agree. What is your opinion? My opinion is that we need

to consider all options and the status quo is not an option. As the

justice minister said, it is facing �1.3 billion of cuts and it is

inconceivable that the police service will not play their part in

these cuts. The reality is that what we need is police officers,

not boundaries. There is a very visible police presence and it is

important to maintain that. 1,000 officers will not be lost on the

streets, and I I don't think people will mind as much if back office

staff go. Do you think Scotland could support a single police

force? Having the issue, that is delivering service on the ground.

The Scottish Government does not invest in 1,000 additional offices

to see them drift away. We need to maintain that. A 40 year low crime

rate, and we need to maintain that. If he were to move to one Chief

Constable, you would see a saving of several million pounds. Your own

Chief Constable is one who disputes that he would need to make savings

anything like that. Before we move on from this, the lessons we have

learned from what is happening with the met Police, one single police

Chief Constable with a very powerful force can become a very

politicised animal. You could say that if you were to have a single

police constable, they would never be out of the Justice Secretary's

office. That would be something causing concern? To a think there

are legitimate concerns about accountability. The irony is that

we can improve accountability. In normal can start Billy --

Constabulary has four constituent parts. We can enhance the

accountability. The issue of separation between the political

and operation is hugely important. We have that in the Northern

Ireland police force. Arrangements there have a clear separation

between operational and political, that can be replicated. It happens

in other countries. Willie Rennie, is the brutal fact here not that

your government in Westminster is imposing massive public spending

cuts and savings have to be made in the police budget? And the way

forces are stricter at the moment, there is duplication? If you don't

agree with a single police force or reduced police forces, how will you

make savings? They have made significant improvements over the

years. You do not do these big bang game of fantasy boundaries to get

efficiencies. Top down changes like this will not deliver changes that

are necessary, it is evolution, working on the ground. I think it

would be a retrograde step to put the centre of the Justice Secretary.

How do you make the savings? Through collaborations, and

trusting the police on the ground to make the savings as we have

already done. This is thanks to the good work of the police. To clarify,

you what police officers on the ground to vote for fewer police

officers? How would this but in practice was make it is about

making sure that to provide the right support. You have a community

initiative, working with local policeman, working for an area.

That is cutting the amount of crime in each community. If you do more

of that work, you can save and improve the efficiency. By cutting

crime and cost. Do you accept that this was a central message you are

trying to get out to the Lib Dems in the last election saying it is

important to everybody and local communities must be aware? And once

the forces go they never come back? The public could not have cared

less? Are a thing people do you care and we heard strongly -- I

think people do care. We heard that people were particularly concerned.

I it was not reflected in the boat to attracted in the election, given

that he made that a central boat issue. He you know it there was a

halt float of issues. Police did not dominate but that did not make

it a less important issue. What do you make of the right and file

officers and their real concern for example in the Highlands that the

issue would change fundamentally and were you to have a centralised

police cuttable in Glasgow, people would say that is not a priority

for me in the Highlands and Islands, that local communities would lose

The reality is garage any one concerns. The President for this is

in the mid- 1970s. Northern Constabulary is an amalgam of many

county forces, and has more than 300 officers more now than it had

in 1975. I think there is a lot of scaremongering here. And

disappointingly, a lack of realism -- realism on the financial reality.

Cuts from London will not be addressed by having community

initiatives, they will be addressed by radical change. Not change on

the front line, the public have made it very clear they are greatly

reassured by the presence of frontline police full staff we will

maintain these officers. We will not maintain the IT sections, the

chauffeur-driven chief constables. But the concern must be... The

concern must be that if you take officers out of the backroom, you

then have to transfer officers back on to the work that they have been

doing. What is required here is robust management. We had over

7,000 support staff, they are very valuable. The reality is that with

these numbers, you have people retiring and leaving. There is an

opportunity for robust management that maintains the front line.

your figures do not make any sense in the real world. They will not

come through with any significant savings. This will actually cost

more, it will cost about �230 million to make the change, injured

will only deliver a 2 % efficiency here. That is hardly a significant

change that will deal with the deficit. We need serious reforms,

not fantasy boundary changes. you think that relevant local

policing can only be delivered by a small forces, the logic of that

argument is actually that Strathclyde, which takes in half

the population of Scotland, should be broken up. Would you advocate

that? I am arguing we should be focusing on making sure there is

real innovation at a local level. Changing the boundaries will not

make any difference. Thank you both very much.

It is half-year reporting season for those great engines of the

British economy, the bank's. Expect opaque jargon and numbers swirling

around, including the staggering number of job losses they are

putting through their work forces. With two of the four sets of

results and the other two due at the end of the week, a pattern is

emerging. Put simply, do not hold your breath waiting for this lot to

begin stimulating the economy. Yesterday, HSBC, while announcing a

higher than expected profit of 11.5 billion, also took the town to

slash 30,000 jobs worldwide. Today, it was the turn of Barclays. Again,

they posted higher than predicted profits, although that is down one

third. Bob Diamond is next -- insisting that their position is

rock solid. Less rock solid are there for 200 jobs they have cut

this year, with another 3,000 on the way before Christmas -- 1,400

Next up on Thursday, Lloyd's. Owner of the Bank of Scotland amongst

other things, and the set is bent complete on Friday with RBS. There

are widespread -- set expectations for drops with both of these

companies. Lloyds' shares are down 30 % in the last six months. RBS

have taken a 70 % -- 17 % hit in the same period. Over the last two

years, both bands have -- banks have shared between them over

50,000 jobs. As a sector that took a series of seismic kids, there

seems little evidence that the aftershocks have stopped.

The Executive editor of the Scotsman, Bill Jamieson, is with me

now. Thank you for coming in. On the evidence we have so far, what

you make of the health of our banks? Not good I would say, if you

were trying to measure the pulse of our banks. That pulse is still very

faint, and we seem to be more than ever further away from the recovery

that everybody has been very keenly awaiting. It is like a mirage, it

disappears over the horizon every six Mac months was -- six months.

And there are huge worries about what is happening in the euro-zone,

huge worries about the US economy. And that critical thing is really

business confidence. And I suspected it is this lack of

business confidence that is hitting the investment banking results and

profits, and causing further staff shedding by the banks. Why is there

business confidence solo? Is it anything related to their not

getting proper rates at about? is a combination of things. First

of all, there is a stream of any negative news about the economy

both here and in America. Me that all the surveys that were coming

out, they do point to a slowing pace of recovery. That is the main

thing. The second point I would make is that there are some sectors

such as untroubled, like retail for example, here in the UK, but I

suspect many troubles are deeply troubled in the retail sector and

just do not have the confidence to go to their banks and ask for more

money or an extension of their loan, for fear of being told to know.

That is interesting in terms of what our causing the problems now.

How much of this is about what is happening in the economy right now,

and looking to the future, and how much of it is the residual effect

of what the banks when three in the crashed? There is no doubt that the

amount they have to lend is still very constrained. And that was a

big story up until a few months ago. But my suspicion it is the

confidence -- is that it is a confidence thing, and many

companies preferring to sit on cash. It is not as if our largest

companies are a short of cash. They are not, they have the money,

they're just making the decision not to invest, not to expand, not

to take on more staff until they see a clearer way through what is

happening in the euro-zone, what is happening in the UK economy and

what is happening in America have. If we let them at Lloyd's and RBS

in this bigger picture, we are seeing this rush to shed jobs. What

is the implication for Scotland? The impression I get is that there

is not all that dramatic labour shedding here in Scotland, either

for Lloyds or RBS. Yes, there may be some technical changes, as bred

to internet banking means that we do not have quite so many branch

staff and she needed a couple of years ago. But I do not think that

is a significant factor here. It is just this dearth of gross in the

economy, that is the worry. So we have seen in the results from

Barclays, and in HSBC, a slowing down in their domestic profits.

people who do not understand how this industry works, they Macie, we

are seeing the banks making profits, why do they need to leave staff?

Why cannot they just keep their staffing levels? I think in the

case of HSBC, they have a big worry about their costs, their cost ratio

is much higher than the field -- they feel it should be. And I think

also they are looking at the world and they find that, actually, they

are to over-exposed in those areas which are going to show very little

growth, and it was very interesting that a lot of there job cuts over

the next few years are going to come in America and Europe, and at

the same time they are expanding 10,000 new jobs in Asia and the

Pacific, and emerging economies. That tells you volumes about what

is happening with the shift of economic power. Do you think all of

this feeds into the prospect of future regulations here in the UK,

with the beggars committee reports coming out? This is very

interesting, we are waiting to hear from the Independent Banking

Commission at the end of September as to whether they will go the

whole hog and insist on a split between retail and investment

banking. My gut instinct is that they will not do that, they will go

for a halfway house. But the impression we get from, for example

HSBC is that, if they go for a halfway house, they will retain

more jobs in the UK than would otherwise be the case. They are not

happy about the idea of a total split. Thank you very much for

coming in. A quick look at some of the papers.

The Herald is leading with the story, legalised the sale of human

kidneys. The Scotsman is also going with this, debt hits student is

their take on it. A furious Scottish academic calling for an

organ straight to be made legal. The Scottish Daily Mail is going

with a health warning. And in the sun, a threat to tycoon's goal,

this is the reward from Duncan Bannatyne. That is it from tonight

-- for tonight. We are back A muggy night, a few thunderstorms

in eastern England. But Wednesday will be fairly dry. Temperatures

rising through the day, and quite a humid day in store. Some

thunderstorms in eastern parts. North West England and the messed

Midlands should be largely dry. A little fresher along the coast,

only a bit though. Mostly dry, sunshine hazy through the afternoon.

Temperatures into the low twenties, but still quite humid especially in

the sun. One or two eyes alighted light showers. -- isolated. Across

Scotland, and drier and brighter day compared to what we saw today,

especially in the east. Accordingly, it will feel a bit warmer. But it

is the changeover from Wednesday to Thursday. Temperatures staying

about the same in the north, but heavy rain developing. But

temperatures take a big drop in the side. And torrential rain will work

its way across parts of the Midlands, southern England and