- Officers are under pressure after the SNP’s ‘shambolic’ new law was introduced in April
Scotland’s police force, under pressure, has spent almost half a million pounds implementing the measure SNP‘s shambolic hatred crime laws.
Cash-strapped police chiefs have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to upgrade computer systems and pay staff overtime because of the legislation.
About 40 control room officers were called in to do extra work as the introduction of the Hate Crime Act on April 1 led to a flood of complaints from offended Scots.
The laws created a criminal offense of ‘fomenting hatred’ relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
New figures show Police Scotland spent £180,000 on upgrading systems to deal with the influx of allegations, £240,000 on staff involved in the upgrades and £70,000 on overtime.
Officers have had to work extra shifts to tackle the hate crimes law
Murdo Fraser denounced the waste of money
Last night David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation – which represents rank-and-file officers, said: ‘That £500,000 could have gone to officers who are struggling.
It is the police officers on the ground who are suffering under this legislation.
‘Because the number of complaints is decreasing, they say it is ‘business as usual’, but we have still lost that half a million because of this law.
It’s a total waste of money and a farce. It should be repealed.”
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: “It is not surprising that Police Scotland have drafted such an eye-watering bill to implement the hate crime law as they have accepted every complaint, nuisance or otherwise.
“The public will rightly be outraged that this shocking amount of taxpayers’ money is being wasted on this unworkable legislation, which threatens freedom of expression.
‘SNP ministers were guilty of massive misinformation about what the legislation would mean in practice, which has resulted in the inevitable flood of complaints to our police.’
He added: ‘Rather than continuing to waste vital funds, John Swinney should finally admit how disastrous this legislation is and do us all a favor by scrapping it.’
The latest police figures show that up to May 19, 10,029 hate crime complaints have been made since the law came into force.
Yet only about 15 percent of them – 1,537 – were considered crimes by police, confirming fears that many claims were vexatious.
Under freedom of information, the Tories asked Police Scotland what the total expenditure was on ‘technological resources acquired to tackle the Hate Crime Act’.
The force said technology expenditure was £181,692 on upgrades and £239,427 in staff costs to implement the system updates.
The Tories also asked how much had been spent on overtime to deal with the incidents under the law. Police chiefs revealed the overtime bill was £71,493, taking the total to £492,612.
The Scottish Government said the number of reports has now been significantly reduced.
It says that the law ‘contains provisions regarding the recording of data and requirements that the chief of police must comply with. Police Scotland received an additional £300,000 in 2023-24 to meet these demands.”
Police Scotland made no comment but referred the MoS to a speech by Chief Constable Jo Farrell, in which she said the number of online reports had now fallen significantly.
