Police boost target 'hit early'

Some police forces saw a drop in officer numbers

A target to boost police officer numbers in Scotland has been hit early, the Scottish Government has said.

In June, Scotland had 17,278 officers, up from 16,234 when the SNP came to power in May 2007.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said there was now a record number of police on the streets.

Opposition parties accused ministers of political grandstanding, and questioned whether numbers could be kept up in the long term.

Several forces saw increases in the last quarter, including Strathclyde Police which recruited 186 officers.

There is no point crowing over officer numbers today if they are going to fall in years to come Richard Baker Scottish Labour justice spokesman

But the Tayside, Dumfries and Galloway, and Central forces saw small drops in the number of officers, while Strathclyde recently warned it may suffer a budget deficit of up to £66m by 2013-14.

Mr MacAskill praised the work of the Scottish Police College, adding: "Our chief constables should be congratulated for redeploying their officers and delivering more police on our streets, as this government delivers record numbers to our police forces."

But Labour justice spokesman Richard Baker accused the justice secretary of forcing Scotland into the worst police funding crisis in decades.

"There is no point crowing over officer numbers today if they are going to fall in years to come," he said.

The Lib Dems' Robert Brown added: "Before these figures are celebrated, the justice secretary needs to state once and for all the multi-million pound black-hole in Strathclyde Police Board's funding won't jeopardise this progress."

The Conservatives took credit for pushing the government into boosting police numbers to more than 1,000.

The party's community safety spokesman, John Lamont, said: "If it had been left to Alex Salmond's SNP government, there would only be 500. If Labour had had its way, there would be none."