Police Scotland risks being seen as "giving up on community presences" and overplaying issues such as cyber crime as it plans for the future, MSPs have been told.

Holyrood's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing was taking evidence from staff associations on the force's new 10-year policing plan.

Police Scotland said it must change to reflect new demands on policing such as cyber crime, an ageing population, extreme weather and the protection of vulnerable people.

However, with a funding gap, the force will slow recruitment between 2018 and 2020, and work to move more officers from back office and corporate roles to frontline services.

Commenting on strategy, Scottish Police Federation general secretary Calum Steele said the service "risks being seen as walking away from certain elements of the communities whilst we talk about chasing other parts of it".

"I don't think it should be one or the other, it has got to be one and the other," he told the committee.

"If we give up or are seen to be giving up on community presences and community engagement ... then we will lose the public's support.

"The importance of tackling cyber crime, and this is something which is eluded to fairly heavily, is also something that I think risks being overplayed, simply because of the reality of geo-politics."

He added: "If we are looking at the complexities of online fraud, child exploitation, paedophilia and so on ... many of these crimes take place through multitudes of proxy servers located in nations across the world which we simply will not be able to get access to.

"Identifying the problem is one thing but pretending we are going to solve it is entirely another.

"That whole cyber element of it needs a much more honest discussion than just talking about it in the hope that people will believe that because it's an online crime that therefore the service must throw a fortune at it, even though it may not result in any material change in the experience of the member of the public who may be a victim of crime through that medium."