Police chief constable to step down

After a week of sustained pressure from politicians and his own rank-and-file, Sir Stephen House confirmed he would not stay in office after his current term ends in September 2016.

The most powerful officer in the history of Scottish policing has been given what force insiders jokingly refer to as "the dreaded vote of confidence" by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

That development this week prompted a sergeant at the national conference of the Scottish Police Federation, the body representing rank-and-file officers, to compare Sir Stephen to a losing football manager whose days were numbered.

But the chief constable made it clear he thought he was winning, not losing, and that he would see out his term in office.

He said: "If at the start of Police Scotland, people had said 'This is what you would achieve, this is where you would have got things wrong', then I would have taken where we are."

Asked what the score would be if his tenure at Police Scotland was a football match, Sir Stephen said: "I would say we are two-one up.

"If it was a rugby score, we would have scored a couple of tries but we would keep giving away stupid penalties."

The chief constable has come under fire for his policy on stop-searches, despite the fact use of the tactic peaked in the year before the national force was created.

The number of stop-searches fell nearly a third in the financial year that has just ended amid scrutiny of police on a level never seen under the old regime.

But despite recognising failures in "communication" over the policy, and others, Sir Stephen listed off a series of successes for the national force to justify his two-one scoreline.

He said: "The column of things we are getting right is far longer than the ones we are getting wrong.

"Homicide rates of detection are extremely high. Violence is coming down; rape victims are getting a better service than they have ever had, the same is true of domestic abuse."