By Lucy Ashton

Police Scotland has spent an extra £5 million on electric cars and charging points as the force goes green and promises its fleet will be all-electric within 10 years.

A financial report to the Scottish Police Authority reveals £12.2m of capital spending will go on new police vehicles in this financial year, £3.7m over the  budget of £8.5m.

Meanwhile, electric vehicle infrastructure will cost £4.5m, £1.3m more than the forecast of £3.2m.

The number of officers, meanwhile, has fallen to just over 17,000, the lowest number since 2009 as the Scottish Police Federation blames “accounting dark arts” for forcing extra spending on cars and plug-in points.

The force’s capital budget needs to be spent by the end of the financial year in March and any spare money cannot be rolled over. Federation chairman David Hamilton said: “Police Scotland has a capital budget and a revenue budget. Cars come out of the former, cops out of the latter.

“We have to spend money year-to-year which is nonsensical and produces crazy outcomes like this. When there’s cash left over it’s easy just to buy things like cars and charging points but we end up spending money just because it fits a certain category rather than where it’s most needed.”

Transport is also taking an extra £2.2m from the capital spending of the national force. Of that, £1.3m is on additional servicing and repairs on vehicles and there’s £700,000 more being spent on fuel bills caused by soaring petrol and diesel prices. Rising gas and electric bills are soaking up an additional £500,000 too.

Police numbers fell to 17,117 at the end of December, down from 17,232 the previous quarter. In 2007, the SNP pledged to increase numbers to 17,234, and they peaked at 17,496 in 2013 but ministers dropped the promise in 2016, saying it was down to the chief constable to determine the number of officers required. Last week, a force survey revealed public confidence in the police had dropped from 57% to 38% in the last year.

Russell Findlay, left, Scottish Conservative Shadow Community Safety Minister, said: “Spending millions of pounds on green police vehicles while officer numbers are at their lowest since 2009 will be of understandable public concern. There’s not much point having green cars if there are no officers to drive them.”

Police Scotland confirmed money unspent in other parts of capital funding budgets had been moved to speed up the transition of the fleet, adding: “In the current financial year, capital funding has been reallocated to our fleet and EV infrastructure, which means the forecast spend is higher than the original budget allocated to fleet.

“This is an effective and efficient way of managing capital spend to ensure we maximise our capital investment.

“Police officers are funded through a separate revenue budget and we are managing recruitment to increase officer numbers throughout the year.”