£15m spent on policing during Operation Unicorn after Queen’s death, papers show
Papers for the next Scottish Police Authority show more than £15 million was spent on policing after the late Queen died in Scotland.
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Your support makes all the difference.More than £15 million was spent and 15,000 police officers were deployed in Scotland during operations following the Queen’s death, papers have shown.
Meeting papers due to be discussed at the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) meeting on Wednesday show £15,618,640 was spent on Operation Unicorn, part of the wider UK plan which was implemented when Queen Elizabeth II died in Scotland last year.
Police Scotland has since recouped the money from the Scottish and UK governments.
They also showed 15,000 officers were deployed across events in Scotland in the days leading up to the late Queen’s funeral.
The meeting will discuss Operation Unicorn and what lessons can be learned from it as well as best practice which can inform events of a future scale.
Police Scotland had been planning for the eventuality of the late Queen’s death for a “number of years” the papers reveal, with a dedicated team set up in the last four years to review the development and delivery.
Operationally, the day of the Queen’s death was to be known as “D-Day” but the King announced this would come on September 9, the first day after the late Queen died.
Instead, Thursday September 8 was “D-Day minus one” an event the papers reveal Police Scotland had not planned for.
Operationally, the partnership approach employed by Police Scotland in the lead up to the Queen’s death worked “very well” the papers suggest, but “in hindsight” the team should have been increased in later years as the focus on the late Queen’s health “intensified”.
The SPA has recommended frequent command meetings should be held with testing and exercises taking place regularly.
Staff were “applauded” for their work during the five days of events in Scotland with the papers noting their commitment and attitude.
The paper stated: “The work that was required, and pressures placed upon, Resource Deployment Unit (RDU) was immense and they performed incredibly well.”