Tayside Police to tweet on the beat
A Scottish police force has launched a pilot scheme which will see its officers communicate with the public on Twitter.
Community officers in Auchterarder, Crieff and Kinross will tweet from the beat as part of Tayside Police's social media experiment.
They will provide their local communities with updates on meetings, traffic information and crime prevention advice.
Detective chief constable Gordon Scobbie said: "Twitter is particularly important in sharing breaking news and frequently posts stories before they are reported in the more traditional media forms. This could prove to be extremely useful in local communities where early warning of road closures or incidents could help to avoid delays and speculation.
"We also need to communicate more effectively with members of the public to let them know what we’re doing. After all, nobody is going to be confident in an organisation who they don’t hear from and who they can’t engage with."
In a further effort to better engage with the public, the force is trialling a web service called MyPolice which allows people to anonymously voice their opinion on policing in their area.
"We hope this improved access to community officers and the ability to leave comments, both negative and positive, will help us improve our local policing by being responsive to local concerns and by providing speedy feedback to the public," Scobbie said.
Tayside Police's Twitter trial follows Greater Manchester Police's 24-hour social media experiment last year.
During one day in October, the force published on Twitter details of all its incoming calls - many of them futile - to illustrate the weight of its workload.