– Where possible a police officer should attend meetings of the local community council. Where this is not possible – for operational reasons – a written report will be provided. It is a difficult balance.

– The force is actively recruiting in the North East. For the first time since Police Scotland was established they expect to have their full establishment locally in the near future. The aim is to recruit locally, and work locally.

– The merger of the present Aberdeenshire & Moray division with the Aberdeen division will take place on 1 January, and will be called the North East division. Only the command structure will change, with only one chief superintendent in charge, instead of the two as at present. We were told that there had been an invisible demarcation line under the current arrangements, and this will disappear. We were assured this will not mean Aberdeenshire officers being called into Aberdeen to patrol the city centre on Saturday nights.

The fire officers told us the service attended 2211 emergency incidents in the last year. Staff had made 1444 home fire safety visits, and they wish to step that up – call the service to ask for one. There were no fatalities in dwelling fires in 2014/15 in Kincardine and Mearns. That compares to nine in 2010/11. There is an all time low for deliberate fires. However the North East has the highest fatality rates in Scotland on our roads.