Police Scotland will not investigate every minor crime as it rolls out a pilot scheme across the country.

The force has defended plans to move to a model of “proportionate investigation” for non-emergency 101 calls in a bid to free up an additional 136,000 officer hours.

Senior officers said it was already in use informally before the national force was set up in 2013, and would create “consistency of investigation”, despite criticism from some politicians.

Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Russell Findlay said: “The rollout of this dangerous scheme formalises the SNP’s surrender to criminals as official policing policy. That is not what hard-working officers signed up for.

“Officer numbers are at their lowest since 2008 and most crimes are not even reported. Doing nothing in response to thousands of crimes betrays law-abiding Scots. This is a good day for criminals and can only result in even more crime on our streets.”

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