Police Scotland’s annual budget is down £200 million since the devolved force was created, amid warnings that current officer numbers are “not sustainable”.

Chief Constable Iain Livingstone told the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) that hundreds of millions of pounds have been removed from “the core cost of policing” since Police Scotland came into being in April 2013.

His funding concerns were echoed by vice chair of the SPA watchdog, David Crichton, who said that a “structural deficit” within the force is making current officer numbers untenable.

The warnings come ahead of a busy year for Scottish officers, who will have to police the UN’s COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Euro 2020 football matches, major environmental protests and the “growing” number of loyalist marches.

"Frankly, current officer numbers are not sustainable within the existing budget so something has to change on that front,” Mr Crichton told the SPA meeting in Edinburgh today.

"There is a structural deficit in the policing budget. It's simple arithmetic, it's not complicated mathematics.

"The deficit is simply going to continue to increase if something does not change.

"With almost 90 per cent of the budget allocated to officer and staff costs, it does mean that difficult choices are going to have to be made over the next weeks and months - difficult choices by Government, by the authority and by Police Scotland.”