SENIOR police officers have compiled a dossier revealing how a staffing crisis at the force’s control hub at the centre of the M9 crash scandal has put other members of the public at risk, according to the Scottish Lib Dem leader.
Willie Rennie, whose party helped exposed a series of controversies at the heart of Police Scotland which led to chief constable Sir Stephen House announcing his resignation last week, said the “near miss” forms reveal how policing is being undermined by poor staffing levels.
The Bilston Glen control centre, which handles 999 and non-emergency calls from the public, is under investigation after police failed to respond for three days to the M9 crash that killed John Yuill, 28, and Lamara Bell, 25.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) is carrying out an inquiry into police call handling in Scotland, following the deaths.
The dossier, said to have been prepared in recent weeks to assist with the inquiry, is expected to indicate that the delayed response to the M9 crash was not a one-off, citing a number of cases where calls have not been quickly dealt with.
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It follows claims made to the BBC last week by an anonymous rank and file officer that some 999 calls to Bilston Glen are not being actioned and a report to the Scottish Police Authority from assistant chief constable Val Thomson warning that staffing levels at the call centre “were not sufficient”.
Earlier this month Rennie — who claims House was pushed into resigning by the SNP ahead of this week’s new parliamentary term — said police investigating reports of domestic violence were sent to the wrong address because of a mistake at the call centre.
Rennie said: “From what I understand there is a dossier of near misses that has been prepared by the staff at Bilston Glen and I suspect that will come out at some point. The fact that one near miss exists is bad enough. If there’s more than one that would be quite a revelation.”
Bilston Glen is one of just four such centres that Police Scotland is to operate partly to deliver cost savings, with the creation of a national police force taking the number down from 11, despite warnings from police — disclosed by The Sunday Times — that it could cause staffing problems. Bilston Glen had an absence rate of 10% a month before the incident.
This weekend Labour is urging the SNP government to suspend plans to close police call centres in Aberdeen and Inverness. Labour’s justice spokesman, the former senior police officer Graeme Pearson, said the closures would cause more problems for overworked officers and the communities they serve.
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House quit after coming under intense pressure over the force’s response to the M9 crash in July in which Yuill and his partner Bell died after it took three days for officers to respond to reports that their car had come off the road near Stirling.
He was also censured for the use of armed officers on routine patrols and over his policies on stopping and searching children.
Rennie said he believes House, who had previously signalled he would quit at the end of his four-year contract in September next year, was pushed out by the SNP government ahead of the new parliamentary term this week.
“It’s a bit of a coincidence that he’s going just before parliament starts and before the statement is going to be made to parliament. They are clearing the decks before they go back,” he said.
Police Scotland said calls it receives are reviewed and assessed on a daily basis to ensure incidents are prioritised correctly, and to ensure the public receives an effective and efficient service.
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It said it is performing well in handling 999 and 101 calls but would await the imminent HMICS report to comment substantively rather than respond to “anonymous claims such as these”.
Meanwhile, the Scottish government said House’s decision to stand down was taken entirely by him and denied any prior discussions took place with justice secretary Michael Matheson.