Crash f iasco call centre in line for more pressure as police cutbacks continue
THE hard-pressed police call centre criticised for its role in the M9 crash fiasco is facing a massive increase in workload – fuelling fears over the risk of further tragedies.
A shake-up will see Bilston Glen in Midlothian receive calls from members of the public in northern areas of Scotland by the end of the year.
It means staff face the prospect of handling hundreds of thousands more calls, despite fears that cuts to civilian staff have left it unable to cope.
The changes also mean staff will be dealing with calls from people in the Highlands and Aberdeenshire, despite having limited knowledge of the geography or none at all.
The row comes as chief constable Sir Stephen House faces mounting calls to quit over the incident in which 25-year-old Lamara Bell was left dying beside the M9 for three days after the fatal crash was reported to Bilston Glen.
Last night, Scottish Tory justice spokesman Margaret Mitchell said the prospect of more pressure on the Bilston Glen centre would ‘ring alarm bells’.
She said: ‘The recent tragedy of the couple found after three days when their car veered off the M9 only highlights why these emergency calls should be handled quickly, efficiently and in the correct way.
‘The Scottish Government were warned for some time that centralising these centres would lead to a l oss of l ocal knowledge and accountability.
‘Service centre staff are already overburdened from excessive centralisation, but the sheer number of vacancies and lost adviser hours are only putting them under more stress.’
The row came as a police civilian worker whistleblower told the Mail that the ‘useless Bilston Glen call centre sends officers from Glenrothes to Rosyth, a distance of 22 miles, simply because they have no local knowledge’.
The insider said: ‘I spent 30 years in the police and have never seen morale so low in offices and among civilian staff.’ Changes to the police C3 ‘contact, command and control’ system have seen Bilston Glen – which previously handled calls for the Lothian and Borders area – taking on a much bigger workload, allowing other control rooms and service centres elsewhere to be shut to save cash.
The centralisation means that control rooms in Stirling and Glenrothes, Fife have been shut down already but also, by the end of the year, calls from Aberdeen and Inverness will be routed to Bilston Glen.
Figures from the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) show that in Aberdeen and Inverness, police dealt with 784,890 emergency 999 calls and non- emergency 101 calls in 2012 – the year before the amalgamation of the eight forces – while Bilston Glen on its own dealt with 722,576 calls in that year.
The expansion of workload at Bilston Glen – which has also been blighted by high sickness rates – to cover northern areas was planned for September this year, but the timetable has slipped and the changes are now planned f or December.
SPA documents claim that the new approach ‘maximises operational effectiveness, as l arger, integrated service centres enable a better overall performance in response to 999 and 101 calls’.
But the paper warns that ‘due to the wide geographical dispersal of sites, any reduction to the number of sites creates challenges in retaining existing experienced staff within this operational area’.
The row comes as Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) investigators prepare to probe the performance of Bilston Glen and the entire Police Scotland call handling system.
Another whistleblower recently raised concerns about Bilston Glen, saying it was ‘like a pressure cooker’ and that on one shift ‘there were more than 40 calls waiting to be actioned in the area I work in’.
Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Val Thomson said: ‘We remain committed to the C3 change programme and are in discussion with the SPA.’
An SPA spokesman said: ‘ The programme of organisational change around police call handling is considerable and has been done on a phased basis, with further oversight provided by the SPA at each stage.
‘We welcome and fully support the HMIC review now under way to look at call handling.’