Time to act on ‘shambles’

Control rooms are the nerve centre of a police force. They are where calls, both 999 and non-emergency, are directed. Decisionmaking, speed of thought and action, and local knowledge are all critical.

Yet we’re slashing their numbers in Scotland; centralising resources to save money; replacing highly-skilled and trained civilian staff members with officers who should be on the streets to safeguard a political dogma wholly unmatched by the reality of our justice system.

On February 7 2014 The Courier reported a leaked document, compiled by CCTV coordinator Mark Waterfall.

It said public and officer safety would be “compromised” by the closure of the Glenrothes control room.

Chillingly, the report concluded the loss of vital services in Fife “could lead to the possibility of someone receiving a serious injury or ultimately loss of life”.

That was 17 months ago. Now flawed choices made Police Scotland have been laid bare. Tragically, it has taken the deaths of two young people to make politicians face up to problems after months of dismissing concerns as “scaremongering”.

Lamara Bell and John Yuill lay in their crashed car by the side of one of the country’s busiest roads for three days. A call was made to police but it was taken by a sergeant, backfilling because there were not enough trained civilian workers.

He could not operate the computer system, so wrote the details down on paper. We don’t know what happened next within Edinburgh’s Bilston Glen control room, which covers Fife but the information was not logged.

What we do know is that John was dead when the couple were eventually found in their vehicle. Lamara was taken to hospital with serious injuries and severe dehydration. She died on Sunday morning.

This newspaper uncovered evidence of other control rooms being told to follow the very practice of noting things using a pen and paper, which the senior officer did. The First Minister and Justice Secretary may not think that indicates a systemic failure but it is difficult to see it as anything else.

The SNP has a remarkable ability to make itself Teflon-like when it comes to sustained criticism about its domestic policies. Yet it has to face up to the fact it created Police Scotland. It controls Scotland’s justice system.

Is it useful, then, for ministers to let Chief Constable Stephen House take the flak in an effort to make sure the mud doesn’t stick to them? Of course it is.

In their defence, budget cuts hampering public services are a grim fact of UK politics at the moment. This makes life tough. But being in government is about making tough choices.

Do we really need “a thousand extra officers?” Not if they’re in back rooms doing jobs they’re not trained to do on higher wages than their up-to-speed civilian equivalents would be.

Big decisions need to be made by Justice Secretary Michael Matheson. He may have inherited a mess created in the main by his predecessor, whose record in office seems to unravel more and more with every passing day.

However, Kenny MacAskill is not in charge now. Neither is Alex Salmond. It is Mr Matheson and Nicola Sturgeon.

Not cleaning up this utter justice shambles will be an unacceptable failure.

Picture: Kris Miller. The former Glenrothes police control room. A report leaked to The Courier last year said safety would be “compromised” by its closure.