Police Scotland recorded 330 call-room failures in the last three years, it has been revealed.
The figure, which denotes the number of ‘Notable Incidents’ reported, records any instance where the actions of call-room operators negatively impacted the reputation of Police Scotland or its partners.
The statistics, obtained by the Scottish Conservatives via a Freedom of Information request, include 53 incidents of missing or recording the wrong information, as well as a failure to identify risk on 34 occasions – including child protection incidents.
Call-room failings “materially contributed” to the death of Lamara Bell in 2015, after it took three days for police to arrive on the scene following the report of an accident on the M9.
Police Scotland have requested increased funding for services, but the SNP Government handed them a real-terms cut to their capital funding in the most recent budget.
The police’s efforts have also been hampered by having the lowest number of officers since 2009.
The Scottish Conservatives have called on the SNP Government to provide additional funding to improve public safety.
Scottish Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Jamie Greene MSP, said: “These are completely unacceptable failures, which could have serious consequences for public safety across Scotland.
“Call-rooms are at the frontline of policing, and failure to effectively pass on information can have awful outcomes, such as in the tragic case of Lamara Bell.
“These failures are the result of overstretched officers having to make up for the SNP Government's neglect.
"The SNP’s police merger has closed more than 130 local stations, taken local officers off our streets and centralised call-handling away from local communities.
"Those issue have been compounded by the government cutting the Police Scotland capital budget in real terms and denying officers vital improvements.
“This cannot be allowed to continue. We have brought forward proposals for a Local Policing Act to give Police Scotland more resources and get more officers out in the community."
Notes
Police Scotland recorded 330 call-room failures in the last three years. Police Scotland said 330 negative ‘Notable Incidents’ occurred in the last three years from 2019-20 to the current financial year. Police Scotland define a ‘Notable Incident’ as ‘any incident or event where the effectiveness of the C3 Division response is likely to have a significant impact on the reputation of the Division, Police Scotland or our partners and from which learning could potentially be obtained as a result of the manner in which it was dealt with.’ (Police Scotland, Freedom of information response IM-FOI-2022-0408, 21 February 2022, link).
This includes 53 incidents of missing or recording the wrong information. Police Scotland said there were 53 incidents of ‘incorrect/missing information’. Police Scotland said this includes recording the wrong location where an incident has occurred or recording the wrong contact details for victims/witnesses. (Police Scotland, Freedom of information response IM-FOI-2022-0408, 21 February 2022, link).
Police Scotland have failed to identify risk on 34 occasions including child protection incidents. Police Scotland said there were 34 incidents where there was a ‘failure to identify risk’. They said this includes ‘failing to properly identify domestic, child protection etc.’ and had led to an inappropriate police response as a result. (Police Scotland, Freedom of information response IM-FOI-2022-0408, 21 February 2022, link).