Illness and staff shortages are leaving thousands of callers to police in Dundee hanging on the telephone.
Only 75% of the 17,644 non-emergency calls received in the city in July were answered within 40 seconds, well short of the 90% target.
A Scottish Police Authority (SPA) report has revealed control rooms and service centres in Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness the single force’s North Region all fell short of the non- emergency call handling target.
There are 13 area control room staff five police officers and eight civilian staff absent across the North Region.
While an exact breakdown across the sites is not available, The Courier understands that a “significant” number of the absences are in Dundee.
By comparison, service centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow routinely met the target in July, a move one union chief suggested was thanks to an ongoing recruitment drive in the East and West regions.
George McIrvine, Unison police staff Scotland branch secretary, said: “They’ve recruited in Govan for the West, they’re at Bilston Glen at the moment recruiting people, so that’s only going to get better because they’re throwing overtime, new staff andeverything at it.”
The SPA report states: “It can be seen that performance in the North is not meeting that in the West and East.
“Since the announcement of the strategic direction of the division in January 2014 we have experienced a significant increase in the number of resignations in this area, particularly Aberdeen and, despite several recruitment campaigns, have been unable to recruit suitable staff in that area.
“A number of mechanisms have been put in place to support call handling in these areas but this situation will not be fully recovered until the remodelling programme is complete.”
Mr McIrvine said: “The remodelling programme is effectively the closure of Aberdeen and Inverness, similar to what they’ve done in the East, by closingGlenrothes and Stirling.
“In Dundee, their workload is going to increase.As it stands, they’re running down Aberdeen and Inverness and the staff up there are demoralised because thewriting’s on the wall.
“Stuff is coming to Dundee, there’s not enough staff to cover the calls, they’re demoralised and going off on the sick.
“Stress is a big factor in the absence rates. People are having to carry out far more work under the pressures of less staff in the workplace.
“It’s a downward spiral when it comes to performance targets for answering calls.”
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: “Quite simply, thesefigures show once again that our centralised police system isn’t working for all of Scotland.
“101 calls are a vital part of afunctioning police service. It’s utterly unacceptable that many people arehaving to wait for too long as this will only deter people from reporting crime.”