Police call centres in Inverness and Aberdeen will cease operation by October, Police Scotland has announced.
All 101 and 999 calls in the Inverness area will be diverted to Scotland’s central belt by late August and the deployment of officers and resources will be handled in Dundee.
Contact, command and control (C3) functions in Aberdeen will switch to the central belt and Dundee by late August.
Police Scotland has created a new National Virtual Service Centre – which spans Govan in Glasgow, Bilston Glen in Edinburgh and Motherwell – and a new area control room in Dundee.
The cash-strapped force had hoped to close Inverness and Aberdeen call centres by the end of 2015 but this was put on hold following a damning report by the police inspectorate, after a couple lay undiscovered by the M9 for three days despite a reported sighting of their wrecked car.
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMICS) found performance in the north control rooms was falling below the force target for 101 (non-emergency) calls, with “unacceptably high” pressure of call demand on the remaining staff.
It said Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee should remain appropriately staffed until the new call centres are fully operational.
Today, Police Scotland said: “In line with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s (HMICS) recommendations, Police Scotland continues to plan to remodel C3 Division in keeping with the previously approved strategic direction.
“Today, staff were informed of the latest developments, which include potential dates for changes to be implemented.
“This is an indicative timeline which will be subject to scrutiny and independent review prior to implementation, in keeping with HMICS recommendations.
“This is essential to enable effective planning and part of our commitment to keep the staff informed of all developments.
“We also informed them that we plan to work towards moving all 101 and 999 Emergency calls from Dundee into the National Virtual Service Centre, based at Bilston Glen, Govan and Motherwell, with effect from late June 2016.
“By late August 2016 we propose to have moved all telephony within Inverness (101 and 999 calls) to the National Virtual Service Centre and at the same time all command and control functionality will pass across to Dundee Regional Control Room.
“By late October 2016, in a similar fashion to Inverness, it is proposed all telephony and command and control functionality will switch from Aberdeen to the National Virtual Service Centre and the Dundee Regional Control Room.
“Police Scotland remains committed to protecting our front line delivery and therefore the pace of change will be managed in a safe and assured way.
“No changes will be implemented until they have been approved by Scottish Police Authority.”