Police call centres to close later this year

POLICE call centres in Inverness and Aberdeen will cease operation by October, Police Scotland has announced

Police call centres in Inverness and Aberdeen will cease operation by October, Police Scotland has announced. Picture: John Devlin

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 car.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary 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.