Dumfries Control Rooms Closure
I remind guests who are leaving the gallery, including my guests from St Patrick’s primary school in Coatbridge, that the Parliament is still in session and they should leave as quickly and quietly as possible. Many thanks.
The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-08935, in the name of Elaine Murray, on the closure of Dumfries control rooms. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I expect members to focus on Dumfries control rooms, which should be the main thrust of speeches in the debate.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament regrets the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s decision to close the Dumfries Emergency Control Centre; further regrets the decision by the Scottish Police Authority to close the Dumfries police control centre; believes that there is potential for establishing a joint control room that could also include functions provided for other public service agencies such as Dumfries and Galloway Council and NHS Dumfries and Galloway and notes calls for a full exploration of this prior to the closure of either control centre taking place; regrets what it sees as the lack of consultation with staff, the public and public sector agencies in Dumfries and Galloway, and believes that Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service have failed in their statutory duty to engage in community planning with regard to the closures of the control rooms.
12:33
I thank all the MSPs who supported my motion by signing it. I apologise for my voice—I hope that it survives for the next seven minutes.
I lodged my motion for debate at the beginning of February, shortly after the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board finally made the decisions to close the control rooms in Dumfries, which affect 34 police control room staff and 15 fire and emergency control room staff. Decisions to reduce the numbers of police and fire and rescue emergency control rooms did not affect only Dumfries and Galloway, as other parts of Scotland also lost control rooms. MSPs who represent areas such as North East Scotland have also lodged motions expressing similar concerns about local closures in their areas.
People in Dumfries and Galloway do not make a fuss readily, but local people’s reaction to the decisions was both swift and angry. Almost 9,000 people joined a Facebook campaign to save the police control room. More than 11,000 signed a paper petition, and more than 600 signed an e-petition, objecting to the closure. Local supermarkets allowed campaigners to collect signatures outside their doors, and I congratulate the local branch of Unison on the way in which it organised the campaign to involve so many people in the local community. Copies of the petitions were handed to the chair of the SPA in Inverness yesterday.
There are signs that local reaction to the closures has had some effect. When the chair of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board came to the Justice Committee on 11 March, I brought up the concerns of the so-called displaced emergency control room staff. The staff—mainly female—are uniformed personnel, but they do not ride on, and have not ridden on firefighting appliances. The opportunity for local redeployment is therefore more limited and staff have been advised by human resources that they might be considered for other vacancies—in community safety, for example—if suitable posts are available.
When I questioned Pat Watters on the future of those so-called displaced staff, he said that there would be no compulsory redundancies. I pointed out to him that if people had to travel 170 or 200 miles to get to work, they might not be able to accept an offered opportunity. I asked him:
“Can you guarantee that people will be offered appropriate redeployment and retraining by April next year?”
Mr Watters replied:
“Yes.”—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 11 March 2014; c 4322.]
There seems to have been some movement on police control staff, too. When Chief Constable Sir Stephen House spoke to a Unison seminar on 13 March, he advised that work is under way to identify positions for staff whose jobs are at risk in the Dumfries area, including positions that could be relocated to Dumfries. To date, however, there has been no indication what those positions might be, how many there might be or when they might be available.
I am advised by police control staff that morale is low. Two thirds have taken the decision to leave the service through taking another job, voluntary redundancy or early retirement. There have been worrying changes in the terms and conditions of the supernumerary pool for police control room staff who opt not to take voluntary redundancy or early retirement straight away. The current policy allows staff to go into the pool and if they are not successful in finding alternative employment they can then apply for VR or ER on the same terms as if they had applied straight away. That policy will cease at the end of this month and will be replaced by a policy whereby the VR and ER packages will be reduced after staff have spent 12 weeks in the supernumerary pool, with staff members standing to lose the £10,000 pro rata payment and the four compensatory added years. For most staff in Dumfries who have long service, 12 weeks equates to their notice period. The new policy will in effect force staff to opt for VR or ER rather than try to be redeployed. That sounds like compulsory redundancy in all but name.
Staff will be given notice to leave from 1 May and it is thought that the control room will cease to function by the end of May. I have also been told that, initially, calls will be transferred to Pitt Street, with software installed to enable calls from the functioning control rooms to be passed to the Dumfries police desk, which will be staffed by police officers. The chief constable told the Justice Committee last year that he had “no strategy of backfilling”. There may not be a strategy, but backfilling will clearly happen.
Unison Scotland estimates that 2,000 police staff have lost their jobs, so it is small wonder that it is now balloting its members on strike action and urging members to vote in favour, as in Unison’s view trust between it and Police Scotland has broken down.
My motion also refers to the statutory duty on both Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to take part in community planning. Section 46 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 sets out the chief constable’s duty, exercised through the local commander, and Section 41J(2)(b) sets out the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s responsibilities.
I am astonished that those duties do not seem to have been applicable to the process of closing the control rooms, with the consequent loss of posts in the local community. There was next to no discussion with Dumfries and Galloway Council, nor any meaningful attempt to look at establishing joint control rooms either between the two services or with other services. That raises significant questions about local accountability. Any consultation took place after the decision was taken by the boards—once the horse had bolted.
The Fire Brigades Union Scotland has expressed concerns over the scale of the reduction in emergency control centres, in particular the reduction of cover in the north and north-east of Scotland.
The closure programme has highlighted shortcomings in accountability and governance within Scotland’s single police and fire services. The chief constable is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority and the chief fire officer is accountable to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board but who are the appointed boards accountable to? It does not appear to be Scottish ministers, as whenever MSPs ask questions of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on these issues, we are advised that they are operational matters.
I and my Labour colleagues supported the formation of the single Police Service and the single Fire and Rescue Service; we still do. There are significant advantages in both cases, given the ability to streamline services and avoid duplication and, importantly, the access to specialist services across the country, which we have already seen in Dumfries and Galloway.
However, the process of control room closures highlights serious failings in the mechanisms for accountability that the 2012 act set up. Those decisions were taken without prior consultation with staff, local councils, local communities or trade unions. The Justice Sub-Committee on Policing can call in the chief constable and the chair of the SPA to answer questions, but it has no influence over how their decisions are made, nor can it demand that appropriate consultation takes place, and there does not seem to be any form of appeals mechanism.
In the longer term, I believe that lessons need to be learned and changes made. In the short term, I hope that the levels of support shown by the people of Dumfries and Galloway to the control room staff result, preferably, in the closures being halted altogether, or, if it is too late for that, in acceptable retraining and employment opportunities being offered to all those affected.
Thank you. The debate is popular, so I ask for speeches of four minutes, please.
12:41
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate as it is an issue of significant importance to the constituents whom I represent across Dumfries and Galloway. I am grateful to Elaine Murray for securing the debate.
As Elaine Murray said, the announcement of the closure of the control rooms in Dumfries—and of the police control room in particular—came as a considerable shock to people across the region; the speed with which Police Scotland and the SPA moved from announcement to decision even more so.
That was one of a number of matters that I raised with Chief Constable Sir Stephen House as a matter of urgency following the announcement of the proposal last month. In his response to me, the chief constable advised that he appreciated my concerns over the timescale but that Police Scotland had to be sure that the Scottish Police Authority was willing to support the proposals before Police Scotland could begin discussions with stakeholders.
Both decisions by the Police Service and by the Fire and Rescue Service will clearly have a substantial impact on the staff involved. Although steps have been taken to reassure staff that there will be no compulsory redundancies for police support staff, many of them will not be able to take up offers of alternative employment or retraining by either service if those offers are not local to Dumfries and Galloway. Neither commuting nor relocating is a realistic option for most of the staff if the only opportunities available to them are in the central belt.
I recently met police control room staff in Dumfries with my colleague Joan McAlpine. Their distress—both about the announcement and about how events had unfolded—was clear and entirely understandable. Staff there are right to take pride in the service that they provide, and their situation has attracted widespread support right across the region.
To be fair to the chief constable, I know that he has indicated recently that the prospect of relocating some roles to Dumfries is being examined. I welcome that statement and am keen to see the detail behind it. I have therefore sought further information on the chief constable’s statement and await his response with interest.
I think that there is at least the possibility of shared facilities being examined. Although shared police and fire control rooms were ruled out of the current proposals, like other members I note from recent reports that the concept is now being examined for the future, so why not start with Dumfries and Galloway?
As the motion suggests, other integrated services could be included in such a facility, although I accept that there would have to be careful consideration of which services could be included and how they would work together. However, local authorities, for example, have duties and powers in relation to emergency planning and in co-ordinating emergency responses. There might well be a greater level of synergy between services than a first glance suggests.
Taking into consideration the plans for the national energy industry liaison unit in Aberdeen, there is also the potential, in my view, for a centre of excellence in rural and wildlife crime—which, of course, officers historically based in Dumfries and Galloway have a great deal of experience in dealing with.
I would not for a minute suggest that change is not necessary. I voted for a single police force and a single fire service, as did many members present who are in other parties, and I remain of the opinion that such a change is the best way of fulfilling our commitment to keep the public safe in the face of Westminster’s massive cuts to Scotland’s budget.
Notwithstanding all of that, I hope that Police Scotland, the SPA, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the SFRS board fully understand that people in Dumfries and Galloway are angry and hurt and feel very let down—both by the proposals and, as far as the police control room is concerned, by the way in which the decision was made.
I accept the need for change, but Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service have a duty to their staff, who are loyal, experienced and effective. In my view, that duty extends to staff having meaningful employment opportunities in Dumfries and Galloway.
12:45
I congratulate my colleague Elaine Murray on securing this debate on an important issue that affects 34 staff in the Dumfries police control room. As she and Aileen McLeod said, Labour supported the creation of the single police force; indeed, I have supported the concept for more than a decade, along with the idea of a single fire and rescue service.
For seven years or so, there have been discussions about how to introduce such single-service provision. It was in the gift of those in authority to ensure that cross-service provision could have been considered in order that decisions about back-office services, and control rooms in particular, could have been thought about in the round. In the past few years, more than 1,200 staff have been made redundant by the police, and a proportionately equivalent number of fire and rescue staff have also been made redundant. Unison indicates that that number will soon rise to nearly 2,000. The 34 staff in the Dumfries police control room were concerned about their posts in November last year and asked to be informed of circumstances and developments. They were told that no information was available to them but that they would learn about their futures, first and foremost, from Police Scotland. However, the first information that they got came from the newspapers, which was devastating for staff who had shown loyalty over a great number of years.
The key issues that lie behind the matter that we are discussing are not only the manner in which the decision was taken but the absence of any meaningful consultation, either with the staff about the challenges that were to be faced and the notion of cross-service support, or with the local community about arrangements. The local authority was unable to provide feedback about how emergency service provision could be delivered in the circumstances of a public emergency. Public opinion—the public’s views—on whether a public service was being provided in an acceptable manner is another important issue.
As a result, police and fire staff feel abused and Unison is balloting staff members on a strike. I understand that interim arrangements have put in place 10 police officers to operate a public inquiry desk at Dumfries in the absence of a control room facility, which I can describe only as backfilling. Arrangements are in place to enable calls to be transferred from a Glasgow call centre to that inquiry desk so that they can be appropriately managed.
All of that does not look like good planning. It is not sufficient for the Government to say that these are operational matters for the SPA to consider. There seems to be no way in which we in this chamber can have effective oversight of the process, and no way in which local consultation can be delivered in a way that ensures that communities feel supported and considered.
12:49
I join other members in congratulating Elaine Murray on securing this important debate on an issue that has struck a chord with communities across Dumfries and Galloway. It is good to see people from Wigtown in the public gallery today.
The debate underlines a truly significant change to the way in which our police and fire and rescue services operate their control rooms in Dumfries and Galloway. I cannot agree with the decisions of the two boards to close the police and fire control rooms in Dumfries at a cost of 49 civilian staff.
The closures are not good for policing and fire services across Dumfries and Galloway but, sadly, it is an inevitable symptom of the Government’s move to centralise the emergency services—something that the Liberal Democrats, unlike others, have been warning of since as far back as 2010.
No price can be put on community safety. Although no one would want the discussion to descend into panic about crime on the streets spiralling out of control or increased response times, it is a legitimate concern that local knowledge and jobs will be lost as calls are transferred to a centralised call centre in Glasgow. The old Dumfries and Galloway police force was praised by Audit Scotland for its record on tackling crime. On the basis of what local people, including police staff, have told me, I believe that it is unavoidable that the local knowledge that has been built up over years, through their knowing and working in the area and getting to know its communities and individuals, will disappear. That break in intelligence could have a significant impact on community safety when our emergency services need to respond.
Elaine Murray’s motion highlights the lack of consultation with staff. I pay tribute to the staff, who have behaved with dignity and respect throughout the process in the face of such appalling treatment by their employers. Sadly, their voices have been ignored. The Scottish Government’s much-trumpeted policy of no compulsory redundancies has not meant much to the employees in Dumfries who may face relocation or a commute to Glasgow. I do not think that either is a feasible option. Elaine Murray is right to say that we have seen 49 civilian fire and police staff face compulsory redundancy “in all but name”.
I recognise that efforts are under way to relocate some police staff. However, there remains a great deal of uncertainty for employees and their families. How many people will be transferred to new posts? Will any new jobs be at the same salary, grading and terms and conditions? Given the lack of consultation with staff until now, what guarantees are being offered that proper consultation will now take place with staff? Perhaps a sign of discontent within the civilian ranks is the decision by Unison to ballot its members on strike action—a decision that I am sure it did not take lightly.
The loss of jobs in any region is bad for individuals, families and the wider community, but the impact is much greater in a large rural region such as Dumfries and Galloway, in which communities are dependent on the public sector for employment and every job is vital. When public sector agencies withdraw from our rural areas, we run the risk of taking away prime employment. The decisions to remove control rooms that have been made by the SPA and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board, helped along by the Scottish Government’s centralist reforms, create a dangerous precedent in removing much-needed civil service jobs from rural South Scotland.
If the minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice do not believe Opposition MSPs about the effect of the Government’s reforms on policing and fire services, I hope that they will listen to the police civilian staff members who are currently being balloted on strike action. I hope that they can give some assurance that the invaluable skills and knowledge of those employees will not be swept up in the centralist tidal wave.
12:53
I, too, congratulate Elaine Murray on securing the debate—and on making a fine speech, despite an obviously uncomfortable throat infection.
I highlight the fantastic job that is done by our local police and fire services, particularly in their engagement with their local communities. They have been praised for their work in schools, through which they develop relationships with young people, and support for Victim Support Scotland’s referral scheme remains at the same level as in previous years. The local fire service is known for its expertise in animal, water and line rescue as well as for ensuring that the road coverage is kept to a high standard in an area where road collisions are among the worst in Scotland.
As my colleague Aileen McLeod mentioned, we visited the staff whose jobs are threatened at the Dumfries police control room. We saw the control room working and were very impressed by the level of local knowledge and the efficiency that the staff showed. They were all wearing badges that said “Front Line”, which had been given to them by their union. They are the front line because they are the public’s first point of contact when there is an emergency.
As I said, the local police and fire services do an excellent job. That is not the issue; the issue, which has been highlighted by colleagues throughout the chamber, is the unacceptable lack of public consultation on the proposals. Much of the negative publicity about the closure of the control rooms has centred on that lack of public consultation, and rightly so.
When I was first alerted to the proposed removal of the police control room, I wrote to the Scottish Police Authority and Chief Constable Sir Stephen House, outlining the fact that taking decisions in such a way created the risk that a service that was once perceived as close to the community would be perceived as becoming distant from it. A longer and more transparent engagement with interested parties would have been welcome. I was disappointed in the chief constable’s response to my concerns. I had hoped to secure a meeting with him and open up a dialogue about alternative proposals but my request was unsuccessful.
I understand that decisions by Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are operational. As I recall, unlike SNP and Labour MSPs, Conservative MSPs abstained from voting in favour of police and fire reform. One of the Conservatives’ fears was that the new police service would not maintain its distance from the political process. Perhaps Sir Stephen’s unwillingness to meet me should reassure them that there is less interference in—or no influence over—policing on the part of politicians.
The member and the justice secretary have said that there has been no political interference. Is it therefore a complete coincidence that the Police Authority and the Fire and Rescue Service Board met at exactly the same time to make exactly the same decisions?
That would be pure speculation. I am not party to their diaries. As I understand it, those were operational decisions. They were not decisions with which I agreed.
I am very proud that in Scotland we have managed to increase police numbers. For example, compared with figures for the first quarter in 2007, the figures for the first quarter in 2013 showed that police numbers were up 6 per cent in Dumfries and Galloway. That is the trend throughout Scotland.
That brings me to the crux of the issue. As members are aware, under current circumstances, our budget for justice, the police and the fire service is controlled by our grant from Westminster. Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic decline in the justice budget in England and Wales, with a drop in police numbers of 10 per cent. Police and fire reform has allowed us to ensure that the massive cuts to Scotland’s budget from Westminster do not result in equivalent cuts in the number of officers. In fact, Scotland has an extra 1,000 police officers, while in England officers are being made redundant.
Ms McAlpine, you need to close, and perhaps you could close on the issue of control rooms in Dumfries.
Yes.
As I said, I supported a single force, but I do not support a central force. That could be the danger posed by some recent decisions by the commanders of those services. I look for reassurance for my constituents on that point.
12:58
I congratulate Elaine Murray on not only securing the debate but campaigning on the issue on behalf of her constituents, in Dumfries and at the Scottish Parliament. As she said, the creation of single services had the potential to see waste and duplication eliminated and resources transferred to the front line. Instead, we have seen a wholesale centralisation of services into the central belt and cuts and closures everywhere else.
Dumfries shows more than any other case just how cynically those closure plans were made. There is no way that the control rooms in Dumfries would be closing quite so soon if the closures had not been planned for quite some time before being sanctioned by their respective boards. As Dr Murray said, the failure of the police and fire boards to consult local councils and communities has been in spite of those boards’ statutory obligations on community planning. They have failed in that duty in the case of Dumfries and Galloway and throughout the country.
The shoddy treatment of firefighters employed in control rooms and of civilian staff employed in police control rooms and service centres has had a real and serious impact on industrial relations in our emergency services in Dumfries and elsewhere. On the morning of its meeting, the fire board was presented with a change in the costings of the various options that were before it of more than £1 million—apparently the only way for management to secure a majority at the meeting for its preferred option of closing every control room outwith the central belt.
The Fire Brigades Union is understandably angry about how the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board disregarded its submission. However, moving the goalposts at the fire board’s meeting was as nothing in comparison with what transpired at the meeting when the Police Authority decided on police control room closures, including the closure of the Dumfries centre.
At that meeting, there was no vote and no serious questions were asked about the consequences of the proposed closures. Alternative options were not even properly debated. Nobody spoke up for staff or the public in Dumfries or anywhere else. It is as if the decision was minor and insignificant—it has been handed down from on high—rather than a decision to withdraw vital services from large parts of Scotland, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. So angry are police staff that Unison, Unite and other unions are balloting their members on industrial action, which nobody in the emergency services considers doing lightly, as Jim Hume said.
The situation is ministers’ responsibility. Their failure to accept any of the many amendments to the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill that were designed to achieve some local accountability makes them ultimately accountable for the decisions that the boards that they appointed have taken.
Now we hear talk of shared control rooms for emergency services—I heard clearly what Aileen McLeod said—at the very time when the boards that ministers appointed are pressing ahead with plans to close control rooms from Dumfries to Aberdeen. Ministers could and should step in now to order the closure plans to be set aside if they are serious about listening to the proposals on shared-service solutions in the affected cities and towns.
Ministers should recognise that closing a control room in a town or city that is many miles from the nearest alternative workplace is compulsory redundancy. They should acknowledge that current policies and closure decisions have seriously damaged relationships between employers and workers in our emergency services. They should also call a halt to the closure programme until genuine and meaningful consultation has taken place with local staff, councils and communities. In that way, loyal public servants from Dumfries to Aberdeen will feel that they are at least noticed by the Government of the day rather than that they are overlooked and disregarded for daring to live and work outwith the central belt.
13:02
I commend Elaine Murray for lodging the motion. My comments will reflect the views of my colleague Alex Fergusson, who fully intended to speak in this important debate but cannot do so because of unforeseen circumstances.
With jobs being lost and services withdrawn not just in Dumfries but Scotland-wide, the motion accurately reflects the mood up and down Scotland. To provide some context to the changes that are to happen in Dumfries, it is worth looking at the issue in the round.
A few weeks ago, 61 police station public counters were closed, including those in stations in Kirkcudbright and Dalbeattie, which are close to Dumfries. That leaves only 153 police stations open to the public, in comparison with the 386 stations that were open to the public in 2007, when the Scottish National Party came to power. Those closures have not only resulted in job losses; in Dumfries and Galloway, they represent a withdrawal of front-line local services.
In addition, the Scottish Government last year pushed through the closure of 10 sheriff courts and seven justice of the peace courts—including that in Kirkcudbright—with a result that can be described only as the withdrawal of justice from many rural communities. Most recently, the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board have approved plans to close six police control rooms and five fire control rooms, including those in Dumfries.
The closures are putting considerable strain on our rural communities because they will result in the loss of highly skilled jobs. Worryingly, they also represent a withdrawal of local justice and a reduction in the quality of the service that is offered in order to save money. The closure of Dumfries police control room clearly illustrates that point. It will affect 34 quality jobs, which is a major blow in a rural community.
We are assured that no compulsory redundancies will be made, but we know that staff are being asked to relocate by considerable distances or to apply for unsuitable and often lower-paid jobs. As many members have said, that is compulsory redundancy in all but name.
When I visited Dumfries in January as part of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing’s scrutiny of local policing, I heard first hand from those who were in a position to know that the closure of control rooms will result in a loss of local knowledge. Police Scotland has repeatedly dismissed that concern, but with emergency calls being diverted from Dumfries, there is absolutely no possibility that call handlers from Glasgow or Motherwell, 65 or 75 miles away, will have the same knowledge that those in the area have.
The truth is that local people have barely been consulted on the move. A token consultation was lodged towards the end of last year, and the decision to close was taken in late January this year. As the chair of Unison police staff Scotland, Stevie Diamond, confirmed, the Scottish Police Authority was not allowed to consider alternatives to closure.
Information technology reforms that could have allowed the existing sites, including in Dumfries, to be retained by allowing them to communicate with others and deploy officers from different legacy forces were dismissed in the SPA policy document and were not even considered by the SPA board, on the basis of costs.
The decisions are bad decisions that are being implemented badly without accountability to the public. The public are entitled to expect accountability.
13:06
Good afternoon, Presiding Officer. I, too, thank Elaine Murray for securing this debate.
I was very sorry to hear that Police Scotland has decided to cut the number of control rooms that are operated by the new national force. I feel sorry for all the civilian staff, as their jobs—34 in Police Scotland and 15 in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service—are disappearing. I understand that there is considerable anger and resentment at the proposal. As a result of the decision, public confidence in Police Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway and possibly around the country will rapidly diminish.
Police Scotland has said:
“The implementation of the proposal will improve the response to 999 ... calls”.
I say that it will threaten community safety. Local knowledge is important for a quick response time, and only local people who are based in local stations can provide that service. The closures will put lives in danger and aid the petty criminal. In turn, crime rates will go up.
We are told that IT systems will pinpoint the locations of callers, but can we be sure? Technology can fail and does fail on occasion, and local place names will not be found on mapping systems. In addition, local dialects can mean that callers are difficult to understand, especially if the call handler is in a completely different part of the country. Sometimes we have that problem just within Glasgow.
There needs to be fuller consultation in the closures process to ensure that control rooms are properly considered, and that consultation should take place urgently. I could not believe and cannot begin to understand how shocked the staff members were. Why were they not consulted, or at the very least warned? The people affected are well-trained, experienced and dedicated workers whose local knowledge and professionalism have provided help and reassurance and saved lives on many occasions.
The decision is certainly a strategic one, and Glasgow, Stirling, Glenrothes and Aberdeen will probably be next. I call on the minister to reassure me that that is not the case, that the Government will carry out a proper consultation with the unions and staff in any other place that is to be considered, and that people will be treated with the respect and dignity to which they are entitled.
We do not seem to understand that many of the workers, who deal with difficult calls on occasion, have years of experience. I genuinely believe that that experience will be lost, which will be to the cost of our communities. It is important that we treat people with due care and attention. The Government has the responsibility to do the honourable thing, which is to consult people and ensure that we carry them with us. I hope that the minister will address my fears.
13:10
As other members have done, I welcome the opportunity that Elaine Murray has provided for further debate on police and fire control rooms. I congratulate her on getting through her speech despite the obvious difficulties that she was having with her voice.
I listened with interest to the speeches. It is important to set some context for the discussion. The fire and police services have made unequivocal commitments to protecting front-line delivery despite Westminster cuts. They are improving the services that they deliver to communities to make them safer. The aim of creating a safer and stronger Scotland is right at the heart of what both services do. It is what they are about and it is the foundation on which decisions are made.
As Elaine Murray knows, it is not the recent reform that brought rationalisation of control rooms to the fore. Just two weeks ago, Ms Murray and the rest of the Justice Committee heard that discussions on the issue have been under way for years. Piecemeal and unco-ordinated work across Scotland’s legacy services sought to identify precious savings to protect an even more precious front-line resource. The Dumfries fire control room was earmarked for closure long before the single services came along. On average, it receives only three or four calls per day, despite having 15 staff. The police control room, with 34 non-uniformed staff, receives on average fewer than 30 calls per day. That is simply unsustainable, particularly when budgets are under significant pressure.
Does the minister accept that the staff do an awful lot more than just answering emergency calls? They have a load of other responsibilities, as I am sure the members who visited recently observed when they were there.
That might be true, but it is important that we keep in mind that the control-room function operates on the basis of the figures that I have given. That is unsustainable, particularly when budgets are under pressure.
Police Scotland is still involved in statutory consultation with the affected staff, and not all staff have indicated their preference. Aileen McLeod, Joan McAlpine and Elaine Murray will no doubt be pleased to hear that a variety of potential options have been identified, including voluntary redundancy and redeployment or transferring to other jobs in the service in Dumfries and Galloway, which I assume would be welcome. There is also engagement with public sector partners outwith the service. A great deal of discussion is taking place.
As the Fire Brigades Union and Her Majesty’s chief inspector of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service recently emphasised, the creation of single services provides the opportunity to take a holistic approach and to develop resilient 21st-century control infrastructures.
Jim Hume made a point about the meetings of the two boards coinciding to take the same decisions on the same day. In fact, he is wrong about that, and I think that he must know that, because the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service had already made a number of decisions in September last year, which included the decision on the Dumfries and Galloway control room and two other control rooms, based on the stark statistic that I mentioned of an average of four emergency calls a day.
Given that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board took a couple of bites at the issue before coming to a decision, was the minister as surprised as everyone else was that the Scottish Police Authority made such quick decisions on the basis of little prior discussion?
As Lewis Macdonald knows well, it is not my job as a minister to put myself in the place of the chief constable and senior officers of Police Scotland and to micromanage their decision-making process for them.
Police and fire services have been bold enough to tackle difficult challenges head on and, as a result, will ensure that resources are more effectively mobilised right across the country, reducing the risk of operational failure. The boundaries of the former services are no more.
Joint police and fire control rooms have categorically not been ruled out, but the issue is one for the future. The risks and costs involved would simply be a step too far at this time. That is the professional opinion of those whom we charge with keeping us safe. With that in mind, surely Elaine Murray and others agree that it would be wholly inappropriate to consider an even more radical, and no doubt more costly and more risky proposal for joint delivery at this stage.
However, that absolutely does not mean that collaboration is off the agenda. Engagement is under way across the blue-light services to consider how, in time, systems can be better integrated and resources shared effectively. Next week, a joint event bringing the police and fire boards together is taking place. I guarantee that exploring options for working together will be up for discussion.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I have taken enough interventions.
I repeat what I said in a similar debate last month: in any change programme decisions will be made that cannot please everyone. Elaine Murray usefully reminded us that Labour supported the move to the single services, but it seems that its idea of single services would have resulted in a dedicated control centre for every community planning partnership—that is the logic of its argument.
Jim Hume mentioned the huge change that the control-room proposals will bring, but we were here before in the 1970s, when local authority reorganisation took place, including big changes to police and fire services. I do not know whether members in the chamber retrospectively wish that that had not happened; perhaps they should tell us if that is the case.
I note in passing that, while alleging a centralising agenda on the part of ministers, some members urge us to step in and overrule two boards. No doubt such a decision would eventually be held up as an example of political control of police and fire services.
In truth, we need to put our trust and faith in the professionals, under the scrutiny of their boards, when they assure us that front-line services will be improved, everyone across Scotland will have better access to the services that they need, and that will all be mobilised through modern, resilient control-room infrastructures.
That is what the reforms—voted for by the Parliament—were intended to deliver. I firmly believe that that is exactly what those consummate professionals will deliver.
13:18
Meeting suspended.
14:30
On resuming—