Police Scotland Fiddling Response Times

[irc]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-cen...

Incoming calls to Police Scotland are recorded on the STORM command and control system. The system logs, among other info, the time before a unit is allocated to attend.

One control room was using an non existent callsign DUMY to allocate calls to so that response targets were not met.

This was obviously a senior management policy not a rogue cop or sergeant in the control room. The cops at the coalface would be disciplined for far less than this.

The document released under FOI describes the practice as " artificial levels of incident management performance."". I would describe it as fraud.

Edited by irc on Thursday 30th March 08:30

[MustangGT]

It can only be fraud if there is financial or personal gain, dictionary definition:

wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

Deceitful and misleading for sure.

[Rushjob]

I think someone up there needs to make themselves aware of the contents of the Police Scotland Standards of Professional Behaviour and Code of Ethics........

[shouldbworking]

I read this and didn't understand it, were calls assigned to the dummy unit never actioned or were they actioned but late? Surely if hundreds of emergency calls were unanswered we would have heard much sooner

[CraigyMc]

shouldbworking said:

I read this and didn't understand it, were calls assigned to the dummy unit never actioned or were they actioned but late? Surely if hundreds of emergency calls were unanswered we would have heard much sooner

1/3 of them were actioned but late.
2/3rds of them were never actioned.

[Jamescrs]

shouldbworking said:

I read this and didn't understand it, were calls assigned to the dummy unit never actioned or were they actioned but late? Surely if hundreds of emergency calls were unanswered we would have heard much sooner

I suspect it doesn't relate to emergency calls but the lower priority ones, such as the ones which are typically given a 1 hour response time or longer, emergency calls require a 15 minute response time for reference

[CraigyMc]

Jamescrs said:

shouldbworking said:

I read this and didn't understand it, were calls assigned to the dummy unit never actioned or were they actioned but late? Surely if hundreds of emergency calls were unanswered we would have heard much sooner

I suspect it doesn't relate to emergency calls but the lower priority ones, such as the ones which are typically given a 1 hour response time or longer, emergency calls require a 15 minute response time for reference

No.

There's a breakdown and a significant number of them were priority 1s.

Have a read of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-cen... for more info.

[Bigends]

Target setting has always led to corruption of some kind - someone at senior level would have authorised this process.

[CraigyMc]

Bigends said:

Target setting has always led to corruption of some kind - someone at senior level would have authorised this process.

Not only authorised it once then left it. When they transitioned from the old, local (Bilston Glen, midlothian) call-handling system where it was introduced to the new national system, the "dummy" unit was not available on the national system. The staff in the Bilston Glen call handling centre lobbied to have it added to the national system, and someone high up (it's redacted who) signed it off again.

Then the glasgow call handling centre found out what Bilston Glen had been doing because by that point it was on the national system, and ended it, by ending it. It's feasible that if the systems hadn't merged this would not have been found out.

The BBC only got data for a 6 week period, during which, about 100 P1 calls were assigned to the dummy unit. If extrapolated to the life of the old Bilston Glen system, it's 7000 P1 shouts that were assigned to the dummy unit and not attended immediately. Only about 1/3rd were attended at all.

The word "scandal" is overused, but in this case it's appropriate. Those were 999 calls that a call handler assessed as needing attendance.

EFA

Edited by CraigyMc on Thursday 30th March 13:55