At today’s meeting of Dumfries and Galloway Council (Thursday 6 February), Council Leader Ronnie Nicholson gave a strong statement on his views about the closure of the Police Control Room in Dumfries. The closure by Police Scotland was approved at last week’s meeting of the Scottish Police Authority. Councillor Nicholson said, “On Wednesday 22 January, both the Depute Leader and I met with Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick of Police Scotland. We raised our concerns over the future of the Police Control Room and we stressed that before any final decisions were made there was a need for consultation with partners, including local authorities. DCC Fitzpatrick stated she had no details that any announcement or decision was imminent, but gave a commitment there would be early engagement and dialogue before any changes were made. Twenty-four hours later the proposal to close Dumfries Control Room was on the front page of the Herald newspaper. This has left both the Depute Leader and I believing that we were misled by Police Scotland and questioning Police Scotland’s commitment at national level to any meaningful partnership working and engagement. I took the opportunity to raise this at the COSLA Leaders’ meeting on Friday 31 January 2014 and the matter will be further debated by COSLA Leaders at their February meeting. The proposals for Police Control Room closures were published formally on 24 January with just one week’s notice before the Scottish Police Authority’s meeting. Ahead of the meeting the Depute Leader and I made representations to both the Police Authority and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. However, the proposals were effectively rubber stamped by the Authority members with no dissent and little meaningful scrutiny. The proposals in relation to Dumfries will mean that in just over 2 months time the control room locally will close with the loss of 34 civilian staff jobs. Dumfries was chosen as the first stage of the transition, despite it being the most difficult commute option for alternative control room employment. It is clear from speaking to staff that redeployment is simply not an option. This is compulsory redundancy for those staff by another name. This is not necessarily an issue about the rights or wrongs of a Scotland wide Police force or even whether Police Scotland’s argument regarding technology improving services is valid or not. For me, it is an issue about whether we have a police force that is seriously interested in working in partnership with local authorities, what, if any, the relationship is between the Scottish Police Authority and local communities and most importantly it is about ensuring that there is a fair distribution of civil service jobs in every part of Scotland, whether that is Police Scotland or any other national public body. If we are to genuinely have a Scotland wide police service that isn’t just about having a distribution of officers in our region, we also need to have our fair share of civilian posts. I will be writing to Police Scotland’s Chief Constable, Sir Stephen House, to request a meeting to raise this point, to discuss whether any alternatives to the Dumfries closure will be considered, but also my concerns over the relationship between Police Scotland and local authorities. I will also be writing to Vic Emmery, the Chair of the Scottish Police Authority to request a separate meeting to discuss my concerns over the way in which they handled these proposals and their complete failure to press Police Scotland on what their strategic plans are for the Police service. Police Scotland are simply bringing forward proposals on an ad hoc basis that are being nodded through by the Police Authority, without any clear vision of what the future structure of the service should be and what that means for communities such as Dumfries and Galloway and the dedicated staff and officers who serve our region. My message from this council to Police Scotland is very clear. If you are to go ahead with this closure then the only way you can be fully recognised as a service for the whole of Scotland is to ensure that you locate other functions in Dumfries to provide staff losing their posts with alternative employment. Councillor Nicholson asked the councillors to agree to place on record the Council’s unanimous opposition to the closure of Dumfries Police Control Room and the way on which the decision was handled. He also asked councillors to give their full support to Control Room employees who will become redundant shortly. To support these staff, councillors agreed to the Council making every effort in pursuing Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to either cancel or postpone the closure proposals and consider ways of either continuing with the Control Room in Dumfries or providing suitable alternative employment for these employees, who realistically do not have the opportunity of redeploying to the central belt. Depute Leader, Brian Collins, gave support to the views of the Leader on the issue of the closures. He said “The Leader and I met with DCC Rose Fitzpatrick on 22nd February. It is not that long ago that this Council was the police authority for our region. Such a meeting would therefore have been commonplace until recently. Certainly it would not have been so out of the ordinary that either you or I could be in any way mistaken about what was, and more importantly, was not said about Dumfries control room. As the police authority for our region we were accustomed to enjoying a good relationship with our local police officers of all ranks. Our understandable disappointment at senior commanders of Police Scotland aside, I have every confidence in Chief Superintendent Kate Thomson and the officers of V Division. I think we do have a good working relationship and, for my part, I am determined that will continue. As the police authority many members here have considerable experience of scrutinising the police and holding its senior officers to account. We have done so for years. I saw very little either of scrutiny or of holding Police Scotland to account in the Scottish Police Authority’s consideration of the control rooms proposal at their meeting last week. I can only imagine how galling it will have been for the control room staff I met last week to see the proposal agreed, unamended, leaving them the first to face the consequences of closure in a matter of weeks from now. It is not Police Scotland’s function to deliver economic regeneration – that is our job. Aspects of the case they made in favour of reorganising control rooms are persuasive. However, it is, in my view, the role of the Scottish Police Authority to balance the operational needs of the police force with the wider interests of ensuring that the benefits of public sector jobs are distributed throughout Scotland. In that regard at least they have failed the South of Scotland. Although the SPA has made its decision, we should not let the matter lie there. It is entirely right that we continue to pursue the interests of those civilian staff who, as you say, face redundancy in all but name. We have had far too little time to respond to this situation, but we have not been idle. I too hope that all members will support the actions this Administration has already taken, and what we propose to do next, to promote this region’s interests, send a clear message that the way this has been sprung on our region is unacceptable, and do the best we can for the staff.”