A Renfrewshire councillor has welcomed the introduction of a new Police Scotland call system.
Kenny MacLaren, SNP councillor for Paisley Northwest, is a member of the Police and Fire& Rescue Scrutiny Sub-Committee of Renfrewshire Council.
In introducing this new system, Police Scotland will be able to have specially trained police officers and staff to make an enhanced assessment of threat, harm, risk and vulnerability. This new approach will offer a wider range of options to provide assistance based on the callers needs and circumstances.
This could include immediate attendance at the incident or within a specified timeframe, an appointment with a police officer or assistance directly over the phone. This means that Police Scotland might deal with the same type of call differently depending on the needs of the caller, after assessing their vulnerability and the risk and harm posed to them.
Making a more robust assessment of threat, harm, risk and vulnerability will ensure that the correct, most effective police response is provided to every caller. The public will still call 101 and 999 as they do now, there is no change to the way you can contact Police Scotland. Rather than having a ‘one size fits all’ approach to certain types of calls, under the new approach, service advisers will take into account the needs and circumstances of everyone who contacts Police Scotland to provide an appropriate and proportionate policing response.
Councillor Kenny MacLaren, said: “The new way of assessing calls to 101 and 999 calls aims to increase the ability of Police Scotland to despatch police officers to urgent incidents,”
“This new system of assessing calls should ensure the most appropriate response from Police Scotland, ensuring that there will be officers available for urgent incidents.
“It also means that it may be more appropriate for some callers to be given an appointment later for Police Scotland officers to contact them about an incident, freeing up resources at the frontline.
“It’s hoped that this new approach will help both the public and Police Scotland, ensuring the right resources are available for each call.”