Lives will be put at risk if plans to send emergency calls from Aberdeen and Inverness to centres in other parts of the country go ahead, an MSP has warned.
Police Scotland has come under fire for the way calls from members of the public are handled.
A recent investigation by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary Scotland (HMICS) – ordered in the wake of the force’s failure to respond to reports of what turned out to be a double fatal crash on the M9 – found there is serious flaws in the system.
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Now, local MSP Lewis Macdonald fears things could get even worse if Police Scotland press ahead with plans to send 999 and 101 calls from the north and north-east through a virtual service centre in the central belt.
From there, incidents will be bounced to an area control room in Dundee for dispatching police officers.
Mr Macdonald described the “extra layer” as an “extra opportunity for something to go wrong”, such as reports being incorrectly recorded or communication failures to frontline officers.
The plans, currently on hold, would come into force if the closure of call centres in Aberdeen and Inverness go ahead.
“What this does is creates a distance between the call and the response and instead of it being a simplified process it becomes complicated by different stages,” Mr Macdonald said.
“There will inevitably be delays, but there’s also an increased opportunity for things to go wrong. We know how badly things have gone in the past. It’s asking for trouble.
“We do not yet know the details of the M9 deaths, but we know that when you put too much pressure on too few people and make a system more complicated then things can go horribly wrong.”
Mr Macdonald said callers contacting the police 18 months ago would get through to someone at a local centre with knowledge of the area in a one-stop shop system.
But he said calls have been increasingly answered in service centres in other parts of the country.
Police Scotland have said they will adopt the 30 recommendations of the HMICS review.
Chief Superintendent Alan Speirs said: “We will ensure that all the lessons learned from this review are reflected in the change programme for our centres in the North as we continue with our planning and consultation.”
He added: “I want to reassure the public that handling 999 and 101 calls is a key part of our frontline policing response.
“Officers and staff are strongly committed to providing the level of service the public expect, often in the most challenging of situations.”