This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Civilian incident support service
28/02/2005
A trial using a civilian incident support service on
Glasgow's motorway network has been authorised by the
Executive.
While overall incident management will remain the
responsibility of the police, from May two new teams will
help patrol the city's motorways with the aim of reducing
delays and speeding up the time it takes to clear the road
after incidents.
The support service will enable police officers to spend
less time dealing with motorway incidents and therefore
more time tackling crime.
Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson said:
"Scotland now has a record number of police officers but
demands on that service are continuing to rise as public
expectations change. This means we must ensure that
wherever possible, police officers are not diverted away
from their core frontline duties including tackling crime
on our roads.
"To do this effectively, we must constantly work with
the service to modernise its working practices and identify
which tasks currently undertaken by the police could be
more efficiently undertaken by other organisations or
support staff.
"That is why I am today pleased to announce that from
May, the Executive will begin a six month trial of this new
motorway incident support service.
"Run in partnership with the police and Amey, it will
involve using trained Amey staff in incident support
vehicles to reduce the time it takes to clear incidents.
This will help minimise delays to the public and free up
more police time to concentrate on tackling road crime and
improving road safety in our communities."
Chief Inspector Angus McPhail, Deputy Head of the Road
Policing Department at Strathclyde Police, said:
"Strathclyde Police welcomes the introduction of this
pilot scheme and is fully supportive and committed to
ensuring that the partnership initiative delivers safer
roads within the Scottish Trunk road system.
"The transfer of certain ancillary functions will also
enable the Force to further develop our pro-active policing
strategy on the Trunk road network and therefore impact
positively on the detection and deterrence of criminal
activity.
The Executive is providing £170,000 from its Trunk Road
maintenance budget towards this six month pilot scheme.
The incident support service will be provided by staff
working for Amey in two specially adapted and equipped
transit vans.
Each van will carry two members of staff as well as a
range of equipment including road signs and cones.
A training programme for the eight staff who will take
part in the pilot is currently being developed by Amey.
The vehicles and staff will be on the network either
patrolling or undertaking other work. The management of
incidents will remain the responsibility of the police,
however there may be situations where the Amey vehicle
arrives on the scene first. In such cases, Amey staff will
operate through the Amey control centre under police
instruction.