News / Control room decision
TWO highlands and islands Labour MSPs have made a last-ditch attempt to save the Inverness fire control from closure.
A decision on whether the control room will be axed, with a loss of 19 jobs, will be made at a meeting of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) on Thursday.
David Stewart and Rhoda Grant both said that they were concerned by the way the various options are being presented to the board meeting.
They call on board members to “fully scrutinise” and “interrogate” the figures before making a final decision.
Stewart said: “The weighting between financial and non-financial considerations appears to be at odds with normal practice.
“We have brought these points to the board’s attention in order that they can fully scrutinise the recommendations of the report before making the final decision.”
Grant added: “It would appear that these figures are arbitrary and have been used to justify a decision rather than provide a transparent assessment of each option.
“This appraisal appears to us to be central belt biased and demonstrates a lack of knowledge or indeed empathy for those in the North.
“We have asked the board members to interrogate the figures and the criteria on which this assessment is based before making their decision.”
The papers before the board recommends reducing the number of fire control rooms in Scotland to three: at Johnstone, Edinburgh and Dundee.
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