A powerful council committee that scrutinises Police Scotland could be rendered toothless by Tayside Division inefficiency, it has been claimed.
For months, elected officials have been requesting important information on a range of issues that directly affect the people of Dundee.
Councillors have called for stop and search statistics to establish how the controversial powers are being used on the city’s residents.
They have also sought answers on the public’s accessibility to Police Scotland through the 101 non-emergency line.
The latter issue has become particularly pressing in the wake of reports callers to some centres can wait for up to 40 minutes before speaking to police staff.
After failing to get answers at the latest meeting of Dundee City Council’s policy and resources committee senior city councillor Kevin Keenan said he has had enough.
The Labour Group Leader asked rhetorically: “How are we meant to scrutinise the police if we don’t have the information to do so?”
Labour colleague Laurie Bidwell agreed, saying: “I think it’s very important that these questions are asked and answers provided since these represent concerns from our constituents.”
There was, however, agreement among some elected members that the council itself must do more to correctly record the questions asked of the force.
Police said it would respond to elected members in due course.
At the meeting, Mr Keenan said that important questions had not been answered by the force.
“This committee is turning into a talking shop,” he said. “We asked about five items at the committee this week that were also asked about at the last meeting (three months ago).
“We still haven’t been provided with the information and once again we’re told it will be brought back next time.”
Mr Bidwell said: “We want to know Police Scotland’s call answering times to 101 calls, the number and gender of children and young people subject to stop and search, the response and action times to 101 calls.
“We want to be able to distinguish the number of cyclists that had been injured or killed in road traffic accidents from the blanket list of figures of road traffic accidents.
“Rightly, in my view, Councillor Keenan noticed that many of these issues had been raised at earlier meetings of this committee.”
SNP councillor Jimmy Black denied Mr Keenan’s suggestion that the committee had become “a talking shop” but said he shared some of his concerns.
“To call the committee a talking shop undermines its value,” he said.
“The committee has significant advantages over the old Tayside Joint Police Board of which I was a member in that it enables a full complement of councillors the opportunity to ask searching questions and the time to get into some depth on important issues.
Police Scotland said: “As part of the regular scrutiny updates elected members requested clarification on some figures.
“This is currently being looked at and members will be updated in due course.”