Angus Council has approved its response to “one of the most flawed consultations” the local authority’s leader believes it has ever encountered.
Independent councillor Bob Myles voiced his concerns at a meeting of the strategic policy committee in Forfar, where members agreed that they were unable to accept plans for a single, Scotland-wide police force and fire and rescue service in their current form.
Among the issues raised were the apparent lack of evidence regarding the economic viability of the proposals and the effect centralisation may have on local communities with some members worried that resources would be largely targeted in densely populated areas.
Mr Myles said, “The consultation makes assumptions that have not been backed up by any budgeted evidence. The rush by certain political leaders to push through a single police force and single fire service is like a runaway train. Someone has to put the brakes on fast before it goes headlong over a precipice and we can’t get it back on track.
“We fully recognise that there have to be changes and we need efficiencies in all our public services but before we make any radical changes they should be fully thought out and budgeted accurately.
“All evidence in the past has shown that any structural change is far more costly than was ever envisaged initially and I have no reason to expect this would be any different.”
The consultation was drafted by the outgoing SNP administration at Holyrood, which claims there is a “strong case” for unifying both police and fire services nationwide as a means of coping with budget cuts from Westminster.
The idea has also been advocated by Labour, while the Tories are in favour of a single police force and a “full debate” on similar proposals for fire and rescue.
The Liberal Democrats remain completely opposed to the proposal.
However, leader of the SNP opposition on Angus Council Helen Oswald insisted that if her party was to form another government following the Scottish Parliament election, no decision would be made until the results of the consultation were made available.
She added that it would also await the outcome of the Christie Commission, which was established in November last year to outline recommendations for the future of all emergency services in Scotland.
Committee vice-convener Ian Mackintosh who is also convener of Tayside Joint Police Board said there were increasingly “more and more questions” on the benefits of centralising both services, but expressed disappointment that his colleagues on the board had pledged support for a reduced number of police forces via a regional model.
He said, “This would be a compromise and compromises are never satisfactory.”