FOI 26-019 Red Flagged Addresses v Police Only Addresses
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-019 Red Flagged Addresses v Police Only Addresses
- Request Date
- 07 Jan 2026
- Response Date
- 04 Feb 2026
- Information Requested
I am seeking clarification about a set of conflicting figures provided by you via FOI. In 2022 my colleague Alex obtained an FOI on ‘red flag’ ambulance addresses in which you reported there being 83 in the EH area. In 2023 you responded to the police federation with a figure of 1,122 in EH. In 2025, you responded to the same request from me with 253 addresses in EH. I have attached two of the FOIs above and a link to the 2023 figure below.
Could you provide any more detail as to what causes such a major change and how it is recorded?
- Response
After conducting a thorough search of the information held on both Freedom of Information Requests and how the data was gathered for each request, I can confirm that there were differing criteria considered in each request.
‘Flags’ are stored as warning notes in our dispatch system and can include categories such as scene safety, violence at work, MAPPA (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements) and others. Addresses may hold multiple warnings, warnings can be updated or time-limited and methodology choices (e.g., including all warnings v’s police-required warnings, de-duplicating flats within the same building; snapshot date) can materially change the totals.
Due to the nature of these warnings, the Scottish Ambulance Service does not report a historical time-series for these figures (there are no year-on-year trend tables by postcode etc).
The figures in FOI 25‑546 are a subset of those in FOI/453/23. Specifically, FOI/453/23 counted all addresses with any caution/warning on our dispatch system where police may be considered without actually attending (e.g., scene‑safety, violence at work, MAPPA, access/medical notes), aggregated to postcode‑area, which yields higher totals.
FOI 25‑546 explicitly requested where police need to attend and therefore applied a narrow “police‑only” filter, counting only warnings that explicitly require police attendance (e.g., “police must/to attend”, “consider/request police”) or indicate violence risk necessitating police before entry. Accordingly, FOI 25‑546 reports the smaller group of addresses where crews will not enter until police are present.
