PLANS to recruit 600 special constables to beef up security at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow have run into trouble, with just 100 signed up so far.
Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Stephen House has targeted a symbolic 2014 volunteers to be trained up as "specials" in time for the opening ceremony on July 23. But now John Gillies, the interim human resources director of the Scottish Police Authority, has said only 100 people have been signed up.
It follows a high-profile campaign since last summer which saw the majority of the volunteers recruited.
One plan was to draw on the thousands who applied to become games makers, with the aim of avoiding a repeat of the 2012 London Olympics debacle when soldiers assisted with security after G4S failed to recruit enough staff.
Mr Gillies said: "We are just not getting the level of applications in from the public, although we did at some time in the last six months run quite a strong campaign about 'specials'."
Sir Stephen countered that they are still processing 790 applications and he was being unduly pessimistic.
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