Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland (MRCofS), now known as Scottish Mountain Rescue[1] is the body which represents and coordinates mountain rescue teams in Scotland. It has 27 affiliated mountain rescue teams.
Scottish Mountain Rescue consists of 21 volunteer mountain rescue teams, 2 search and rescue dog associations (SARDA) with over 1000 volunteers, plus an additional 3 police teams, 1 RAF team and Scottish Cave Rescue.
The Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland (MRCofS) was formed in 1965.[2] It is a registered charity (number SC015257).
In 2011 it received annual funding grant of £312,000 from the Scottish Government.[3] This is distributed between the teams, with the largest grant, £24,000 going to the Lochaber MRT.[4]
Increasingly, the organisation has seen demands for "non-mountain" rescue operations in response to events such as flooding, and searching for missing people. However, a reported split in the organisation in 2016 prompted by this was denied.[5] Later that same year the Cairngorm, Glen Coe, Lochaber and Tayside teams left the organisation to form Independent Scottish Mountain Rescue (iSMR).