New police phone centre is ‘one stop shop’ for callers

Based at their Wakefield headquarters, the centre provides a new procedure for all emergency (999) and non-emergency (0845 606 0606) calls coming in – more than 2.5 million calls every year.

Emergency calls are dealt with as they always were, but now, when a caller uses the non emergency number, the operator provides them with as much assistance as possible rather than routinely routing them to another part of the force.

Acting Superintendent Mick Hanks of the communications division, said: “Previously, the operator may often just route the call through to the relevant department.

“Now they will bypass most of the need for that by taking the information themselves and deciding on the appropriate response.

“So if a member of the public calls in to report overnight damage to their car then the operator will record the incident, create a crime reference number and offer crime prevention advice where appropriate. But if the caller is reporting an on-going crime – so someone damaging their car there and then, the operator will send the call to the local divisional control room for that area to send an officer to the scene.”

He added that the move should release officers for front-line duties.

“This will help to increase efficiency and help to further support the front line by taking unnecessary work away from officers and giving them increased time to be out and about in the neighbourhoods,” he said.

“We have over 200 trained, multi-skilled staff covering the phones and have worked out the peak hours of demand and structured our shifts accordingly for maximum efficiency.

“The changes have arisen as part of a review of our call handling processes, which identified that callers were frequently passed to different extensions building in some delays and frustrations.

“Where possible callers will now be dealt with at first point of contact for a great many of their enquiries.

“With our operators being skilled in all aspects of the calls we receive means that we are able to reduce the time that callers spend in queues.”