Council to take over telephone hotlines
SHEFFIELD COUNCIL is to bring three out-of-hours telephone services back in-house following worries over the length of time police were taking to answer calls.
The hotlines handle enquiries from vulnerable adults, children and homeless people, as well as some reports of anti-social behaviour, and were entrusted to South Yorkshire Police seven years ago to become part of the 101 non-emergency number at an annual cost of £252,000.
However, the council believes bringing the services back inhouse will ‘improve call performance’ while making savings of almost £50,000 per year.
Police have been ‘unable to consistently achieve’ a target of answering 90 per cent of calls within 30 seconds, a report to cabinet member for finance Coun Olivia Blake said.
The authority’s own out-ofhours housing repairs service ‘overachieves’ by answering 96 per cent of calls against a benchmark of 85.
“Conversely, for the period February 2016 to February 2017, SYP call performance dipped as low as 23.1 per cent for its homeless service enquiries,” said the report.
“These vulnerable callers were abandoning between 26 and 35 seconds, and then redialling as they are unable to get through.”
Officers emphasised that the change would allow police to deal with “immediate life-or-death anti-social behaviour calls”.
Supt Bob Chapman, temporary head of force communications at South Yorkshire Police, said: “We have worked closely with Sheffield Council for the past 12 years.
“Recently, the council felt they were able to take on these calls.”