Officers answering 999 and 101 lines
Public want officers on patrol
CRIME: Police officers in West Yorkshire have been taken off regular duties and drafted in to staff phones due to an “unprecedented” number of 999 and 101 calls. The officers are providing “immediate support” to civilian staff.
POLICE OFFICERS in West Yorkshire have been taken off regular duties and drafted in to staff phones due to an “unprecedented” number of 999 and 101 calls,
The Yorkshire Post can reveal. The officers are being used to provide “immediate support” to civilian staff while more workers are recruited, West Yorkshire Police said. The force has insisted it has carefully considered the impact of the temporary move on other areas of policing, but said it was necessary to “ease pressures” in its Wakefield contact centre.
Calls to 999 alone are up by 15 per cent on last year, amid rising crime levels, and the demand is expected to remain high throughout the traditionally busy summer months.
Eleven police officers, who had formerly worked in the call centre, have been sent back there for at least eight weeks, the head of customer contact, Tom Donohoe, confirmed.
Joining them are 18 police officers on restricted duties – those taken off front-line work often because of illness. Three of them will be answering 999 calls and the rest will be supporting the unit in other ways.
Mr Donohoe said: “They have been able to provide support on a temporary basis and will be released back to their day roles as new staff gain experience.”
He confirmed any officers who had not worked on the phones before would not be handling emergency calls.
He said: “There are no instances where someone without call handling experience would be allowed to answer a 999 or 101 call, we simply cannot take that risk, but some officers have been able to help us with on-line queries and web chat, for example, if they lack experience in call handling.”
He said the force’s track record of answering 999 calls remained good, with an average wait of less than five seconds and no abandoned callers in the past year.
Nick Smart, the Police Federation chairman for West Yorkshire, said they had been consulted on the move.
He said: “Essentially, it is just down to unprecedented demand.”
He said the 101 non-emergency number was particularly inundated and forces up and down the country were facing the same issue, adding that the long-term solution was more money for policing. He said: “We have got demand increasing and resources that are being cut, so we need to reinvest in the police service.”
Meanwhile, concerns have been raised in North Yorkshire over a police 101 call service after a councillor told a meeting how she drove to a supermarket and did her shopping while attempting to report ongoing anti-social behaviour.
The former chairman of Richmondshire District Council, Coun Angie Dale, said North Yorkshire Police’s 101 operators took 22 minutes to answer her call about incidents in Colburn.
She said: “If anyone thinks that is satisfactory they must be off their trolley.” Last September it emerged that of the 139,776 calls to the 101 service in the first six months of 2017, 21 per cent of callers hung up before their call was answered.
Crime commissioner Julia Mulligan is investing £3m over two years to improve the handling of calls and North Yorkshire Police this week opened an extension to its control room.
Mrs Mulligan said the public had “been clear that the service hasn’t been good enough to date” and the force had said the investment would help.
She said the force could now have “no excuses” and had to deliver.
POLICE POLITICS has followed a familiar pattern in recent years – crime commissioners and chief constables have complained about a lack of resources while the Government has repeatedly disputed this assertion and said that the deployment of police officers is a matter for local leaders.
However this ‘blame game’ is of little or no consolation to those victims of crime whose calls for assistance have gone unanswered, or those public-spirited citizens who have been unable to speak to an officer to help them to do their job – namely to catch criminals.
Yet, while West Yorkshire Police is not the first force here to take uniformed officers off the street to answer the phones in call centres, the justification of Mark Burns-Williamson, the crime commissioner, and Dee Collins, the Chief Constable, is awaited with interest.
After all, this move means that the police’s public presence is reduced still further at a time when law-abiding members of the public have stated, repeatedly, that they are reassured by the sight of officers on patrol, and that this helps to build trust and community links.
Is the West Yorkshire force seriously suggesting that it could not spare any other staff to work alongside specialist call centre staff for a limited period of time? Even better, what’s to stop senior police chiefs filling the void? They would soon realise that the public would prefer more front line officers on patrol or manning the phones – and at the expense of police bureaucrats if necessary.