Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Police’s 101 call rates now among best in country
Big improvements after service comes under fire
Kent Police has gone from answering just over half of nonemergency 101 calls to having one of the best control rooms in the country.
Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott had berated the force in September, 2022, after statistics showed people were giving up on using the number because of long waiting times, and turning to 999.
The number of callers dropped by 14,500 in the 2021/2022 financial year compared to the previous 12 months, with critics saying there was “no point” in using the service.
But last week he was full of praise for the force for turning things around.
The improvement was put down to a combination of new staff and moving the control room from the police’s HQ at Sutton Road in Maidstone to a new facility at Coldharbour station, near Aylesford. He said: “I visited the new
Kent Police Force Control Room to see the teams after their relocation.
“It’s a great new facility. “I was also pleased to see that their excellent performance continues; it is now one of the best control rooms in the country, with less than 3% call attrition and average waiting times of 22 seconds for 101 calls in January.
“It was an average of 15 minutes and 55% attrition in October 2022.
“This is a magnificent effort by officers and staff – thank you and well done.” Attrition is when callers ring off before the phone is answered.
Mr Scott, who is seeking a third term as Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner in May’s ballot, said he had inherited problems with the 101 service when he first took the position
in 2016, which then re-appeared post-pandemic.
He said at that time: “We can't escape from the fact that we have a high vacancy rate in the control room which is impacting on our capabilities. “We need to address the fact that we have staff with skills very attractive to the private sector who can offer more money and more sociable hours.
“That has been a considerable challenge.
“We have a far higher vacancy rate in our control
room than we do across the rest of the organisation.” Detective Chief Superintendent Patrick Holmes is the head of the force's Crime and Incident Response.
He said: “Kent Police is committed to making it as easy as possible for people to contact us, and in a non-emergency situation the quickest method is at kent.police.uk/report. “However, we know some people prefer to contact us by telephone and it is therefore very pleasing that we have greatly improved our ability to
answer calls from the public in a timely manner, so much so, that we are now among the best-performing police forces in the country.
“Our control room staff do an excellent job dealing with many difficult, sensitive and high-pressured situations at all hours of the day and night, all year round.
“I am extremely grateful to them for the consistently high level of service they provide to the people of Kent, many of whom are vulnerable and calling at times of great need.”