Update on the non-emergency number – From Matt Wright at the Police and Crime Commissioners Office

Having recently met with the Head of the Command Hub after the peak demand month of July please see below some information regarding call demands on Humberside Police.

Humberside Police have refreshed their on line reporting system to be more user friendly https://www.humberside.police.uk/reporting-crime

There is a recruitment drive for staff in the hub to support in peak demand times which are 0900-1600 for non-emergency crime calls and 1600-0000 for non-emergency incidents. There will also be a change in the shift pattern in the new year to double the amount of time demand is matched by call takers.

Just a reminder that when you call 101 you will be charged 15p per call as a flat rate. This goes to the company providing the phone system not Humberside Police. You will speak to a Switchboard Operator who will ask you some questions to assess Threat, Harm and Risk and who is the best person for you to speak to crime, incident or someone else. Remember also that 101 is the only public number for Humberside Police and as such a range of calls come through not just crime and incident calls so this ensures the queues remain as short as possible.

During July 2018 there were 55,300 calls in total, 87% of non-emergency calls were answered first time.

• 999 call demand was up 7% on the same month in 2017
• Non-emergency incidents calls were down 12% on the previous July with 81% of the calls answered after switchboard in 30 seconds or less.
• Non-emergency crime calls were up 27% on the previous July with 55% of the calls answered after switchboard in 30 seconds or less.

Proportionally on average 50% of calls are non-emergency incident,  28% are 999 calls and 22% are non-emergency crime.

There has been a new approach recently rolled out to reduce the time taken per call on the non-emergency calls. Where it is not a call suitable for the police to deal with, the caller will be informed of the correct agency to contact, why it is not a Police matter and the call closed. This has already started to reduce call times and has resulted in a 2.5 minute reduction in average call length. This reduction in call length has immediately resulted in more calls for service being answered. Further improvement plans and initiatives are underway to improve the service offered to non-emergency contacts.