Local police chiefs quizzed on 'unacceptable' amount of unanswered calls

12.00.00am GMT Thu 27th Feb 2003

Lynne Featherstone has written to every borough commander

Borough police commanders have been asked to explain why four out of ten telephone calls made to local police stations are unanswered.

Lynne Featherstone, London Assembly and Metropolitan Police Authority member, has written to every London borough commander after a survey1 conducted by London Assembly Liberal Democrats into response to non-urgent calls found that in almost 40 per cent of cases, callers were unable to speak to anyone at their local station. Out of 132 police stations contacted, 52 failed to answer2. Researchers who got to speak to a police officer often had to wait extremely long times to be connected, sometimes holding on for up to 100 rings.

"The police are there to serve and reassure the public, to provide advice and reassurance when it is needed. However, it so difficult for callers to contact their local station, there is a risk the local community will be left feeling isolated and cut off from the police force that serves it," warned Ms Featherstone.

"People are using the 999 emergency response service to speak to an officer when they are unable to get through to their local station. Almost 70 per cent of calls made to 999 do not require an urgent response3, clogging up the system and reducing the effectiveness of the police in dealing with genuine emergencies."

"Police numbers are up by over 3000 since January 2001, but local stations appear to be failing to man their telephone lines. Borough commanders must do more to identify how the performance of local stations in answering non-urgent calls can be improved. I look forward to hearing explanations for borough performances, and where boroughs are performing well, I hope to share examples of good practice."

"1. Between 19 December 2002 and 3 January 2003, all 132 Metropolitan Police stations in London with open front counters were called. When connected, researchers asked a basic, non-urgent question eg what to do about lost property."

"All calls were initially directed to a central operator, who then transferred the calls to the requested local station's front desk. The time recorded was the length of time taken to connect to the local station."

"Callers let the telephone ring until either:"

"· there was a response"

"· they were cut off"

"· the call 'timed out' (rung off)'"

"· they were connected to an answerphone"

"· or the telephone had rung 100 times without an answer (approximately 6 minutes and 36 seconds, considered to be a maximum time limit to expect a police station to answer a call)."

"If the local station was engaged, callers attempted to call again, up to a limit of three attempts."

"2. Results"

"A table of results for each police station, displayed by borough, is available."

"Summary:"

"· 52 out of the 132 stations called failed to answer their telephone (either the call was unanswered after 100 rings / 6.36 minutes; the call was cut off; the call was not connected to the correct police station; the station was repeatedly engaged or the call was transferred to an answerphone.)"

"· Of the remaining 80 stations, 30 took more than one minute / 24 rings to respond. As a comparison, a local authority such as Richmond Borough Council has a response target to answer the telephone within six rings. Just 14 police stations would have achieved Richmond Borough Council's target."

"· Only 50 stations responded within one minute."

"3. Home office research in 2001 found that 5,800,000 of the 8,400,000 calls made nationwide via 999 to the police did not need an emergency response – ie almost 70 per cent of calls."