Improving force control room services

Jon Hull, Performance Improvement Lead, College of Policing: Contact centres have often been described as the engine rooms of any force, and they provide vital services to members of the public in emergency and priority situations. 

We’ve known for some time that volume is increasing and so is complexity. Now there is an inspection system within policing, and public contact centres form part of that as responding to the public. 

Superintendent Jason Broome, Head of Contact and Control Room (CCR), Norfolk Constabulary: Contact management is critical. It’s our life-saving function, not just on its own. It’s all the response that follows on to that.

It’s a single point of contact for the vast majority of the public that are needing policing service and for most people, contacting police is a once, perhaps, in a decade event. And therefore, that contact needs to be outstanding.

If we get it right at the point of call, we tend to get it right all the way through the system, so we set the style and tone for the policing response. And if we get it right, we get great outcomes for the victims.

If we get it wrong in here, you tend to find that the response gets worse and worse.

Jon Hull, Performance Improvement Lead, College of Policing: The challenges we’re hoping to address here is that the public can access services easily, effectively and quickly and get the most appropriate response for why they are calling us.

We know that in centres like this, we’re saving lives every single day. Many forces up and down the country are providing exceptional services.

What we hope to do at the College is to ensure we can share those ideas quickly and easily for forces so that they can provide the very best service to the public possible.

So we’re working with our key stakeholders to ensure that we’re all talking about the same thing, that we all want the best service delivered to the public that we serve and that how we inspect forces is done in a consistent way up and down the country.

There’ll always be local variations in how contact centres deliver to their local public, but there are also consistent themes that forces really ought to take notice of, so how we recruit, train and manage our staff, the information technology that is used within complex centres like this.

Supt Jason Broome, Head of CCR, Norfolk Constabulary: The profile of contact management is already on an upward trajectory. And we started to speak collectively with a voice, and raising that profile with the NPCC [National Police Chiefs’ Council] is ensuring that executives across policing understand the value that contact management can bring, both within efficiency, but also in terms of an effective response.

Equally, I think the need to continue professionalising contact management is still important. And I think it's about setting national standards for certain elements. 

But I think that continual journey, in partnership with the National Contact Management Strategy, will continue to do that and deliver the raised profile of CCRs. 

Jon Hull, Performance Improvement Lead, College of Policing: The time is right, the evidence is there to do more in this space to enhance the strategy that’s already been provided by the NPCC into practical tools, advice and guidance to help forces provide these vital services.