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Dave
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Source: Kingston upon Hull City Council
Date:
Thursday, 16th April, 2009
Time:
2.05 p.m.
Place:
Council Chamber, Guildhall, Hull
[…]
Councillor McCobb commented that a number of years ago the telephone numbers for people to contact the police were changed from local to 0845 numbers. After that changeover, there was a particular backlash from residents trying to report crime. There were two reasons for that. Firstly, there was the increased charges, and secondly, there was major issues to do with call handling. A number of his fellow members did have meetings with representatives from Humberside Police at the time to raise these various concerns. By and large, the evidence from his mail bag suggested that people were no longer contacting him to complain about call handling issues or the amount of time that they spent getting through. This was an improvement. However, a large number of police forces were moving to an 0345 number rather than 0845 number which meant that it was, in effect, cheaper for residents to contact the police on a non-emergency number. One of things that worried him was that yes, a lot of these statistics were much improved and everybody involved in crime prevention could share the credit for that. However, it was not necessarily all that easy to persuade people that what the figures were saying was actually representative of what was happening. He was concerned that the costs of contacting the police on the 0845 number could potentially be either skewing the numbers of reported offences, due to the whole issue about it not being worth calling because etc. or it would cost x, y, z etc., might be giving people reason to doubt the improvements that the figures said had happened? Was the Humberside Force likely to move to an alternative number in the near future?
Mr. Hollis [Chief Constable, Humberside Police] replied, and referred to minutes of a Chief Officer group meeting where it showed that the Force was aware of the concerns, and provided a very quick analysis of the range of options. The 0845 number was introduced in 2004 before his time. The issues were that it was not well advertised or easy to find. Sometimes it was actually on the vehicles but then it was not always easy to find a police vehicle when you wanted one. The number was difficult to remember, and members of the public did not like the 0845 number and there was a perception that the Force was generating income from it. There was a gentleman nationally that was raising that issue. The Humberside Force had looked quite open minded at the range of options that it had. It had looked at the 0345 number, but that did not address the issue of it being memorable. Consideration had also taken place of a single emergency number for the whole country. It had seemed a good idea to which the Government had put some initial seed funding in, gave it high prominence, but actually didn't support or fund it and therefore when the money ran out, it was never a success for the public at home. Using an 0345 number instead of an 0845 number would not resolve the problem. The Force had also looked at using an 0845 number [I think they mean 0800 number] because that was allegedly free. However, it was not free if you were a mobile phone user, and had very confused call rates. If you used a mobile phone, and a large number of people did, you could get hit by a whole variety of different charges using an 0800 number. That would also not resolve the issue of it being a free call and common to everyone across Humberside. It would cost Humberside Police about £75,000 a year more than currently to do that. There was now a new idea to look at national non-emergency numbers to get a local number at a standard rate across the board. That was now being researched as part of the Police's commitment to citizen focus and improving the quality of service that was given to communities. The technology was moving on. 0345 was not a solution to the problem, 0800 wasn't the solution. The Force was looking genuinely, with an open mind, at whether the other option, which was like a three or four digit number was worth pursuing. There was not an immediate solution. The Force was aware, and hurt to a certain degree, when members of the public starting saying that the force was fund raising, because it was not. There were some slight differentials, for example, as Kingston Communications were slightly different from British Telecom. He would pass on Councillor Robinson's comments about the much improved call handling and response. Quite frankly, that was dire in 2005. In the vast majority of cases far fewer people were now raising this issue, but there were still mistakes. There was a much quicker and slicker response. The Force was dealing with this in a much more professional and user friendly fashion.
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Police introduce charges for non-emergency calls (Read 383,442 times)
