Police call centre beats government targets
Posted on Apr 20 2009
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An emergency call centre for crimes in Milton Keynes has beaten its government targets for the time taken to answer calls.

Thames Valley Police’s Control Rooms and Enquiries Department (CRED) met call-handling targets set by the Home Office for the second year running.

The Home Office set all police forces a target of answering 90 per cent of 999 calls within ten seconds, 90 per cent of non-emergency calls within 40 seconds, and 90 per cent of switchboard calls within 30 seconds.

Between April, 1, 2008 and March, 31, 2009, the region's centres scored 92 per cent for 999 calls, non-emergency calls and switchboard calls.

A total of 1,892,968 calls were made to the department, including 320,246 emergency calls.

Chief Superintendent Liam MacDougall, head of CRED, said: "It's especially pleasing in light of the busy year that we have experienced as a Force and a department, with thousands of extra calls being received during the recent snow and the roll-out of a Force policy to attend more crimes than previously, where requested by the public.

"I'm pleased that we continue to offer such a high quality call-handling and incident management service under great pressure."

Thames Valley Police has operation centres at Abingdon, Milton Keynes, Kidlington and Windsor.

Caller satisfaction surveys indicated that 90 per cent of callers who called the police were satisfied with the service that they received.