Improvements made to Wiltshire Police 101 waiting times

The amount of time it takes to speak to Wiltshire Police when calling 101 has dropped by more than two thirds in the last year.

Figures released by Police.uk show that in April 2024, it was taking on average 16 seconds to get through, whereas in March of this year that figure was down to 5 seconds.

In June last year there was a spike to 37 seconds for calls to be answered, traditionally seen as one of the busiest times of the year.

Across the last year, Wiltshire Police says, it has increased the focus on the customer journey at the Contact Centre through more dynamic staffing, particularly at key times. Operators in the room remain flexible to take all types of calls, both emergency and non-emergency.

The force has also tracked the overall experience of staff in the contact centre and has retained a higher number of operators, increasing the number of experienced staff.

There have also been improvements to the amount of time it takes to answer 999 calls. The national target is to answer 90 percent of calls in less than 10 seconds. Wiltshire Police have been at or around that figure for the last six months.

Wiltshire Police say they have been smarter with staffing solutions to cut waiting times, meaning calls are answered faster and people spend less time waiting for help.

Chief Inspector Allen Lumley, part of the command team for the Contact Centre, said that over the last two years the Contact Management team had put in a lot of work to improve waiting times, including:

- A focus on quality of service delivery through enhanced training and quality assurance audits

- A dynamic operating model designed to flex to incoming demand

- Increased recruitment into vacant posts

- Increased situational awareness for operators and supervisors through the use of technology

- Daily performance oversight and scrutiny

He added: "We want to make sure that we provide a sustained focus on putting the caller at the heart of what we do – staying empathetic to each and every caller, despite around 10,000 101 calls and 8,000 999 calls for service every single month.

"It has taken a long time to turn around our performance because of the time it takes to embed these things and start to bear the fruit of our hard graft.

"We will continue to work hard to enhance our performance and solidify the efforts made this far."