Territorial Policing Thematic Performance Report - Central Communications Command

Report: 10
Date: 4 March 2010
By: Assistant Commissioner Territorial Operations on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report summarises the work being undertaken in the Central Communications Command within Territorial Policing.

A. Recommendation

That members note the contribution of Central Communications Command to policing London and the current performance and activity underway to improve outcomes.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

1. This report sets out the key responsibilities of the Central Communications Command (CCC) and summarises the current performance position. This is set within the context of performance over the longer term and provides examples of good practice and key initiatives currently underway.

2. The report notes that over the last twelve months key measures of performance have improved markedly, and that services provided for the public have also improved significantly.

3. Since the start of the financial year call answering performance has steadily improved, and a number of initiatives have been introduced to ensure CCC is fulfilling its obligations to the public under the Policing Pledge.

Role and structure of CCC

4. Central Communications Command is responsible for the command and control of MPS resources deployed to meet calls from the public and in large scale public order events. This is managed across three separate centres located in Lambeth, Bow and Hendon.

5. Telephone calls received on the emergency ‘999’ system, the non emergency ‘0300 123 1212’ are dealt with through CCC operating a ‘virtual one’ call centre system that allows flexibility to respond to variable demand across London.

6. Call operators grade calls according to National Call Handling Standards (NCHS) and these are passed electronically to dispatch operators that have responsibility for individual borough resources on dedicated radio channels. It is the responsibility of these operators to assign and support borough officers to resolve calls for police assistance.

7. Within the Lambeth centre there is a specific unit that deals with pan MPS issues under the leadership of a duty Chief Inspector. Pursuits, initial co-ordination of major incidents and the allocation of corporate assets are managed through here.

8. The MPS Special Operations Room (SOR) is also a part of CCC. Located primarily at Lambeth with a fall back site at one of the other locations. This state of the art control room provides the command and control centre for all large scale public order and ceremonial events across London.

9. Integrated Borough Operations (IBO) offices in local Boroughs support the deployment process by ensuring sufficient officers are available to deal with calls and by providing local information and intelligence.

Delivery of the Policing Pledge

Dealing with contact from the pubic

10. The national policing pledge points 5 and 6 make the promises to answer 999 calls within 10 seconds and non-emergency calls within 30 seconds and tell callers what will happen next and give an estimated time of arrival if appropriate.

11. CCC has primary responsibility with the MPS for managing emergency and non emergency calls and significant progress has been made on meeting each element of this particular Pledge. Call answering targets for emergency and non-emergency calls are currently being met, and it’s anticipated that both will be exceeded by the end of the financial year.

12. At the same time, our responsiveness to ‘Immediate’ and ‘Significant’ calls has also improved markedly, enabling CCC staff to confidently tell callers what will happen next, and what time of arrival they can expect.

13. Set against this background of improved consistency in the police response CCC will introduce new call answering scripts on 8 February, incorporating definitive promises about the service levels callers can expect from the MPS. E.g. ‘Your call has been graded as requiring an immediate response and we will have an officer with you in 12 minutes.’

14. CCC attracts consistently high levels of public satisfaction within the Corporate User Satisfaction Survey, with ‘Ease of Contact’ scores routinely exceeding 90%, but the scope for further significant improvement is clearly limited.

Responding to need

15. The national policing pledge point 5 promises police will respond immediately to emergencies so that we get to incidents as quickly and safely as possible aiming to attend within 12 minutes and much sooner if possible.

16. In collaboration with the Patrol OCU, who have responsibility for the management and function of IBOs along with Borough resource management systems, there has been focus to drive up response performance within the over the last year. Both Immediate (‘I’ grade) and Significant (‘S’ grade) response times have improved sharply as set out in the table below.

17. Consistent focus on ‘I’ and ‘S’ call responsiveness within CCCs Daily Management Meetings has enabled CCC managers and boroughs to identify and remove barriers to performance. Practical changes, such as the location of response patrol bases, and the facilitation of cross borough deployments, have all helped to improve attendance times.

18. If, as anticipated, the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) publish clear national standards and targets on police responsiveness, the MPS expects to compare favourably with its Most Similar Forces (MSFs).

19. The need to ensure that better response times are not achieved at the expense of public safety is a primary consideration within Territorial Policing, and police collision data is routinely scrutinised within Key Performance Review Meetings (KPRMs) and at CCC center-level operations meetings. In the Financial Year to Date (FYTD) the number of police collisions have fallen by almost 5% compared to last year.

20. Pledge point 6 states when responding to non-emergency cases involving vulnerable victims and witnesses or agreed neighbourhood priorities we aim to get to you within 60 minutes. (We use the word ‘vulnerable’ to describe someone who may be at risk because of their age, disability or their personal circumstances.)

21. Within the limitations of existing IT infrastructure CCC is developing pragmatic approaches to ensure that vulnerable victims are identified and catered for when they call for police assistance. All staff have been advised of the instances which may give rise to vulnerability, and when the National Standard for Incident Recording (NSIR) is rolled out later this year staff will be able to apply marker codes to those incidents that either have a vulnerable victim or witness.

22. The current MPS Command and Control System does not allow for the electronic identification of the different ward priorities across London (although this is part of the Command and Control futures programme). Calls relating to neighbourhood priorities are identified by the local IBO who then notify CCC of the priority status so that appropriate deployment can be made. Where the relevant neighbourhood team are on duty then they are assigned.

Appointments

23. Pledge point 6 also states that if appropriate, we will make an appointment to see you at a time that is convenient to you within 48 hours.

24. In August CCC and the Patrol OCU initiated a corporate appointment pilot, within which three boroughs were given practical, and managerial, support in order to give the public the option of an officer attending by appointment, at their convenience. The existing 8 Boroughs using thus system are making and keeping about 220 appointments per week.

25. The success of the CCC led appointments system is based upon the provision of a standard process centered on meeting the needs of victims. Future technical enhancements will further improve existing processes.

26. In addition to the customer satisfaction ‘dividend’, the implementation of an appointment framework has also led to improvements in the use of deployable resources as the spread of appointment times throughout the day has helped to redistribute demand away from peak hours.

27. CCC hold daily conference calls with the boroughs concerned, in which barriers to performance are explored and resolved, and as the success of the initial pilot became embedded within normal working practices, the pilot has been extended in both scope and geography, to now incorporate eight boroughs within the MPS and is being phased in across the remaining boroughs over the next three months.

Customer Satisfaction

28. CCC routinely seeks regular customer feedback through a number of different channels. 2000 callers a week are contacted via SMS message and telephone survey each week to request feedback. Overall levels of satisfaction are consistently above 80%. Work continues to develop this process and formulate customer focus groups to inform service with particular focus being applied to vulnerable communities.

29. CCC are also working with the MPS Inspectorate to obtain, and learn from, various forms of reality testing such as ‘mystery shopper’ calls to request Safer Neighbourhood contact details.

30. On the occasions when our promises are not likely to be met, such as during periods of exceptional call demand, or when local critical incidents draw away most borough resources, CCCs Confidence and Satisfaction Teams (CSTs) intervene to contact callers and keep them updated on expected times of arrival.

31. CCC has recently taken over the MPS Customer Service Team and will be coordinating customer service recovery processes across London. This will be linked to learning and development to improve future experience.

Special Operations Room

32. Special Operations room was open for 833 operations in the last 12 months including key events such at Notting Hill Carnival, New Years Eve Celebrations, the G20 protests and Remembrance Sunday. It will be the principal police command and control room for the 2012 Olympics.

Resource Leverage

33. CCC started use of a new resource planning tool in November 2009 to better match staff availability with demand. This software tool known as ‘my planner’ is improving efficiency and along with an ongoing shift pattern review is already improving performance response in call answering.

34. There is ongoing work to look at better demand management. This is examining how better to deal with demand as well as how to reduce unnecessary calls and provide a better service. Early successes have included; moving to a silent handover from telephone company to police operator that reducing call handling time by 20 seconds not only speeding response, but making a cumulative saving of the equivalent of four full time staff each day and increased use of the reduction of calls from people saying that police have not yet arrived by intervention by confidence and satisfaction teams to explain delays and keep the public updated.

35. Implementation of NCHS in April 2009 has significantly contributed to improved resource usage. This was a fundamental change to the grading of calls and the positive impact is now being seen. There has been a ten percent reduction in calls graded as requiring an immediate response these calls being properly responded to as significant. There has been a related increase of ten percent in calls dealt with by appointment through the Pledge pilot allowing more effective use of staff at quieter times.

36. In order to support this performance improvement there has been a drive to maximise the availability of police officers and community support officers. Through better compliance with MetDuties (MPS computer system to monitor staff on duty) and improved use of the in car Mobile Data Terminals (MDT) the availability of staff to me deployed to deal with calls has improved supporting the improvement in responding times.

C. Race and equality impact

1. CCC has recently launched a new Equality and Diversity Strategy in December 2009 and is the first MPS Operational Command Unit to adopt the new Service Improvement methodology.

2. All CCC policies are subject to Equality Impact Assessment prior to implementation.

D. Financial implications

1. There are no identified financial implications.

E. Legal implications

1. The report is for information only, therefore there are no direct legal implications arising.

F. Environmental implications

1. There are no identified environmental implications.

G. Background papers

• Appendix 1: MPS guidance to National Call Handling Standards

H. Contact details

Report author: Chief Superintendent Ben-Julian Harrington, MPS Central Communications Command.

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 2

NCHS definitions preceded by MPS guidance

I (Immediate) ~ Emergency Contact

Calls where the immediate presence of a police officer will have a significant impact on the outcome of the incident. If the officer is not required now then the S grade should be applied. I Graded necessitates a police officer at the scene now.
(12 minutes is to allow for the time units take to attend)

NCHS Definition

An emergency contact will result in an immediate emergency police response.

An emergency contact encompasses circumstances where an incident is reported to the police which is taking place and in which there is, or is likely to be a risk of:

• Danger to life
• Use, or immediate threat of use, of violence
• Serious injury to a person and/or
• Serious damage to property
• Where the contact relates to an allegation of criminal conduct, it will be dealt with as an emergency if:
• The crime is, or is likely to be serious, and in progress
• An offender has just been disturbed at the scene
• An offender has been detained and poses, or is likely to pose, a risk to other people

Where the contact relates to a traffic collision, it will be dealt with as an emergency if:

• It involves or is likely to involve serious personal injury
• The road is blocked or there is a dangerous or excessive build up of traffic

Where the above circumstances do not apply, a contact will still be classified as an emergency if:

The circumstances are such that a police contact handler has strong and objective reasons for believing that the incident should be classified as an emergency

An emergency contact will require immediate response in line with force deployment policy

S (Significant) - Priority Response

S (Significant) - These are priority calls and this grade must be considered before the I grade is used. The majority of calls requiring a police response within an hour will attract this grade.

S Graded necessitates a police officer at the scene within 0 - 60 minutes.

(As far as practicable; but the immediacy does not attract an I grade - This does not mean you have 60 minutes to get there; this is the maximum it should take).

NCHS Definition

The police contact handler acknowledges that there is a degree of importance or urgency associated with the initial police action, but an emergency response is not required. These typically arise in the circumstances where;

• There is genuine concern for somebody's safety
• An offender has been detained
• A witness or other evidence is likely to be lost
• At a road collision, there are injuries or a serious obstruction
• • A person involved is suffering extreme distress or is otherwise deemed to be extremely vulnerable
• Local force policy mandates a priority response.

E (Extended) - Scheduled Response

Any call that requires a police attendance but does not meet the criteria for a priority response within 60 minutes will attract this grade. Calls from the public that can be scheduled should be dealt with by an appointment agreed with by the caller to take place on the day of the call or the following day, to ensure that an appropriate response is delivered within 48 hours. E Graded calls that are not suitable for appointment will be sent to dispatch for deployment. E Graded necessitates a police officer at the scene within 0 - 48 hours.

(Again; this does not mean you have 48 Hours to get there; this is the maximum it should take to respond to the demand).

In line with the Policing Pledge, generally calls from members of the public will take precedence over police generated ' E ' graded demands. CCC will have the authority to re-grade CADs, which have not been graded correctly, to the national standards. The BOCU duty officer is the final arbiter for grading decisions and their decision is final, their rational should be documented on CAD.

NCHS Definition

In these circumstances, it is accepted that the needs of the caller can be met through scheduling because:

The response time is not critical in apprehending offenders

• The matter is service-oriented and a better quality of initial police action can be taken if it is dealt with by:
• A pre-arranged police response by a Police Officer or by other appropriate resource or attendance at a police clinic or surgery

R (Referred) - Resolution Without Deployment

This grade will continue to be applied to calls received that do not require the attendance of a police officer. R Referral or No further police attendance is required at this time.

NCHS Definition

Adequately meets the needs of the caller through telephone advice or Help Desk, access

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