December 2023

At a glance - key performance updates

• In December we saw our best performance, answering 92.1% of 999 calls within 10 seconds. This is an increase from 88% in November.*
• Lowest call abandonment rate for 101 calls to date at 17.3%, which reduces further to 14.3% when successful call backs are factored in.
• Response times review will take place at January’s Force Organisation Board
• Significant improvements in IT support through the implementation of the Live Contact Performance Dashboards to the Force Control Room, enabling a data-led response and culture.

* Surrey Police Force Control Room and Contact Centre demand data, January 2024. This data is not that which is used by HMICFRS who quote nationally produced data which adds BT call answering time to Force data.

Cause of Concern 1

Rec 1

Within 3 months, Surrey Police should improve its ability to be able to answer emergency calls quick enough.

Rec 2

Within 3 months, Surrey Police, should reduce the number of non-emergency calls that the caller abandons because they are not answered.

Recommendation 1:

An additional Superintendent has been seconded to Contact to directly oversee the Causes of Concern. Performance data on 999s answered in 10 seconds shows steady improvements of October 79.3%, November 88.4% and December 92.1% based on Surrey call data.  For November, BT data showed 86.1%, compared to Surrey data of 88.4%.

Recommendation 2: 

Lowest abandonment rate to date at 17.3%, improving from October 33.3%, November 20.6%. Call back success rate of 99.2%, taking abandonment from 17.3% to 14.3%. “Hot periods”, where call demand spikes have been measured throughout December to identify key trends when targets are missed.

Cause of Concern 2

Rec 3

Within 6 months, Surrey Police should make sure that repeat callers are routinely identified by call handlers.

Training and communications programmes continue to be delivered to Contact. In November, we introduced a new process to identify and monitor repeat callers, which is reported into the Force Service Board. 

Cause of Concern 2

Rec 4

Within 6 months, Surrey Police should attend calls for service in line with its own published attendance times.

In December we launched the Contact Performance Dashboard. This significant technological improvement allows “live” access to call data not previously available, enabling us to better monitor performance and dynamically manage deployment decisions.

Going forward, data will be used from the point of call, not from the point at which the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) is created. This will provide even greater transparency, and is in line with what is expected to become the national standard.

Cause of Concern 2

Rec 5

Within 6 months, Surrey Police should make sure that there is effective supervision of deployment decisions within the control room.

The delivery of the Contact Performance Dashboard enables new performance standards to be set for the Force Incident Manager (FIM). This is supported by the increase in December of an additional FIM during peak demand periods. The expectations being set include that the supervisor will review every incident where our stated response time is not met. Performance standards will be monitored by the senior management team to ensure the standards are being met and maintained.