Well, yes and no. 101 calls to Wiltshire Police are answered in five seconds on average. But it’s likely you’ll remain on hold for significantly longer to report a crime.
The force says the “performance metric for the 101 service measures the time taken to connect callers to the switchboard”, and represents the “initial point of contact with a live operator”.
However, for many callers, there “may be additional wait time for transfer to the Crime and Incident Desk”.
Wiltshire Police says that its current system “does not aggregate these wait times comprehensively”.
In summary, 101 calls are answered relatively quickly by a switchboard operator who can’t take a crime report.
It means those reporting crime will wait in a future queue for a trained handler. It’s here callers find the longest wait times.
In a recent statement, the force accounted that: “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.”
They said: “Figures released today by Police.uk show that in April 2024, it was taking on average 16 seconds to get through, whereas in March this year that figure was down to 5 seconds.
“Across the last year, Wiltshire Police have 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% of calls in less than 10 seconds. Wiltshire Police have been at or around that figure for the last six months.
“Wiltshire Police, like other forces across the country, have been smarter with staffing solutions to cut waiting times. These improvements mean 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: “Over the last two years the Contact Management team has put in a lot of work to improve our wait 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
“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.”
