£1m Staffordshire Police call room merger gets go-ahead
Staffordshire Police's control rooms will be merged into one after the £1 million plans were approved by the police and crime commissioner.
The operation will be based at police headquarters in Stafford and will allow 37 officers to return to beat patrols instead of answering phones.
Currently staff dealing with calls from the public are at two locations, one at Hanley police station and the other in Stafford at police headquarters on Weston Road.
Police chiefs have stressed the centralisation will not mean any loss of local knowledge. Current arrangements mean that 999 and 101 calls are directed to the first available operator, regardless of which location they are working in.
And new GPS technology being introduced next year will allow control room staff to pinpoint the location of officers more accurately and improve response times.
Police and crime commissioner Matthew Ellis said: "Getting officers visible and out and about in communities doing frontline policing is the heart of my five-year strategy to reduce crime and help communities to feel safer, as well as being safer.
"This latest decision is very much part of that but it's also part of my focus on improving customer service and the experience people have when dealing with Staffordshire Police.
Through alignment of staff we will see increased capacity to develop a more consistent approach and a better service to the public using the 999 and 101 service. Customer service is central to making the system work and satisfying people."
Chief Constable Mike Cunningham added that the demands on police services were constantly changing and evolving and the force had a duty to keep reviewing the way it delivered services to suit the needs of the community.
"Answering calls from the public quickly and efficiently is of vital importance to us, in fact we normally answer 999 calls in 2.3 seconds and 101 non-emergency calls in less than 10 seconds," Mr Cunningham said. "This move will ensure greater consistency of service and better resilience but importantly maintain the local knowledge which is vital to policing."
He said the 'relatively small' numbers of staff affected by the move to a single room had been consulted and it was expected that the 'vast majority' of staff would move to the new control room.