DN 20-12/2022 – Force Control Room

DN 20-12/2022      Date 20.12.22 

Force Control Room

The Commissioner has decided to approve investment in North Yorkshire Police’s Force Control Room (FCR), to stabilise performance in line with call volumes and ensure the FCR is fit for the future and will continue to meet the needs of the public in the long term.

Background

North Yorkshire Police’s FCR in an essential function that handles all 999 and 101 calls from members of the public, and dispatches police resources to respond to emergencies and incidents. To make sure that the FCR can manage increasing call volumes and demand in line with the target times for answering calls and responding to incidents, additional resources are needed within the FCR team to stabilise performance.

In order to make sure that the FCR is able to meet the demand for service, and remain fit for the future, a three-phased approach has been approved. This will deliver increases in key FCR roles, whilst also reviewing and re-designing working processes to ensure that the are as efficient as possible, and reviewing the channels available for the public to contact the FCR to ensure they are best suited to meeting public need. This detailed work on the ways of working within the FCR will run in parallel to staffing increases over the next 12 months, and will focus on maximising the amount of time FCR staff are available to take calls from the public.

An investment of around £1.89m per year will be required to fund the required increases in roles within the FCR. This will include a significant increase in the number of Communications Officers, who handle 999 and 101 calls, as well as investment in additional Dispatchers to manage the dispatch of police resources, Incident Management roles and a dedicated training team to deliver specialist FCR training.

Decision Record

The Commissioner has decided to invest around £1.89m annually in additional resources within the FCR.

Zoë Metcalfe

Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire

Statutory Officer Advice

Legal, Management and Equality Implications

The Commissioner’s Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer, having read this report and having considered such information as has been provided at the time of being asked to express this view, is satisfied that this report does not ask the Commissioner to make a decision which would (or would be likely to) give rise to a contravention of the law.

Simon Dennis

Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer

Financial and Commercial

The Commissioner’s Chief Finance Officer and S151 Officer has advised that given the higher levels of pay awards and inflation since setting the balanced Medium Term Financial Plan in February 2022 it will require either a higher precept increase than previous planned (which was 1.99%) and/or as of yet unidentified savings to be able to fund this growth. This will need to be considered as part of the budget and precept setting process for 2023/24.

Michael Porter

Chief Finance Officer