Call Handling Reports 2022

This data is Police Scotland management information, not statistics.

Produced by Police Scotland Analysis and Performance Unit

All statistics are provisional and should be treated as management information.

Commentary Notes on Management Information

The Police Scotland Service Centre (PSSC) accepts all Emergency and Non-Emergency contacts.
Since the formation of Police Scotland in April 2013, there has been work ongoing to integrate and remodel the structures that allow the public to contact the police, as well as the dispatch and support of officers on duty.

As part of the re-structuring work, we will continue to invest in new technology and standardise the performance reporting information across the country.

How calls are prioritised

Measuring our performance

999 performance

This UK-wide performance data is available to the public on www.police.uk, under the 999 performance data tab. The data is released at the end of each month for the previous month.
It shows:

Average 999 answer time (in seconds)
Calls answered under 10 seconds
Calls answered between 10-59 seconds
Calls answered > 60 seconds.

101 performance

Calls Received

This section provides Police Scotland management information on the volume of calls received from the public via the 101 telephony system. Other calls that are received via the service centres are NOT included in this measure, those calls would include 999 calls, alarm company lines and calls in response to appeals or incident updates.

Calls Discontinued

This section measures the volume of calls received from the public via the 101 telephony system that are disconnected without the caller speaking to a service adviser.

This may be because the caller has decided to redial and select another option from the pre-recorded menu, police assistance is no longer required, or where the mobile signal reception or network connection causes the call to be disconnected.

During periods of high demand for the 101 service, a recorded message informs callers of increased waiting times for answer and they may choose to discontinue the call and contact 101 later or use the online ContactUs facility.

A number of 999 and 101 calls are misdialled, this is where callers realise they have dialled in error and hang-up. Crucially, 101 callers are instructed to terminate the call and dial '999' in the event of an emergency or if the incident is escalating.

Average time to answer (seconds)
This section measures the average (mean) time to answer calls from the public, received via the 101 telephony system, within the reported period.
Longest wait time (minutes: seconds)
This section measures the longest time a member of the public waited to be connected to a service adviser when calling via the 101 telephony system. Times are displayed in hours: minutes: seconds and are relevant for the reported period.

ContactUs Email

This section measures the total number of ContactUs emails received and the proportion sent through the online reporting webforms available on the Police Scotland website.

During periods of high demand, callers are directed to Contactus and are asked if they tried to contact 101 prior to submitting a webform email, This enables us to measure the percentage of discontinued calls to 101 which are then dealt with via the submission of an online form. Online forms are assessed in the same way as a call to 101.

Call Handling Reports 2022

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Police Scotland support those who wish to become police officers, special constables or police staff by hosting various online and in-person recruitment events throughout the year.

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