POLICE are planning a publicity campaign to try to cut numbers of inappropriate calls to its 999 and 101 telephone services because of the scale of “frankly wacky” enquiries which are clogging up the system and slowing response times to genuine emergencies.
Chief Constable Stephen Watson has revealed one recent 999 caller wanted to speak to police to report “the discovery of an unusual slug in her garden”, while calls from people reporting incidents such as take-away meal deliveries not arriving are also commonplace.
The content of some calls has been so bizarre, there is an assumption they are urban legends which have not actually occurred, he said.
“Some of these stories are so frankly wacky people think they are somehow apocryphal,” he said.
“Someone dialled 999 to report the discovery of an unusual slug in her garden.
“This is not an argument to say all our calls are of that character.
“What we are pointing to is that there is clutterance in the system that doesn’t help. If we can take that out we have a better chance of dealing with the core.”
The force is now devising a communications policy to try to highlight to the public that they need to use the telephone system appropriately to ensure it is available for those who need help with genuine emergencies.
A new computerised call handling system is being installed at the force’s Atlas Court communications centre, but has been delayed due to technical problems.
However, with the force now taking an average of more than 1,300 101 calls and dealing with 660 people on the 999 system every day, it would ultimately need more staff to dealing with a continued rise in demand.
One complication for the force is dealing with the overlap of issues which people assume are policing concern when they might be better dealt with by other authorities, such as littering and flytipping.
“We get a lot of calls about graffiti, litter and flytipping. All these are core local authority responsibilities.
“We want to say to people, if there is an issue, don’t hang on 101 for 20 minutes to be disappointed,” he told a meeting of Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Alan Billing’s public accountability board.
