Hi, we’re talking today to Becki Lancaster and Tanya Drury from Audit Scotland about Audit Scotland’s latest report Police call management
Becki, what’s this report about?

This report looks at the recent changes in how the Scottish police forces manage calls from the public. It examines performance, costs, and the experiences of callers.
How police manage calls is very important both for public safety and so that police can make the best use of their resources.  This is the first in-depth, independent review of police call management in Scotland.  Over the last four years, all eight forces in Scotland have centralised their call management functions.  The police received a total of 5.8 million calls from the public during the last financial year, almost 16,000 per day, and £45 million was spent managing these calls.  
Why did forces centralise their call handling?
The old systems were unable to cope with the rise in demand or changes in technology. Call management was centralised to provide a better service to the public, through:
•	answering more calls
•	providing more consistent responses to enquiries; 
•	freeing up police officer time by resolving more calls at the first point of contact;
•	making better use of the changes in radio and telephone technology; 
•	And improving forces’ abilities to manage calls in large scale emergencies.
Tanya, turning to you, what have you found in your study?

We found people are generally satisfied when they call the police, more non-emergency calls are being answered than in the past, and more calls are being resolved without an officer having to visit. In terms of the calls received, only 13% of all calls from the public were 999 calls, and up to half of these calls were not emergencies.
However, it is difficult for us to assess whether forces are achieving all the intended benefits from centralising their calls or providing value for money, because when the new arrangements were being set up, there was no national strategy. So forces have done things in very different ways and there is little comparable performance information. This also makes it difficult for police authorities and the Scottish Government to effectively scrutinise police performance in managing calls. 
What is the impact of all this or the important point for the public?

This is an essential public service – in our survey we found that a quarter of adults in Scotland called the police last year - so it is important that the police manage calls effectively, both for our safety and so the police use resources efficiently. 
We also found up to half of 999 calls are not emergencies and people often don’t know the right number to call in non-urgent situations. More work needs to be done to raise awareness among the public about when to call 999, and what number to call when it is not an emergency.
You said earlier that the public is generally satisfied when they call the police. What’s your reason or evidence for making that statement?
We commissioned a survey of 2,500 members of the general public and asked them how satisfied they were with a wide range of call handling aspects.  For example, we found around 80% of those who had called the police were satisfied with the questions asked and the information taken by the call handler. 
However, less than half were satisfied with how they were kept informed about the issue they had called about.
Finally, turning back to you Becki, what do you want to see happen now as a result of your report?
Our report makes a number of recommendations for police authorities, the Scottish Government and the forces themselves. In particular we would like to see:
•	Firstly, more work being done to raise awareness of when it is appropriate to use the 999 service and the right non-emergency numbers to call, for example, encouraging people to put the non-emergency number for their force in their mobile phone
•	Secondly, forces need to make sure they have enough staff to answer all of their calls, and the training needs of staff for managing these calls are met
•	And, thirdly, we would like to see a national strategic approach to developing call management in the Scottish police forces. This would help get agreement about best practice and get better and more consistent performance information so that forces can compare performance, and there can be more effective scrutiny of police call management
We intend to follow up on our recommendations in about 3 years’ time to review the progress made