Police plough £5.5m into new hi-tech call centres
WORK on a new Warwickshire Police call centre will begin in January.
Neville House, an empty office building on Warwick Technology Park, will be converted as part of a £5.5million overhaul of the communications operations of the force and West Mercia Police.
The money will fund new systems that will handle emergency and non-emergency calls to both forces, allowing call handlers to process information faster, make better use of resources and provide a better response to incidents first time.
Officers on the ground will be able to spend more time with the public and find out more about incidents before arriving at the scene, enabling them to make better decisions.
It will also open up the potential for new channels to report incidents, improving the way in which the forces interact with the public.
The new system will be installed at West Mercia Police’s headquarters at Hindlip Hall near Worcester, starting next month and will be shared with Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service.
Warwickshire Police’s communications centre is currently at Leek Wootton. The investment was signed off last week by Warwickshire’s and West Mercia’s Police and Crime
Commissioners, Philip Seccombe and John-Paul Campion.
Mr Seccombe said: “People in Warwickshire quite rightly have the expectation that when they contact the police they will be dealt with efficiently and effectively, with the most appropriate police resources used to meet their call for assistance.
“State-of-the-art technology will ensure better co-ordination of resources and an improved level of service for the public.”
Amanda Blakeman, assistant Chief Constable with responsibility for local policing for the two forces, said it was exciting move towards a modernised police force.
“This technology will bring major improvements to our ability to respond to incidents, giving faster access to all the existing information on our systems when a call comes in. It will also give officers on the street access to more information at their fingertips allowing them to make the better decisions on the ground.”