National Contact Management Principles and Guidance

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2 Introduction This document has been produced by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). The NPIA was established by the Police and Justice Act As part of it s remit the NPIA is required to develop policing doctrine, including guidance/practice advice, in consultation with ACPO, the Home Office and the Police Service. Guidance produced by the NPIA should be used by chief officers to shape the development of policy, thereby ensuring that the quality of service delivery meets the expectations of our customers and stakeholders. The implementation of all guidance/ practice advice will require operational choices to be made at local level in order to achieve the appropriate police response. All enquires relating to this guidance should be addressed to: The Contact Management Team and Neighbourhood Policing Programme National Policing Improvement Agency 3rd Floor, 10 Victoria Street London SW1H 0NN T: E: [email protected] Acknowledgements ACPO and the NPIA would like to express their thanks to all those involved in the drafting of this document and to those who gave their advice. All of the responses during the consultation phase of this project were appreciated and contributed to the final document. Particular appreciation is noted in respect of: Kay Southall (NPIA / Gwent Police) Mike Rawsthorn (NPIA / Metropolitan Police Service) Pauline Smith MBE (Nottinghamshire Police ACPO Advisor) Mike Horne (Abu Dhabi Police, formerly HMIC) ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) 2010 NPIA (National Policing Improvement Agency) 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, modified, amended, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the National Policing Improvement Agency and the Association of Chief Police Officers or their duly authorised representative. This document does not recommend or endorse any companies or products contained within. 2

3 Overview 4 Contact Management in Context 4 The Business Case for Change 5 Developing the National Contact Management Principles and Guidance 5 Moving Forward with Confidence 6 Supporting the National Strategy 7 Chapter One 9 Summary 10 Principle and Critical Success Factors 11 Creating a ed Approach 13 Accessibility and Inclusivity 14 Channel Strategy 16 Communication Media and Marketing Keeping People Informed 19 Quality of the Customer Experience 20 Complaints and Dissatisfaction 21 Diagnostic Indicators 22 Chapter Two 23 Summary 24 Principles and Critical Success Factors 25 Demand Forecasting and Resource Planning 27 Protective Services 30 Incident Management 31 National Contact Grades 33 Working with Partners 36 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery 39 Diagnostic Indicators 40 Chapter Three Supporting 41 Summary 42 Principles and Critical Success Factors 43 Leadership and Culture 45 Our People 46 Employee Engagement 50 Investors in People 51 Wellbeing of Staff 52 Reward and Recognition 54 National Occupational Standards 56 Knowledge Management 57 Diagnostic Indicators 59 Chapter Four Delivering Value for Money 60 Summary 61 Principle and Critical Success Factors 63 HMIC Value for Money Profiles 64 Cabinet Office Service Transformation 65 Audit Commission Use of Resources Framework 66 Procurement Collaboration 68 Lean Systems Thinking 70 Commercial Cost Models 71 Diagnostic Indicator 73 Appendix A Cabinet Office Multi-Channel Strategy 74 Appendix B Matrix aligning NCMS Principles with Critical Success Factors from NCMPG 77 Appendix C Suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management 81 References 88 Useful Websites 89 Glossary 90 3

4 Overview Contact Management in Context Policing in England and Wales is underpinned by the ethos that it is undertaken with the consent and support of the public. Central to retaining public consent and support is maintaining the public s confidence that when they call for assistance the police will respond effectively and in a timely manner. This expectation goes right to the heart of effective contact management. It requires forces to be accessible and responsive, providing the right service, at the right time, to consistently high standards, removing variability and tailoring our service in such a way that our communities feel safe and have trust and confidence in what we do. The Home Office Policing Green Paper From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing Our Communities Together (2008) sets out a new vision for policing and a single top down confidence target. The paper aims to drive provision of more consistent, visible and accessible service that is responsive and meets public needs and expectations. The target focuses on improving public confidence in whether crime and community safety priorities are being identified and addressed. Understanding and responding to the needs of the public are likely to play a central role in delivering improvements. The British Crime Survey found that people were more likely to be confident if they thought neighbourhood policing was effective, there are perceived low levels of antisocial behaviour and they believed crime locally was falling. The Survey also found that the quality of contact between the police and the public was crucial overall. Confidence was associated with public perceptions of the police treating people fairly and with respect. The analysis suggested that people who were satisfied with the police s response to their request for help were more likely to be confident than those who had no contact with the police. More importantly, the research revealed there was more scope for poor service to damage confidence than there was for satisfactory service to maintain confidence. Contact management is about how the public communicate with the police service and the subsequent provision of service. Whilst much of that contact is through the telephone, the scope is wider and also includes short message service (SMS), internet, mail or fax and direct forms of face-to-face contact, whether through front counters, neighbourhood teams or other specialist policing resources. In order to develop effective approaches to managing contact through these channels, it is essential that forces understand the needs of their communities and raise standards of service delivery across the whole of the organisation. Contact management represents a significant opportunity to influence public confidence. The service receives over 60 millions calls per year from the public and each one is an opportunity to make every contact count. High quality contact management, delivered across the organisation, provides a gateway to deliver enhanced customer satisfaction and improved public confidence. Most research on victim satisfaction has suggested that process factors (showing interest, providing reassurance and keeping people informed) are more important to overall satisfaction than outcomes (getting a result ). Satisfaction has also been shown to tail off after the initial response, suggesting that information and follow-up that meets the needs of individuals are likely to be important. A key strategic commitment impacting on contact management at the present time is the introduction of the National Policing Pledge (2008). The Pledge came into being following the Home Office Green Paper: from the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing Our Communities Together (2008). Where information or guidance within this document supports the Pledge delivery it is specifically referenced. This document also contains broader contact management activities that can assist in improving effective contact management delivery. A copy of the National Policing Pledge can be found by clicking here. 4

5 The Business Case for Change The National Contact Management Strategy (NCMS) vision is making every contact count: delivering services that meet individual needs, reassuring our communities and increasing public confidence in policing. The background and business case for change are outlined in more detail within the NCMS. Please click here to download the strategy. Developing the National Contact Management Principles and Guidance In order to deliver this new National Contact Management Principles and Guidance (NCMPG) document the NPIA has conducted a fundamental review of the National Call Handling Standards (NCHS) This has involved an independent review by Hyder Consultancy, extensive national consultation, a series of key practitioner seminars/workshops, an ACPO and senior stakeholder conference and an independently led National Police Contact Management Benchmarking Exercise. The review identified a number of key messages for the future development of NCMPG, including: Overwhelming support for an end-to-end view of the customer journey, which starts with contact management and continues across the organisation. Concern that many forces appear to see contact management as solely the preserve of the contact management centre and not the wider force environment. A greater emphasis on the qualitative understanding of service provision, promoting the right activities and behaviours. Measuring the key points across the customer journey to improve the customer experience. Clarity in terms of those things that are identified as a standard versus those things that are simply guidance. Strong strategic leadership and focus to realise potential business change opportunities and benefits. Supporting local delivery, the guidance should focus on the what to do rather than the how to do it, recognising that a one size fits all approach can be inflexible. The need to identify and disseminate good practice that supports effective local delivery of service. The benchmarking exercise identified areas where the Service was performing well and provided individual forces with insight on some areas for improvement. The review and consultation processes have involved every force in England and Wales and the key messages outlined in the review have been further used to design and develop the following contact management products: The National Contact Management Strategy outlining the services vision for contact management in the 21st century. This National Contact Management Principles and Guidance document providing underpinning tactical guidance to forces. The ACPO National Contact Grades providing a nationally agreed process by which contacts are risk assessed and prioritised to ensure fair access to service. A suite of diagnostic indicators for contact management ensuring the service focuses on measuring those things that matter. An updated National Contact Management Learning Package to support the broader contact management roles in the service. New methods to support dissemination of good practice, e.g., through the Police Knowledge Area (POLKA). 5

6 There is a significant difference between the NCHS and the new NCMPG document. The NCHS was developed around a specific set of performance standards which set out a prescriptive approach to forces, at a time when Her Majesty s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) Baseline Assessment had identified serious variations in service quality and delivery across England and Wales. The NCMPG document, which now supersedes NCHS, is designed on principles that all forces can adopt regardless of their stage of development and focuses clearly on delivering public confidence. This document does not focus specifically on technology although references are made where applicable. Moving Forward with Confidence The NCMPG document has been created to underpin the NCMS. It provides detailed guidance and advice, intended to expand understanding of the principles set out in the national strategy, namely: Principle 1: Customer: designing and delivering contact management on the basis of citizen and business needs to increase customer satisfaction and public confidence Principle 2: Leadership: delivering effective leadership at all levels to promote and enhance citizen focused contact management. Principle 3: People: investing in people and involving them in shaping contact management. Principle 4: Finance: providing value for money by ensuring the optimum balance is achieved between the cost of service and delivering an excellent customer experience. Principle 5: Knowledge: exploiting the value of citizen and business knowledge to understand performance and improve local accountability. Principle 6: Demand: understanding the demand profile and workflow across the organisation, in order to optimise service delivery. Principle 7: Resources: satisfying demand for contact through the most efficient and effective use of resources, to deliver responsive local policing Principle 8: Partners: optimising resilience through effective planning and collaboration with partners, to enhance contact management capability. The NCMPG document is a tactical document intended for contact management practitioners at all levels. It aims to: i. Achieve citizen focused improvement in service delivery with customers needs at the heart of force culture and business change processes. ii. Focus the service on improving the quality of the customer experience and achieving the overarching confidence target for policing. iii. Encourage a move away from minor bureaucracy supporting officers and staff to act with discretion to deliver the best possible customer experience. iv. Make the complex simple and add real value to the design and delivery of contact management services. HMIC has been consulted in the development of the NCMPG document and supports the clear linkages between underlying principles, critical success factors and diagnostic indicators. The APA has produced a guidance document for Police Authorities, which supports the NCMS and NCMPG document and their statutory role to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of local contact management services. A copy of this document is available from the APA. Please [email protected] 6

7 Supporting the National Strategy The NCMPG document supports and assists in delivering the new NCMS, which sets out a citizen focused vision for the service that puts customers and communities at the heart of strategic contact management service delivery. It seeks to: Maximise public satisfaction and confidence outcomes for the Service. Improve the efficiency, productivity and performance of service delivery. To achieve this vision, it is important to understand the customers contact journey experience and how this links to delivering service across the whole of the organisation. To achieve this understanding, forces need be able to answer the following questions: Do we offer the service(s) the public want? Why do the public contact us? How do they find out about available channels of contact? What channel do they use and why? What type of response do we provide and why? Are any partners or stakeholders involved in the response activity? Do we meet customer needs/expectations if not, at what part of the experience and why? How does that experience influence their confidence in the service? How do we track/measure the stages of the contact journey? How do we use the knowledge gleaned to improve and design future customers experience and confidence in the service? The resulting customer journey information is a crucial first step in terms of understanding those aspects of contact management service delivery that cause customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction and how they negatively or positively impact public confidence. In short, it provides citizen focused knowledge about customers and their needs, expectations and experience of contact management services. Figure A, page 8, overleaf provides a visual means of understanding how the NCMPG document is constructed around the customer journey experience. It breaks the customer journey down into a series of steps, which relate to chapters within this document. Chapter One: Obtaining customer insight and experience knowledge to design and deliver service. Chapter Two: Our service delivery uses the customer information to configure systems and processes and align resources. Chapter Three: This supports our service delivery and involves well-equipped, empowered and trained staff doing the right things to deliver key contact management and service outcomes. Chapter Four: Delivering value for money outcomes requires having an approach that takes into account both functionality and the requirement to deliver the best possible customer experience at optimal price. The four chapters have been constructed to reflect the customer journey approach as outlined above. Each chapter links back to NCMS through the outlined principles and goes on to provide further information or guidance around critical activities or behaviours, referred to as CSFs, which provide the advice and guidance that will support forces seeking to improve the delivery of contact management services. 7

8 Figure A: Structure of the National Contact Management Principles and Guidance (NCMPG) Hallmarks Hallmarks How to Use this Document The NCMPG document seeks to provide guidance that forces should use to formulate an action plan for the delivery and development of a professional contact management service that meets the needs of the public they service and also the requirements of their Police Authority and government initiatives. 8

9 CHAPTER 1 9

10 Summary This chapter focuses on ensuring that the service has a broad and informed view of the people it serves and that customer insight knowledge is used to designed and deliver contact management services that meet the needs of individuals and communities. Creating a ed Approach should not be a bolt-on to existing ways of doing business, it requires cultural and operational change at all levels. Historically, there has been a tendency for different processes or areas of the service to be considered separately rather than as part of a joined-up approach which focuses on the key business outcomes of improved service delivery, customer satisfaction and public confidence. The ACPO/NPIA Policing Hallmarks (2008) were introduced as a toolkit to enable forces to understand the characteristics of using this knowledge to design and deliver ways of working that are truly customer (or citizen) focused, as opposed to driven by the needs of the organisation. Accessibility and Inclusivity In order to provide comprehensive access to police services, consideration should be given to the diverse make up of the communities served and including them when designing access to service. In doing so, forces should consider providing a choice of access points and design channels to ensure the approach is around the customer, not the transaction. A channel strategy is a directive and differentiated approach that clearly guides customers to the most appropriate channel that meets both the needs of the customer and the organisation. Marketing and media plans should be aligned to the channel strategy; promote choice; and designed with accessibility in mind. In order to support reduced avoidable contact, the plans should clearly outline the channels available to the public. The Customer Experience The single confidence target is concerned with public confidence that the police and local council are dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour issues that matter locally. The tripartite and NPIA have developed a public confidence route map to help forces and partners identify where additional activity would be beneficial. Public satisfaction and confidence are sometimes measured as one entity, even though they are quite different concepts. Satisfaction can be defined as a direct measure (or reflection) of the quality of service delivered by an organisation. Confidence on the other hand is largely an emotional response; it is highly subjective and it is not always based upon a direct contact experience. Customer insight is rapidly gaining ground as an approach to gaining knowledge about service users their needs, desires, preferences, perceptions, experiences and behaviours. Critically, customer insight seeks to provide a depth of analysis which is deeper than that provided by simple analysis of customer satisfaction. One of the key influences on satisfaction and confidence is the provision of information to the public on the progress of their investigation be it crime, anti-social behaviour or public safety issues. However, information should be tailored to meet individual needs and should provide customers with a sense of closure. Another way to gain customer insight is through root cause analysis of complaints and dissatisfaction. Forces can use reports of complaints and dissatisfaction as an opportunity to learn the lessons, which can have a positive impact on trust and confidence. 10

11 Principle and Critical Success Factors The main principle discussed within this chapter is customer. This chapter also provides CSFs around key business areas that will support forces in driving and delivering change and performance. Principle 1: Customer Designing and delivering contact management on the basis of citizen and business needs to increase customer satisfaction and public confidence. Accessibility and Inclusivity: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Demonstrating understanding of customers and their needs and designing access to service that provides choice. Channel Strategy: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Download the Critical Success Factors Having a force channel strategy that promotes choice and outlines contact methods which support the needs of local communities. Approach: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Using the Policing Hallmarks as an integral part of understanding business planning and delivering change. Using staff knowledge around citizen interactions to develop a culture that is truly citizen focused. Having a force-wide policy for managing secondary contact which sets out standards of customer service, including voic policy and an effective quality assurance process. Having established processes for non-emergency and secondary SMS access for the hearing and speech impaired. Providing customers with a clear point-of access through a single non-emergency number. Having evidence to demonstrate that access to our service supports our non-english-speaking communities. Developing a single view of how customers interact, across all contact channels. Continually exploring opportunities to improve access channels. Having an Information Technology strategy that is service orientated and is designed around the customer and end users. 11

12 Communication Marketing and Media: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Keeping People Informed: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Dealing with Complaints and Dissatisfaction: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having a citizen focus communication strategy for contact management which includes partners and core messages. Being able to demonstrate how service users will be kept informed on progress and outcomes relating to them. Having a robust process for reporting, monitoring and tracking trends of complaints and dissatisfaction. Ensuring that force contact details are regularly reviewed and kept up to date and publicised to meet the needs of different communities. Having marketing and media plans in place to regularly inform and update the public of access channels and current and future activity. : Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having a strategy for engaging, consulting and involving the customer in designing our service delivery. Reviewing the strategy to ensure methods are effective and provide reliable representative results. Exploiting technology to increase the choice of channels available to keep people informed on progress and outcomes relating to them. Quality of Customer Experience: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having a non-bureaucratic quality management process that focuses on delivering customer satisfaction and public confidence. Using a variety of methods to capture and understand the quality of the customer experience, in order to design and deliver service. Ensuring that where shared services are provided, processes exist to fully understand the quality of the customer experience. Providing clear information to the public on how to make a complaint and report dissatisfaction. Ensuring that procedures for dealing with complaints and dissatisfaction are embedded into contact management learning programmes. Acknowledging and resolving complaints and dissatisfaction in a timely fashion and in a way that leaves the customer with a sense of closure. Undertaking root cause analysis of complaints and dissatisfaction to understand trends and learning the lessons in order to improve service design and delivery. Using customer journey mapping to provide insight into communities needs and expectations and to shape, design and deliver services. 12

13 Creating a ed Approach Hallmarks The ACPO/NPIA Policing Hallmarks (2008) were introduced as a toolkit to enable forces to understand the characteristics of. The first two Hallmarks are: i. Understanding People ii. Understanding Services Understanding the profile of local communities, what the different priorities are within them and what people need and expect in terms of standards of service and outcomes is the basis of. It is vital that those who deliver services understand the vision and values of the organisation. The involvement of staff in shaping and implementing change that improves service delivery is an effective means of promoting ownership and is likely to result in sustainable service improvement. Understanding the customer journey is also important because it provides opportunity to identify inefficient and/or bureaucratic working practices that fail to deliver value for money service outcomes. This knowledge provides forces with the opportunity to refresh or re-design services to ensure that they satisfy public demand and deliver efficiency and productivity benefits. Again, there is a clear read across to the Hallmarks, which conclude with: iii. Designing Services iv. Delivering Services The Policing Hallmarks (2008) are available for download here. Tripartite Public Confidence Route Map The Public Confidence Route Map (2010), was developed by considering evidence of what activities are likely to improve confidence. It is intended to help deliver against the Public Service Agreement (PSA) public confidence target, whilst also keeping a broader strategic view of confidence. The route map builds on the Hallmarks. It draws on activities within the self assessment tool and shows how enablers of excellence: leadership, people, processes, partnerships and communications can all be focused on providing a better service for the public by supporting the activities that evidence shows work. There is a need to get the fundamentals right, ensuring that they are embedded, consistently delivered and sustained. Practically the route map can be used to help forces and their partners identify where additional activity would be beneficial. The Public Confidence Route Map is available to download here. Safe and Confident Neighbourhoods Strategy The Safe and Confident Neighbourhoods Strategy, 2010 focuses on three key strands as set out in the Policing White Paper Protecting the Public: supporting the police to succeed : 1. Sustain neighbourhood policing teams and improve what we know works to drive confidence. 2. Embed them in a whole force approach to neighbourhoods, and 3. Develop neighbourhood partnerships. The contact management function plays a pivotal part in supporting the force approach to neighbourhoods. An effective approach starts at the first point of contact and continues through incident management and joined up service delivery between partners, at a neighbourhood level. In order for the public to have confidence that the issues which matter most to them are being prioritised, contact management staff need to understand what these priorities are, in order to provide the right response. Cultural change is a vital part of successful and sustainable service transformation. A culture of getting it right first time and focusing our people on tailoring service delivery to meet individual need, and not just the task at hand, is crucial to providing citizen focused services. To achieve this cultural change and deliver the right outcomes our people need to be empowered to use professional judgement and discretion. 13

14 Accessibility and Inclusivity CHAPTER 1 Accessibility is a term used to describe the degree to which a service is accessible to as many people as possible in policing terms, all sections of the public and its partners. Inclusivity can be defined as an intention or policy of including people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalised from accessing services. The National Policing Pledge (2008) states We will always treat you fairly with dignity and respect ensuring that you have fair access to our services at a time that is reasonable and suitable for you. In order to provide comprehensive access to police services, consideration should be given to the diverse make up of the communities served and including them when designing access to service. In doing so, forces should consider providing a choice of access points and design channels to ensure the approach is around the customer, not the transaction. The availability of a Single Non-Emergency Number (SNEN) is important, as it provides customers with a clear point of access, in non-urgent circumstances. 101 is a 24-hour number which gives the public direct access to advice, information and effective action on community safety issues, including certain nonemergency crime, policing and anti-social behaviour. This number was collaboratively adopted by some police forces/local authorities and piloted in five areas across England and Wales. A SNEN approach is clearly of benefit to the service and the public and currently options by which a national 101 service might be delivered are being considered. Some regions have looked at the possibility of a regional SNEN, for example the All Wales Region recently introduced 101 as the SNEN for Wales. The funding for this approach was achieved through collaboration between the four forces with a small contribution towards set up costs from the Welsh Assembly Government. The majority of forces have already adopted a SNEN approach using either 08XX or 03XX numbers. Currently, ten forces have implemented a 03XX number and two key success factors have been that the numbers are easy to remember and that effective marketing promotes use of the number. Future developments that could identify improvements in accessibility resulting from SNEN approaches still remain to be identified by forces. To deliver a consistently professional service to the public, forces need to have a smart approach to managing voic and secondary contact management that will support reduction in repeat calls and potential causes of dissatisfaction. The approach should set out clear policies, guidelines and management information for all departments and individual users to ensure a quality of service that can be measured and managed. The Cabinet Office has produced a Clarification Statement on Telephone Number Ranges (2009) which details the cost of each range. This document will support forces to provide inclusive and cost effective access for all communities. This document is available to download here. 14

15 Ofcom has designated the 0300 range of telephone numbers in the National Telephone Numbering Plan for allocation to communications providers on the basis that those numbers are used by public sector bodies and not-for-profit bodies such as registered charities. Further information can be obtained by clicking here. A national 999-text service has been developed to provide improved access to the emergency services. This is an example of essential service design to meet the needs of a specific group and is likely to improve confidence in service provision. It is becoming increasingly important for forces to have established processes to support non-emergency and secondary SMS contact. Further information on BT First Contact is available for download here. Equally as important is the face-to-face contact that the public have with officers and staff in their local neighbourhoods and through front counters. Opening times of police stations and having the right number of neighbourhood officers on at the right time is key to improving accessibility to our services and providing a quality response. This type of organisational change is not easy to achieve and it is recognised that a phased and wellplanned approach may be the most cost effective way to deliver the necessary improvements. Further information on this service is available by clicking here. Language Line is recognised nationally as a system to enable forces to communicate with non-englishspeaking members of their communities. Some forces are using emerging systems and technology to support multi-lingual contact, for example BT First Contact. This solution combines technology and human skill, allowing non-english-speakers to access public services in over 200 languages. It works by using an electronic phrase book to offer a series of multilingual scripts that map the process for a citizen service. 15

16 Channel Strategy CHAPTER 1 The Multi-Channel Transformation in the Public Sector (2009) 1 document defines the two key elements of any strategy as channels and services. It defines channels as: Outbound and inbound means for organisations to deliver services to, and receive input from, external citizen and business customers through a variety of direct communication and delivery methods (post, telephone, face-to-face, online, mobile, digital TV, fax, kiosk) or indirectly through intermediaries such as voluntary organisations Services are defined as the full range of interactions that take place between service provider and user via a designed business processes. Services represent the benefit an organisation delivers to its customers and range from enquiries, requests for information and initial service requests to final service fulfilment and any subsequent follow-up and after-care. The Cabinet Office produced the Channel Strategy Guidance document (2009) to support development of channel strategies and current thinking on channel strategies in the public sector. This document outlines three key stages to developing a channel strategy which can be found at Appendix A. The Cabinet Office Channel Strategy Guidance document (2009) is available to download here. HMIC thematic report First Contact (2005) recommended that all forces be able to support the following access channels: Telephone Internet Language Line SMS text Mini-com/Type talk (or equivalent) One of the main reasons multi-channel approach has not taken off in some organisations is that it has been designed around transactions as opposed to customer need or experience. Having a single view of the customer and a clear understanding of how they currently interact / wish to interact through the various channels is crucial to designing an integrated customer experience. The Cabinet Office document Multi-channel Transformation in the Public Sector: Principles and an Emerging Framework for Practical Use (2009) provide a toolkit for how to actually go about implementing a channel strategy, with methodologies that have been tried out. The document is available to download here. For the first time, social networking, which is illustrated by services such as Twitter and Facebook, allows organisations to talk to customers on their terms, in a less formal manner. The fact that customers are in their own chosen environment may lead to more relaxed and honest relationships, which can improve the customer experience. Over time, availability of increased channels will have ever growing importance in how we communicate and improve access to the Service. Forces will need to consider an Information technology strategy that is service orientated and is designed and structured around the customer and the end users. 16

17 Communication Media and Marketing CHAPTER 1 Increasingly, the reputation of individuals, basic command units, forces and the service as a whole can be enhanced or damaged by the media. It is therefore important that forces have effective internal and external communication strategies to proactively influence what appears across the broad media range. Public perceptions are heavily influenced by what we say, what we write and what we offer the public to view on our websites. New media demands an increasingly diverse approach to how we communicate information, key messages, reassurance and appeals to the public. A strategy for managing communication is crucial to delivering citizen focused policing and will usually be cognisant of: Internal communication External communication Keeping people informed Methods/channels of communications Delivering core messages Marketing and media opportunities Business processes Partner and stakeholder needs It is important that force contact details are kept up to date and publicised to meet the needs of different communities. Additionally, forces will need to regularly update the public on how to access services and on current and future activity. Effective use of marketing and media plans will enhance opportunities to influence a reduction in avoidable contact and reduce and control demand, for example, people inappropriately using 999 to make contact for non-urgent matters. As generations change and technology advances, forces are responding by utilising new media approaches to service delivery. Podcasts are being used to support crime reduction initiatives and update the public on major events and local schemes. Some forces are using social networking sites, e.g., Twitter and Facebook and video sharing websites such as YouTube to support appeals for information and provide road awareness messages. These emerging initiatives are showing early signs of success. 17

18 Customer insight is rapidly gaining ground as an approach to gaining knowledge about service users their needs, desires, preferences, perceptions, experiences and behaviours. Customer insight is about asking the right questions, in the right way, to gain this understanding and using the resulting information to design and deliver services and to shape improved communication with customers. Critically, customer insight seeks to provide a depth of analysis which is deeper than that provided by simple analysis of customer satisfaction. The British Crime Survey enables confidence to be measured at a force level but may not be broken down to illustrate how confident the public feel at a more local level. Consequently, the Home Office has set out a requirement for all police forces and authorities to conduct Local Confidence Surveys, to enable confidence levels at Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP)/Community Safety Partnership (CSP) level or below to be monitored. These surveys will provide valuable data for the police and their partners about a wide range of public attitudes. Further information on CDRPs and CSPs can be found on the Home Office Crime reduction website by clicking here. The NPIA has produced various guidance documents to support forces understanding of Local Confidence Surveying. At time of writing it is anticipated that these documents will be merged to produce one overarching document. If you are interested in finding out more about the relationship between the provision of information and public confidence, Local Confidence Surveys or the Policing Pledge please click here or go to the following website: Additionally, the APA has produced a document called Public Confidence in the Police: Guidance for Police Authorities and Police Forces (2009). It provides practical, accessible and easy to understand advice on aspects of policing practice which can influence levels of satisfaction. The document is available from the APA. [email protected] A number of forces are looking at customer journey mapping, for example, Cambridgeshire Police are mapping front counters, Cheshire Constabulary have mapped the journey of victims of stalking and harassment and Greater Manchester Police have mapped the journey of victims of burglary. Further information on customer journey mapping is contained within the NPIA Guidance document (2010). This document will be available to download from the NPIA website early in There are many ways that customer insight and experience information and data can be sourced, some of which are outlined in the HM Government Guide to Segmentation Toolkit. This toolkit is available to download here. 18

19 Keeping People Informed CHAPTER 1 One of the key influences on satisfaction and confidence is the provision of information to the public on the progress of their investigation be it crime, anti-social behaviour or public safety issues. However, information should be tailored to meet individual needs and should provide customers with a sense of closure. When designing services for keeping people informed, forces will need to consider customer choice, i.e., asking if they wish to be kept informed and if so how and capture this information at the first point of contact. It is also important for forces to have agreement on who will take responsibility for updating customers. This should take into account the requirements of: The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (2005), further details are available by clicking here. The Victim s Charter (2006), further details are available by clicking here. The Witness Charter (2008), further details are available by clicking here. Many forces are beginning to use technology to keep customers informed and are developing existing command and control and crime systems to support this process. The service should continue to develop and exploit technology to ensure that customers are kept informed of the progress of crimes or incidents, as this has been shown to have a positive impact upon customer satisfaction. 19

20 Quality of the Customer Experience The quality of the customer service experience came into focus with the introduction of the Home Office Quality of Service Commitment (QoSC) in It made a number of national service commitments in respect of the quality of service provision. It focused on six key areas of service delivery: 1. Making it easy to contact us 2. Providing a professional and high quality service 3. Dealing with your initial contact 4. Keeping you informed 5. Ensuring your voice counts 6. Dealing with victims of crime service These core service commitments have been further developed with the introduction of the Victim s Charter (2006), the Witness Charter (2008) and the National Policing Pledge (2008) and together they ensure that the Service understands the way people experience policing and community safety services on the ground, by focusing on the needs and experiences of the individuals and communities that receive and use police services. Further information regarding the QoSC is available to download here. The culture of an organisation is central to supporting continuous improvement. Creating a joined-up approach to quality across the whole organisation including all functions, people, departments and activities is crucial to success. Forces are already using a number of companies, including Mary Gober, Future Vision and Procter Training, to provide learning packages to support and develop customer focused cultures. These approaches aim to empower employees, change behaviour and produce positive outcomes for customers. Whilst quality assurance can support the development of staff, over monitoring and repetitive processes can drive the wrong behaviours, resulting in resistance from staff and high attrition. Staff who are demotivated are often less capable of sensitive and responsive interactions with the customer. Intense surveillance 2 can be counterproductive and costly in terms of workforce motivation and commitment. However, abandonment of surveillance and monitoring mechanisms can never be an option as these are integral to the operation of the call centre. Surveillance and compulsion alone cannot guarantee productive performance. The quality of contact should be understood from the customer s perspective. Quality management processes should be designed around the critical contact management functions, for example, contact handling; crime recording; telephone investigation; front counters and response; and deliver the right outcomes. Some forces are developing shared services and it will be increasingly important for forces in this position to establish effective quality management processes across the service from a customer point of view and in order to determine the quality of the customer experience. 20

21 Complaints and Dissatisfaction CHAPTER 1 Police complaints and reports of dissatisfaction are one indicator of the level of public satisfaction with policing. Understanding complaints and reports of dissatisfaction, identifying trends and acting where necessary, is crucial to public confidence. These reports may increase for a number of reasons, including where a police force has promoted access to the complaints system and demonstrated that it acts effectively in responding to them. or dissatisfaction with the service. This document provides the public with a clear and simple escalation process for dealing with dissatisfaction or complaints, thereby ensuring that forces are focusing on both local service recovery and the handling of formal complaints. It is suggested that this guidance is available on all force websites. Further information is available to download here. The bulletins can be accessed by clicking here. Pledge point 10 states that forces will Acknowledge any dissatisfaction with the service you have received within 24 hours of reporting to us. To help us fully resolve the matter, discuss with you how it will be handled, give you an opportunity to talk in person to someone about your concerns and agree with you what will be done about them and how quickly. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has a duty under the Police Reform Act to increase access to the complaints system and expects the police service to develop a range of ways for people to access the complaints system, which address the specific needs of complainants. Further information on the IPCC statutory guidance is available by clicking here. Knowing how to make a complaint or report dissatisfaction and understanding what will happen as a result, are essential to public confidence. ACPO has written to all forces on the importance of this issue, providing them with a public facing document on how the public can express either satisfaction Customer Service Excellence: The Government Standard (2009) suggests that if organisations use reports of dissatisfaction/complaints as an opportunity to learn the lessons, this can have a positive impact on trust and confidence. This document is available to download here. A Learning the Lessons Committee has been established to disseminate and promote learning across the police service and it produces a bulletin with lessons from investigations. It is a multi-agency committee, made up of key stakeholders that have a role to play in enhancing the service provided by the police namely: Association of Police Officers (ACPO), Association of Police Authorities (APA), Home Office, IPCC, HMIC and the NPIA. Whilst it is important to provide a prompt acknowledgement (within 24 hours), it is also essential that reports are resolved in a timely fashion and in a way that leaves the customer with a sense of closure. It is also important to note that complaints should be used to highlight and manage vulnerability and risk for the organisation. Root cause analysis of complaints is key to achieving this. The majority of reports are made through the contact management function, i.e., contact management centre and front office. As a result, it is crucial that contact management staff have the requisite knowledge and understanding to deal with them during initial contact. This should be included in induction/learning and development packages for contact management. 21

22 Diagnostic Indicators CHAPTER The diagnostic indicators are part of an overall Suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management that can be found in Appendix C. It is not the intention for the diagnostics to be used in isolation where the focus might be on quantity at the expense of quality, more used together to gain a fuller understanding of the customer experience. These indicators are not exhaustive and do not preclude forces from using additional appropriate diagnostics that meet local needs. Key Outcome Performance Indicators Description Improved Public Confidence Improved Public Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Indicator and Brief Narrative Force confidence target Ease of emergency contact Ease of non-emergency contact Volume of reports of dissatisfaction and % responded to in 24 hours 1 Emergency Contact Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative 999 Calls Answered in 10 Seconds Volume and % of 999 calls answered in 10 seconds Abandoned 999 Calls Volume and % of abandoned 999 calls Target: Less than 2% abandoned 999 calls 999 Average Time to Answer (ATA) Average time to answer an emergency call / contact 999 Calls Over 2 Minutes Volume and % of calls / contacts answered after 2 minutes Non-Emergency Contact Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Non-Emergency Contact Service Level Volume and % of non-emergency calls answered within locally derived time Abandoned Non-emergency Calls Volume and % of abandoned non-emergency calls Target: Less than 5% abandoned non-emergency calls Average Time to Answer (ATA) Non-Emergency Average time to answer a non-emergency call / contact 22

23 CHAPTER 1 23

24 Summary This chapter focuses on the response to requests for service from first contact through to incident attendance, where appropriate. Optimising resources to meet demands for service and enhancing capability through collaboration with partners is crucial to delivering citizen focused and value for money services Demand Forecasting and Resource Planning Understanding, planning and delivering effective processes to manage demand is crucial given that failure to identify and respond effectively to threat, risk, vulnerabilty and public safety issues can negatively impact upon public confidence. Organisations without effective demand forecasting / resource planning functions often have to make reactive and potentially costly responses to business problems. Effective use of resources can lead to improved speed and quality of response and improved customer satisfaction. Responding to Requests for Service Contact management deals with a broad spectrum of operational service provision, which ranges from protective services, including terrorism threats, critical incident management and crimes, through to quality of life issues that affect our communities. The ACPO National Contact Grades ensure that our service delivery is effectively prioritised and properly recognises threat, risk and vulnerability. Improving demand forecasting and resource alignment is the basis for more responsive 24/7 local policing, and provides opportunity to explore how sustainable service improvement can be achieved by forces working in collaboration with partners and third sector agencies. Process improvements, such as the introduction of scheduled appointments, can successfully reduce and/or flatten levels of demand, enabling resources to attend at a more appropriate time of the day to suit both customer and force capability. A joined up approach between the contact management function and BCUs is crucial to providing an effective response to calls for service as satisfaction and confidence are negatively impacted where service failure occurs. Delivering 24/7 Service to our Communities The public expect to be able to contact the police 24/7 and, in particular, there is an expectation that the service will respond and take the lead in the event of an emergency. It is crucial that forces have robust business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place to support service delivery as failure to respond in these circumstances will affect public confidence in the service. 24

25 Principle and Critical Success Factors The main principles discussed within this chapter are demand, resources and partners. This chapter also provides CSFs around key business areas that will support forces in driving and delivering change and performance. Principle 6: Demand Understanding the demand profile and workflow across the organisation, in order to optimise service delivery. Principle 7: Resources Satisfying demand for contact service through the most efficient and effective use of resources, to deliver responsive local policing. Principle 8: Partners Optimising resilience through effective planning and collaboration with partners, to enhance contact management capability. Demand Management and Resource Planning: Critical Success Factors/Guidance: Creating an environment where planning and forecasting optimises resources and is used across the organisation to effectively manage demand. Having a single process owner for demand to support cross-functional working and provide final decision making. Having dedicated demand forecasting and resource planning expertise. Showing evidence of understanding customer contact demand in order to determine what changes are required across the organisation. Protective Services: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Including protective services in initial and ongoing learning and development programmes for contact management staff. Having evidence of involving the contact management function in planning for and debrief of operations and critical incidents. Incident Management: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Download the Critical Success Factors Having joint accountability for service delivery across the organisation in order to deliver the best possible customer experience. Having relevant and comprehensive initial / refresher training for contact management staff to support frontline response. 25

26 Scheduling appointments with callers at a time and place that is convenient to them. Utilising integrated technology to optimise the efficiency of incident management resources and services. Ensuring BCU commanders and supervisors are held accountable for patrol availability and response. Ensuring that all radio users adopt the Airwave Speak standard in order to support more efficient and disciplined communication. Ensuring that individuals who create and close incidents have the necessary skills to effectively manage operational risk. National Contact Grades: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Using the national contact grades as a framework to prioritise and standardise the response to calls for service. Ensuring that contact management staff have the requisite skills, abilities and support systems to identify and manage risk, vulnerability and threat to safety. Having a force process / policy for downgrading incidents that effectively manages organisational risk and promotes the professional judgment of contact handlers. Working with Partners: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having chief officer support for a partnership approach to service delivery improvement. Having processes in place to measure and review the efficiency and effectiveness of working with partners in order to identify opportunities for continual improvement. Having a commitment to implement regional or nationally developed systems, processes or procedures that support improved collaborative working and service delivery. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans to ensure the continued delivery of functions in the event of an emergency or partial or complete loss of service. Being able to demonstrate that Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans are regularly tested, including with partners, in order to assess impact on the force s ability to support business critical contact management functions. Supporting opportunities for collaboration, particularly on a regional basis, to enhance resilience, achieve value for money and support business continuity. Ensuring that contact handlers understand the importance of using the national contact grades to prioritise and deliver local services. 26

27 Demand Forecasting and Resource Planning Demand management is crucial to supporting the service s ability to respond effectively to threat, risk, vulnerabilty and public safety issues. It is also key to ensuring that customer expectations are met, and that they are satisfied with the service they receive. Forces have to deal with many different demands and broadly these can be identified as either external (originating from outside the force) or internal, i.e., contact or calls generated from within the organisation. Understanding the detailed types of contact, e.g., reports of crime or anti-social behaviour or simple requests for information, and their volumes over time is critical to effective demand management. It requires an understanding of both primary contact handling activity (calls dealt with through the contact centre) and secondary contact handling (those matters dealt with at individual extensions or in departments away from a force contact centre). In terms of understanding efficiency, demand can be categorised as: Value demand contact that is relevant to the functions of an organisation. Non-value demand contact that is not relevant/ avoidable, which tends to be generated through a failure of processes or service delivery. For demand management to be effective, all nonvalue contact needs to be designed out of the system of work in order to resource plan accurately against true demand to ensure cost effectiveness. To manage demand effectively, all points of contact, for example, front counters, response and neighbourhood teams, should be aligned in order to deliver a consistent standard of service. An effective demand strategy (could be called/be part of an accessibility or channel strategy) will ensure that key business stakeholders are aligned to achieve services that meet needs at all levels. There are a number of reasons why demand strategies fail including: Lack of investment in forecasting operations. Forecasting operations lack the support of senior management, who do not appreciate the return on investment. A lack of skills/resources to deliver services. A siloed approach to forecasting exists. Forecasting processes are not appropriately integrated across the organisation. Failure to learn from regular reviews and to use that knowledge to refine forecast modelling around service delivery. Supply-demand match is about delivering a supply of resources that effectively matches the pattern of skills and demand across the organisation. A close match implies an efficient use of resource and ensures that potential quality of service and officer safety concerns during periods of under-supply are minimised. A good supply demand match can potentially lead to improved speed and quality of response (by response/neighbourhood officers, PCSOs, special constables and specialist resources) and improved customer satisfaction. The NPIA Workforce Programmes Unit is currently undertaking more detailed and in depth research into demand management and resource planning in the police service and it is anticipated that they will publish the results of this work in the first half of HMIC s thematic inspection of frontline supervision, recommendation 24 3 states that forces should ensure that resourcing and staffing levels are regularly reviewed against a model or staffing projection. Forces need to review and, where appropriate, adapt management information systems to enable effective resource and asset management in support of effective frontline service delivery. 27

28 The Professional Planning Forum is an independent industry body that promotes effective resourcing and planning in the contact centre industry. They are supplier-independent and work across all industry sectors to provide specialist support for contact centre professionals on resource planning and to promote best practice. Further information on the Professional Planning Forum is available by clicking here. The Professional Planning Forum: Best Practice Guide (2009) identifies the following key areas for effective resource planning: Planning fundamentals whether it is forecasting, scheduling or adherence monitoring we must get the basics right. Driving the right behaviours never has the link between management information operations and resource planning been so intertwined. Skills planning building the right mix of skills that offer employee development to provide the required depth of contact resolution and operational efficiency. Influence and communication planning is no longer just about a team of analysts. The planning role is a strategic one, requiring senior managers to effectively influence contact management, achieve organisational change and realise business benefits. Forecasting and planning is a fundamental part of our business lives but it s not all about mathematics. Yes, mathematics are an integral part of the planning process but nothing can substitute for business knowledge, customer insight and that almost intangible gut feeling that is inherent in every planning professional Steve Helm, Head of Planning and Reporting, Vertex Data Science Ltd Effective forecasting and planning can support improved work-life balance for staff. It can support a reduction in abandoned calls and ensure that predicted abstractions are catered for to facilitate briefings, workplace coaching and training. In order to realise the benefits of effective planning, forces should recognise the value of using dedicated resources who have the professional knowledge, skills and abilities to deliver high quality forecasts that consistently match demand to available resources in the most effective and efficient way. Workforce simulation models, call centre calculators and/or workforce management (WFM) software all have a vital role to play in planning and regularly reviewing and refining forecasts. Simulation modelling can be used to match resources to demand. It is not a substitute for WFM software that is designed to create staff schedules from realtime information. It allows organisations to test and analyse various scenarios that will provide conceptual evidence of resources required. Simulation modelling works best where processes are consistent and accurate and detailed process data is available. This approach is useful for helping people understand the underlying issues and problems by animating calls and response teams on a computer screen. The relative impact of various policy decisions can also be calculated. In the case of a contact management centre simulation model, the type of data used will include, for example: Call volumes and types Service levels Abandonment behaviour Number of contact management staff and work schedules A number of forces use bespoke WFM software, including products such as GMT Planet, Aspect, Q-Max and Verint, some forces are procuring these systems jointly and achieving significant cost savings. Other forces still effectively use Excel spreadsheets to accurately calculate the level of staff required against forecast demand using call centre calculators, for example, Erlang C. This calculator is free to download here. 28

29 There are a number of other important dimensions to successful resource management, including: Having a shift pattern that closely matches the demand profile. Allocating the right number of people with the right level of experience across teams. Ensuring supervisors hold staff to account for both their attendance and their performance. Supervisors themselves are held to account. Adopting a robust approach to the management of sickness and overtime. The Home Office Study of Police Resource Management and Rostering Arrangements (2004) suggested that improved rostering of staff can lead to a number of benefits, including better quality of service to the public, more efficient use of resources, an improvement in officer safety, staff wellbeing and morale and more effective relationships with other agencies and the wider community. A copy of this report is available to download here. By understanding what our customers want and looking at resources holistically across the organisation (from the contact centre to patrolling resources), there are real opportunities to pool resources and work more efficiently across unit, team or business group boundaries, to improve service. The NPIA has produced a Workforce Modernisation toolkit and guide to support forces in determining how well their existing shift pattern matches resources to demand and to indicate areas of under or over supply. The toolkit specifies an integrated approach to the reform of business processes and planning and is available to download here. 29

30 Protective Services The protective services area of policing deals with crimes and incidents where the effectiveness of the police response is likely to have a significant impact on victims and communities at large and where the perception of confidence in the service is easily impacted, e.g., with matters such as murders, sexual offences and hate incidents. Although low in volume, such reports are often the subject of great public interest and require sensitive handling. These are the crimes which most often make newspaper headlines and provoke close scrutiny of the service s priorities and methods, including such areas as public order, counter terrorism, serious organised crime and child protection. Conversely, policing successes such as the successful prosecution of organised criminal gangs can have a significant positive impact on public confidence at the local level and beyond. It is critical that the police service manages these interactions effectively if it is to perform its primary function of protecting life and property, while maintaining the highest levels of confidence. A senior operational user in one force suggested that a failure to recognise and deal appropriately with information across recognised communication channels with the public and partners can only harm confidence in our service, and impact negatively on our ability to command and control incidents and bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. In order that staff can respond to and record incidents and crimes appropriately, forces should ensure that protective services are included in all initial contact management training and ongoing learning and development packages. Such training should include detail on force critical incident policies and approaches so that staff recognise them when they occur, are clear about what action to take and understand how such matters should be escalated within appropriate levels of management. Some incidents have a greater potential to escalate into critical incidents than others. This is because, irrespective of the quality of the police response, the incident itself has had a significant impact on the victim, their family or the community. Poor decision-making, whether it is because of lack of time, information, experience or flawed working methods, can have a significant impact on the progress and direction of such an incident. It is vital, therefore, that contact management staff understand their key role and that this is re-inforced through management focusing on getting it right first time from a caller s point of view. The NPIA, on behalf of ACPO, has produced Practice Advice on Critical Incident Management (2007); this document is available to download here. The HMIC thematic report Open All Hours (2005) pointed to a future policing environment characterised by: Widespread enterprising organised criminality, proliferating international terrorism and domestic extremism. A premium on intelligence, expertise and smart use of capacity. An increasingly risk concerned public and intrusive media. In the face of such challenges, recent terrorist attacks such as 7th July 2005, as well as significant natural disasters, have reinforced the need for effective interoperability between the emergency services and partner responder agencies. Public expectations are that agencies responding to such major incidents will work together effectively in a professional and co-ordinated manner to manage risk and facilitate an appropriate return to normality. Whether proactively planning for major operations or reacting to evolving critical incidents, our contact management staff are the gateway point of risk assessment and risk management. Their decisions can make the difference between service failure and success and the associated reputational consequences. For this reason, contact management staff should be involved in planning for such operations and be involved in post incident debriefs and evaluations to maximise organisational learning opportunities, ensure improved risk assessment and management and enhance future service delivery. The NPIA, on behalf of ACPO, has produced a guidance/practice document for Multi-Agency Interoperability. The guidance provides blue light services (police, ambulance and fire and rescue) with a unified framework for working together that enhances established practices for communication and coordination across the command and control structures. A copy of the ACPO Guidance on Multi-Agency Interoperability (2009) is available to download here. 30

31 Incident Management Calls for service from the public can result in the creation of a command and control incident record. As a service, we often refer to these calls as incidents and it is important that we view each one as a personal request for assistance. Many requests are resolved by contact handlers at the first point of contact, while others lead to a resource deployment. The role of the command and control operator is fundamental to the effective and efficient use of force resources. It is important that they are well trained on the force IT systems, how to prioritise salient information and how to accurately and concisely broadcast this information to support response. Initial training for contact management staff will focus on these areas, and they should also feature as part of regular and ongoing refresher training, incorporated into force training delivery plans in order to keep knowledge, skills and understanding up to date. Pursuit management, special events and major and critical incidents should form a key part of ongoing training, ensuring that skills meet role remit. A number of forces have developed specialist training and accreditation schemes for staff working in environments such as football grounds and large concert arenas. These schemes ensure complete familiarisation with the geography of venues and communication channels and eliminate opportunity for confusion in the event of a major incident developing or suddenly escalating. Part of the command and control operator s role is to access relevant information, in fast-time, to ensure the health and safety of our responding resources and others parties involved. This information often appears on many different systems that are not integrated and requires the operator to interrogate each system separately, which can cause delays in the process. Some forces are working to integrate systems and reduce the need for double-keying and duplication, to enhance our ability to identify potential risks and threats more easily and improve overall service delivery. A lack of a joined-up approach between the contact management function and BCUs can lead to a lack of response to calls for service. Recognising that satisfaction and confidence are negatively impacted where service failure occurs, a number of forces have re-designed processes to share accountability and ownership for service delivery between the contact management centre and BCU commanders. This approach has produced positive results in managing incident demand in some forces. Other forces have gone a step further and are actively exploring single ownership of contact management, combining contact centre(s) with response and front counter functions to create a structure and approach that reflects the end-to-end scope of service delivery. The Home Office sponsored Operation QUEST Programme focuses on identifying sustainable business process improvement opportunities and the introduction of the scheduled appointment system for managing non-urgent incidents has been a common output in forces taking part in the Programme. This consists of making a pre-arranged appointment with callers at a time and place convenient to them. Many of these forces also send out, where appropriate, a reminder by phone or SMS prior to the patrol attending. Scheduled appointments have had a positive impact in terms of managing volumes of demand and reducing service failure and the approach has received good user and customer feedback. It should be noted that forces do not need to be participating in the QUEST programme to implement a scheduled appointment approach and that overall satisfaction is not simply shaped by the delivery of service at an agreed time; it also reflects the customer s view of the actions and behaviour of the attending resource. 31

32 Across England and Wales the service records in excess of 20 million incidents annually. Almost a third of these incidents result in the recording of a notifiable crime. The remainder consists of calls for service which vary from simple quality of life issues to those with associated risk factors, which if not dealt with effectively may escalate into a more serious incident. Individuals who are responsible for the closure and review of incidents are key to managing risk. Forces should ensure that these individuals have the necessary skills to manage operational risk and that independent supervision processes that monitor the quality of closure and decision making exist. Effective management of critical incidents demands high-quality frontline leadership and supervision. Frontline sergeants play a pivotal role in supporting the effective management of incidents and resources, by ensuring that officers and staff are shown available for response. Sergeants are the guardians of excellence in service delivery, supporting both the quality of initial response to public calls for service and the delivery of outcomes that meet customer and force needs. Managing incident demand relies upon a number of technology solutions. These range from Airwave radio, command and control systems, automatic vehicle location systems (AVLS), automatic person location systems (APLS), geographic information systems (GIS) and mobile data solutions (in vehicles / hand held). New technologies are a significant enabler for improved service delivery; however, they are often not a solution in their own right. The key issue is that forces design effective processes and then seek to integrate technology solutions to deliver improved service outcomes. Mobile data is an emerging technology that can deliver a number of benefits from the customer s point of view. These include: Ability to access, in real-time, full crime reports that have been taken at first point of contact and before staff reach the scene of a crime. Ability to access and update real-time intelligence. Ability to access the Police National Computer (PNC), which enables officers to undertake their own checks. Ability to view and update incident logs in real-time. This emerging technology is beginning to reduce duplication, which can free up officer time to proactively interact with the callers and the public at large. It can also provide quicker access to information to aid risk assessment and decision-making in support of service delivery. Used well, new technologies can open doors to better resource usage, enabling forces to identify the most appropriately skilled resource to respond, thus delivering efficiencies in terms of time, travel, and transport. They also ensure effective deployment by showing the location and commitment of response resources and this offers significant benefits in terms of the ability of forces to monitor and address officer/ staff safety issues in real-time. A further way of improving information flow is the introduction of Airwave Speak. This is a nationally recognised standard of radio procedure/language that supports consistent and concise communication between radio users. In order to successfully deliver Airwave Speak, support and drive from chief officer level is required and successful delivery relies on both BCU and contact management staff adherence. 32

33 National Contact Grades Delivering response is a broad process and the critical first component involves contact handlers dealing with public contact and making professional judgments in relation to the vulnerability of involved parties, informed assessments about risks to life and property, threat to safety and whether some matters are more critical in nature than others. Contact handling is a key gateway to service delivery and the ACPO National Contact Grades provide a nationally agreed process by which contacts are risk assessed and prioritised to ensure fair access to service that meets needs across England and Wales. Public expectations about service delivery are inclined to be lower than the typical police response, and closely linked to seriousness. Research suggests that there is an expectation that the police response will depend on the seriousness of the crime or incident in terms of attendance and speed, and that key influences are the level of injury involved, the victim s vulnerability, and whether the perpetrator is at the crime scene. For more minor crimes and incidents, victims tend to be flexible about the response, as long as the police give a time at which they will attend and go on to meet that commitment. This clearly demonstrates the need for contact handlers to understand the purpose of using the national contact grades, and their key role in setting realistic expectations during initial contact to ensure the service does not over-promise and fail to deliver on response. Some research suggests that the police contact handler should provide the caller with an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) 4. The National Policing Pledge (2008) supports this approach (see Pledge point 5 and 6). An ETA should be used where appropriate to shape public expectation and provide reassurance to the caller in respect of a policing response. To provide effective ETAs, forces will need to analyse and understand their attendance times, in order to reduce the need to re-contact the caller should the initial service commitment not be achieved. To support provision of ETAs forces may need to develop systems and processes and capture appropriate management information. It is recognised that this may have cost implications for many forces. The original ACPO national call grades (2005) were supported by definitions. This national guidance continues from that point and provides specific definition around emergency and non-emergency contact. It incorporates national Pledge commitments within its broad framework, ensuring an appropriate level of assessment and prioritisation of service provision, whether operational or intelligence focused, that delivers against needs. It is acknowledged that a number of forces have developed local Pledge commitments to meet local needs. Some forces will underpin the national contact grades with a local approach, for example, providing their own definitions and narrative, designed in conjunction with partners and local communities. However, in doing this, they should clearly be able to show that their approach adds value and is able to be understood (or matched) at the level set out in the national graded responses framework and through the Policing Pledge. 33

34 The Pledge has at its core the delivery of good service. However, good service cannot be measured by numbers alone and care should be taken to ensure that a mechanistic service is not the unintended consequence of a restrictive performance regime. I am aware that some seek specific definitions on all aspects of the Pledge so that performance against it can be clinically assessed. I urge you to resist the temptation to approach the Pledge in this way, as the provision of poor service would undoubtedly be the consequence. Chief Constable Julie Spence ACPO Lead for Business Area (2009) One area of concern with regard to grading relates to staff downgrading the initial contact response. Such decisions, taken without proper regard to the vulnerability and/or likely risk to callers, can have devastating consequences. This is a key area for forces to address as part of their monitoring of service delivery quality and the decision to downgrade an incident should have a clearly documented rationale. It is also essential that contact management staff have the skills, abilities and support systems in place to identify and manage and risk, vulnerability and threat to safety. The IPCC have stated that effective practice should be that supervisors authorise downgrading of incidents and the reason for that decision should be captured on an incident log. More information can be found in the IPCC Learning the Lessons Bulletin 8 (October 2009) which can be found on the Learning the Lessons Committee website by clicking here. Emergency/Immediate Contact An emergency/immediate contact encompasses circumstances where an incident is reported to the police which is taking place and in which there is, or is likely to be, a risk of: Danger to life. Use or immediate threat of use, of violence. Serious injury to a person. Serious damage to property. Where the contact relates to an allegation of criminal conduct, it will be dealt with as an emergency if: The crime is, or is likely to be, serious and in progress. An offender has been disturbed at the scene. An offender has been detained and poses, or is likely to pose, a risk to other people. Where the contact relates to a traffic collision, it will be dealt with as an emergency if: It involves or is likely to involve serious personal injury. The road is blocked or there is a dangerous or excessive build up of traffic. Where the above circumstances do not apply, a contact will be classified as an emergency if: The circumstances are such that a police contact handler has strong and objective reasons for believing that the incident should be classified as an emergency. Force deployment priorities require an immediate response. An Emergency/Immediate Response Where an emergency contact requires an emergency/ immediate police response, the caller should expect the following as standard: The contact handler will give an estimated time of arrival, where appropriate, getting to you safely and as quickly as possible. In Urban areas, we will aim to get to you within 15 minutes and in rural areas within 20 minutes. A Non-Emergency Contact A contact will be classified as non-emergency if it does not meet the emergency criteria outlined above. The consequences of classifying a contact as nonemergency mean only that the police response may not be immediate and may encompass a range of solutions, some of which will not require the attendance of an officer. 34

35 A non-emergency contact attracts three levels of initial response: Priority/Prompt Scheduled appointment Resolution without deployment A Priority/Prompt Response A priority/prompt response will be required where the police contact handler acknowledges that there is a degree of importance or urgency associated with the initial police action, but where an emergency/ immediate response is not required. Where a non-emergency contact requires a priority/ prompt police response, the caller should expect the following: A witness or other evidence is likely to be lost. A person involved is vulnerable or upset. Force/neighbourhood priorities require a priority response. A hate incident/crime is reported. Scheduled Appointment Where a contact does not require an immediate or priority response but still requires police attendance, it will result in a scheduled appointment response. These circumstances typically arise where: The response time is not critical in apprehending offenders. The matter is service orientated and a better quality of initial police action can be provided by: Resolution without Deployment Resolution without deployment can occur where the needs of the caller can be adequately met through provision of advice, information, helpdesk function or signposting to another lead agency/service. This includes signposting to the Police National Legal Database Frequently Asked Questions (PNLD FAQs) database which can be viewed by clicking here. A non-emergency contact that does not require police attendance will be dealt with over the phone; the caller should expect the following standard: If agreed that attendance is not necessary, we will give you advice, answer your questions and/or put you in touch with someone who can help. The contact handler will give an estimated time of arrival. A pre-arranged police response by a suitable police resource. If you are vulnerable or upset, we will aim to be with you within 60 minutes. Attendance at a police clinic or surgery at a time and location of the caller s choice. If you are calling about an issue that we have agreed with your community will be a neighbourhood priority and attendance is required, we aim to be with you within 60 minutes. These typically arise in the circumstances where: There is genuine concern for somebody s safety. Where a non-emergency contact requires an appointment to be scheduled, the caller should expect the following standards: If appropriate, an appointment will be made at a time that fits in with the caller s life and within 48 hours of you making contact. An offender has been detained but poses no risk to others. 35

36 Working with Partners HM Government report Working Together: Public Services on Your Side (2009) 5 outlined that to get the best out of public services it is essential that they are joined-up locally around the citizen, are responsive to local circumstances and, crucially, harness the capacity for communities to identify and solve their own problems. The ability to deliver effective contact management services requires forces to work with a range of internal and external stakeholders and partners. Key delivery partners include response and neighbourhood policing teams, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partners, Community Safety Partnerships, other emergency services and other police forces. Critical to success in working together is the recognition at chief officer and executive level that effective partnership approaches can deliver value for money benefits, improved service delivery and enhance public confidence in public services. The publication of new Government PSAs in April 2008 has focused attention on the importance of improving public confidence in the police and local agencies. In particular, PSA 23 (making communities safer) requires an emphasis on the delivery of national, regional and local level partnership solutions to tackle issues that matter most to local communities. Many of these issues can only be tackled by effective partnership working. There are many areas where partnership working can be developed and delivered; four areas that impact upon contact management are: 1. The 101 service 2. Shared service approaches 3. Cross border Collaboration 4. Action Fraud The 101 Service 101 was developed by the Home Office in 2005 as a 24-hour number that provided the public direct access to advice, information and effective action on community safety issues including certain nonemergency crime, policing and anti-social behaviour. The Home Office originally developed 101 as a single non-emergency number (SNEN) intended to operate on a partnership basis, however, after the initial wave one pilots, further funding and development was discontinued. Some of the wave partnerships did not continue however the service continues to operate in Hampshire and Isle of Wight and Sheffield. Further work on 101 has continued and, most notably, this number has now been adopted across all 4 forces in Wales as a single non-emergency number for the police, gradually replacing existing geographic or 0845 type numbers. Responsibility for 101 sits with the Home Office. The National 101 Liaison Committee has now reconvened and is attended by the ACPO lead for contact management. The committee are considering the long term future of 101 and the desirability and viability of its adoption as a single non-emergency number for the police alone (with the option for local partnership arrangements to be considered or added progressively). The latest ACPO update confirms that they are aware a number of forces are currently considering the future of their existing geographic or 08XX non-emergency numbers, including assessing the benefits or costs of a move to the new 0300 range. Some forces in England have expressed significant interest in adopting 101 either individually or on a regional basis. 36

37 The existing contract for the infrastructure support for 101 expires in 2011 and the Home Office have requested a more formal ACPO view, in particular on the option of 101 being adopted as a Police only SNEN for all forces in England and Wales. At time of publication discussions are ongoing. The Home Office has developed a 101 delivery toolkit which provides information on the evaluation and lessons learned from the service to date. It also provides guidance, example documentation and supporting materials to help forces/areas who may wish to explore/operate the 101 service locally. This can be sourced by making direct contact with the Home Office Public Confidence Unit at: [email protected] Shared Service Approaches A number of forces are already exploring the potential to work with partners to create shared service approaches to service delivery. These approaches are intended to deliver improvement in line with the statutory requirements on forces and partners and focus around opportunities to deliver services at less cost, or more efficiently, by working together and colocating business resources. The Cabinet Office, Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), Local Government Association (LGA) and Communities and Local Government came together in the Autumn of 2006 to commission a programme of research into Front Office Shared Services (FOSS). The overall objective of the programme was to investigate the opportunities for delivering more integrated and efficient services, involving a range of local public sector bodies, through shared front office arrangements focused on shared services that are more visible to citizens. The FOSS projects are already showing the real potential of local partnerships to deliver improvements to customer service and efficiency. They are also supporting wider agendas such as social inclusion and citizen engagement making the business case for local transformation and above all they demonstrate the value of active community leadership. A few forces are now in relatively early stage involvement with the FOSS programme of work and are exploring how they can improve accessibility to local services, for example, by housing front counters and neighbourhood policing teams outside of police stations. Working in partnership to deliver shared services will require joined-up use of technology; however, it can bring many efficiencies of service, including reduction in avoidable contact, improved problem solving and value for money. Critically, forces that undertake shared working approaches should ensure that agreed processes are in place to monitor and review the delivery of business outcomes, in order that they can demonstrate the achievement of efficiencies, improved service provision and/or opportunities for continual improvement. Further information and reports relating to the FOSS programme, including case studies, can be obtained by clicking here. Cross-border / Collaboration Events and incidents often cross boundaries within or between forces and/or other agencies. Public expectations are that forces and agencies should be able to operate together in an effective and professional manner to deal with public calls for service and ensure public safety. Critical to delivering high quality service provision is the ability for the parties involved to communicate and co-ordinate to ensure delivery of an effective service response. In recent years there has been significant investment in new technologies, for example, the national Airwave radio system, which has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of communication. Increasingly, the service and partners have identified the requirement for common understanding and agreed approaches to joint working practices and/ or procedures, which would ensure that the right response decisions are made and service resources used to best effect. At a national level, NPIA has produced, on behalf of ACPO, Guidance on Multi-Agency Interoperability (2009), which provides a framework and set of principles for joint working between the blue light services (police, ambulance and fire and rescue). The ACPO, Guidance on Multi-Agency Interoperability (2009) is available to download here. 37

38 The guidance reinforces the importance of collecting and sharing information with decision makers, thereby enabling them to direct activity, monitor progress and co-ordinate resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. Interoperability has an external focus, whether involving one service (force-to-force in policing terms) or service-to-service, e.g., when working with other emergency services in dealing with major or critical incidents at a local, regional or national level. One of the latest developments in this area is the Direct Electronic Incident Transfer (DEIT). It addresses the problems experienced by a number of forces who currently have to resort to ringing or faxing neighbouring forces or partner agencies to pass on important information, with associated risks to the effectiveness of service delivery. DEIT would allow forces to electronically transfer incidents (and potentially other records/information) between forces and to other agencies at the touch of a button. The NPIA Strategic Operations Interoperability programme is now driving this initiative forward and is expected to detail an implementation approach during The NPIA will look to work with forces in the future to develop policy and procedures in relation to electronic incident transfer to ensure that the approach enhances interoperability and delivers business efficiencies. The NPIA has also published, on behalf of ACPO, a standardised approach comprising a single format for force-to-force addresses, which provides an easy to remember point of contact for operational matters. The ACPO agreed format is: [email protected]. With the event of the latest health pandemic, many forces have come together as regions to put plans and processes in place which rely on cross-border collaboration. One region is currently investigating how they could move to sharing one telephony platform. This would allow forces to virtualise the telephony part of the process; however, without incident transfer or an efficient method of getting the information back to the relevant force, this type of development is hindered. Action Fraud The National Fraud Authority (NFA), suggest that on average, fraud costs each of us living in England and Wales around 621 a year 6. It can have a devastating effect on individuals and businesses, causing a range of financial and emotional harms, which have often remained unrecognised and under reported. Fraud ranges from major individual international frauds netting billions, through VAT and benefit frauds to credit card frauds and various so called scams. Many will appear to be small frauds, but they are often organised on a mass scale, netting the criminals vast profits. Given its scale and range, policing fraud is very challenging. Public and private sector organisations and bodies are working hard to contain and reduce the level of fraud; however, the overall rise in fraudulent activity has not been curbed effectively. To address the under-reporting of fraud and lack of consolidation in managing intelligence issues, Action Fraud (formerly known as the National Fraud Reporting Centre) has been established. Action Fraud is a service for the victims of fraud. It provides a call centre and web facility for the reporting of fraud. The website will also provide up to date and cohesive advice for victims and guidance on the prevention of fraud. Action Fraud is a non police organisation and is part of the National Fraud Authority, however it will meet all the standards expected of a police crime reporting centre. This is being achieved through a planned audit of the service in line with the new CMS. Action Fraud is working towards being able to transfer calls to 999 or Police non emergency numbers (although this functionality is not currently available) to ensure that the public receive a well co-ordinated response. Action Fraud will also refer calls to Crimestoppers The data collected by Action Fraud will provide the police and other agencies such as the Financial Services Authority, the Serious Fraud Office and Her Majesty s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with information to target investigations. Further information is available by clicking here. 38

39 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery The public expect to be able to contact the police 24/7 and, in particular, there is an expectation that the service will respond and take the lead in the event of an emergency even when they themselves have been impacted by it. Failure to respond, particularly in the case of an emergency, will affect public confidence in the service. The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) defines an emergency as: An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare or to the environment in the UK. War or terrorism which threatens serious damage to the security of the UK. The Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) places a legal responsibility on forces to assess the risk of emergencies, to maintain plans to respond and ensure business continuity and to communicate with the public and work with other emergency response agencies including local authorities, councils, hospitals and other blue light services. The CCA has created a legal requirement for business continuity and emergency planning and forces should be able to provide a 24/7 response service for emergency calls and also be prepared to deal with more demanding emergencies such as terrorist attacks, serious flooding or outbreaks of disease that threaten the welfare or environment within their communities. Business continuity planning requires forces to identify critical police functions and to have plans and policies in place to ensure their continued delivery during an emergency or after a partial, or complete, loss of service. Most forces identify 999 call-handling and providing response services as critical functions to be maintained in the event of an emergency or disaster. It is important, therefore, that forces have effective plans across all contact management functions, including the contact centre and response and back office functions. Given the critical nature of contact management functions outlined above, forces should have robust plans in place to ensure business continuity and the plans should be regularly reviewed and tested. HMIC acknowledged in 2009, that the financial and opportunity costs associated with testing will be unattractive to forces faced with budget constraints. It suggested that police authorities, in line with their responsibilities for efficiency and effectiveness, should consider supporting co-operation between forces, through either regional or other cluster arrangements to share and reduce the costs. This approach has been successfully used by North Wales Police, the five-force collaboration in the East Midlands and the Yorkshire and Humberside collaboration. HMIC Thematic First Contact (2005) 7 recommended that: All forces should implement a collaborative process whereby another force, or forces, agrees to take 999 calls on their behalf when high demand is experienced. Clear policies and procedures are required to ensure consistency of approach and appropriate safeguards to service. A code of practice for the Public Emergency Call Services (PECS) exists between communication providers and the emergency services and is intended to deal with the handling of 999/112 public emergency telephone calls. The PECS code establishes a requirement for forces to have buddy arrangements in place to maintain service delivery. These arrangements are usually invoked in the event of a major influx of emergency calls or as a result of technical/equipment failure within a force. The code has proved valuable to forces recently in planning service level agreements to mitigate problems associated with loss of contact management staff as a result of the swine flu pandemic. The code of practice also provides agreed guidance for drafting media statements to reassure and update the public in the event of significant service failures. 39

40 Diagnostic Indicators The diagnostic indicators are one part of an overall suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management that can be found in Appendix C. It is not the intention for the diagnostics to be used in isolation where the focus might be on quantity at the expense of quality, more they should be used together to gain a fuller understanding of service delivery. These indicators are not exhaustive and do not preclude forces from using additional appropriate diagnostics that meet local needs. It is recognised that the Incident Response performance indicators will be subject to local commitments. Incident Response Performance Indicators Description Emergency Response URBAN Emergency Response RURAL Priority Response Scheduled Response Resolution without Deployment Indicator and Brief Narrative Volume and % incidents attended within 15 minutes Volume and % incidents attended within 20 minutes Volume and % incidents attended within 60 minutes Volume and % incidents attended within 60 minutes: vulnerable Volume and % incidents attended within 60 minutes: neighbourhood priority Volume and % of incidents attended within 48 hours Volume and % of incidents resolved without deployment Core Contact Management Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Demand Forecast Accuracy Ability to accurately forecast contact demand by comparing forecasted demand against actual demand Incidents per Grade Volume and % of contacts graded as Emergency / Immediate Volume and % of contacts graded as Priority / Prompt Volume and % of contacts graded as Scheduled Appointment Volume and % of contacts graded as Resolution without Deployment Staff Utilisation Time spent on customer contact activity 40

41 CHAPTER 1 41

42 Supporting Summary This chapter focuses on developing a culture where effective and informed leaders focus our people on delivering a truly citizen focused service. It emphasises the need to understand and manage both knowledge of people and business outcomes in order to improve service delivery performance and enhance local accountability. Leadership and Culture Our People Knowledge Management The importance of contact management in terms of supporting, improving and reviewing delivery of policing services needs to be valued and recognised at chief officer level and across the wider organisation. Most forces now have an ACPO lead for contact management and to be most effective this needs to be supported by joined-up decision-making and joint accountability, across business areas. To create the right culture and promote trust and confidence within the organisation, leaders and managers should involve staff in shaping and delivering service. Leaders will set the tone of the new culture and employees will want to see them walk the talk. It is important that staff fully understand the connections between the part of the service that they deliver and the overall customer experience. Our people are our most valuable asset and it is critical that they are well equipped and truly empowered to use their knowledge and skills to deliver the best possible customer experience. Engaging with staff, supporting their wellbeing, recognising and rewarding excellence and providing opportunities for career progression demonstrates a pro-active approach to valuing the people that deliver our service. Understanding the people that deliver our services in terms of diversity, skills, attitudes, behaviours and workforce mix is important in order to maximise their contribution to service delivery. Likewise when those staff clearly understand how their work contributes to the quality of the overall customer experience they are more likely to deliver service that truly meet the needs of individuals and the broader communities we serve. Information is the lifeblood of effective policing but unless it is accurate, relevant and accessible when it is needed, it is of little value. Knowledge management (KM) is about building organisational intelligence to improve performance. It involves using the ideas, knowledge and experience of employees, customers and partners to improve an organisation s performance. KM provides people with the tools to improve the way they capture, share and use knowledge. It reveals what works and helps people build on experience to ensure better practice, strategy and policy. 42

43 Supporting Principles and Critical Success Factors The main principles discussed within this chapter are leadership, people and knowledge. This chapter also provides CSFs around key business areas that will support forces in driving and delivering change and performance. Principle 2: Leadership Delivering effective leadership at all levels to promote and enhance citizen focused contact management. Principle 3: People Investing in people and involving them in shaping contact management. Principle 5: Knowledge Exploiting the value of citizen and business knowledge to understand performance and improve local accountability. Leadership and Culture: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having identified chief officer and Police Authority leads for contact management. Having structures in place to support joined-up decision-making and joint accountability at all levels in order to support effective service delivery. Recognising the specialist nature of contact management when selecting senior managers and supporting this through effective succession planning. Being able to demonstrate how frontline leaders support their staff to deliver citizen focused outcomes. Ensuring contact management staff understand the connections between the part of the service that they deliver and the overall customer experience. Our People: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Download the Critical Success Factors Having a HR strategy for contact management that supports force HR strategy and contact management strategy. Having effective and robust Human Resource functions and processes to drive operational performance. Ensuring that learning and development is central to the employment contract and individually tailored and designed around organisational and individual needs. Ensuring recruitment processes are dynamic and test experience, skills, competencies and behaviours relevant to each role within the contact management function. 43

44 Supporting Having an absence management policy that is proactive and recognises the needs of the roles and responsibilities of contact management staff. Demonstrating effective succession planning which supports ability to sustain operational performance and recognises individual roles. Being able to demonstrate a culture of service improvement that promotes organisational learning. Empowering staff to use their professional judgment and skills to effectively resolve calls for service from the public. Having effective processes and systems in place to support decision-making and reduce bureaucracy. Employee Engagement: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Being able to evidence a process for engaging staff at all levels, to improve contact management service delivery. Having an underpinning communication strategy to ensure that all staff understand how they can be involved in designing the service that they deliver. Undertaking staff perception surveys, ensuring that they are relevant and that the findings are fed back to staff and action planned. Investors in People: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having a recognised accreditation process that supports effective development of people talent in line with organisational ambitions and to support improved performance. Wellbeing of Staff: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Implementing a structured health and wellbeing programme that is long lasting and supports staff in the workplace. Reward and Recognition: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Having effective reward, recognition and retention plans in place to support and maintain contact management service delivery. Ensuring that reward and recognition plans are fair and inclusive and linked to organisational values. National Occupation Standards: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Using the National Occupational Standards to support development of contact management role descriptions and Performance Development Review criteria. Using the National Occupational Standards to support staff decision-making and use of professional judgment in order to reduce risk and manage threat and vulnerability. Knowledge Management: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Providing effective leadership to ensure that knowledge and information contributes to organisational success and management of risk. Working towards MoPI compliance to assist the organisation in achieving accurate, relevant and accessible information. Having a knowledge management strategy that is underpinned by the appropriate policies and processes. Ensuring that knowledge management is embedded into contact management and force learning programmes. 44

45 Supporting Leadership and Culture Forces that have strong commitment and support from their chief officers and police authority combined with joined up accountability and decision making have seen a positive impact on performance. Employees will look to their line managers and senior managers for explanation, support and guidance. It is therefore, important that leaders head the cultural change movement and champion its rationale and benefits. To create the right culture and promote trust and confidence within the organisation, leaders and managers should involve staff in shaping and delivering service. It is important to have staff who can contribute to the knowledge pool and who can think for themselves, as this can reduce absenteeism and staff turnover and prevent loss of skills and invaluable knowledge. The NPIA has developed a cultural analysis model survey that forces can use to measure the attitudes of officers and staff towards various aspects of. The survey is intended to measure organisational culture. Whilst it is suggested that all officers and staff in the force undertake the survey, a specific department can undertake it, for example, the contact management function. A copy of the NPIA cultural analysis tool is available to download here (this document is currently held on the secure members only area). To ensure good quality customer service is delivered across the organisation, BCU commanders and heads of contact management need to work together, at a strategic level, to ensure effective tactical delivery of service. Joined-up decision-making and accountability is essential to delivering contact management in a cohesive way that adds value. Some forces still do not acknowledge the specialist nature of contact management work when selecting senior managers. There is limited evidence of either effective succession planning or a comprehensive induction course for senior police officers/police staff to equip them with the necessary skills before taking up contact management positions. This can result in skills and knowledge gaps in senior contact management roles and this can have an impact on service delivery, particularly in the short term, as new managers seek to build up their knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, it is important that the roles and responsibilities of supervisors within the contact management function are clearly set out, for example, are they solely people managers, or do they have operational responsibilities or a blend of both? Clarity of focus will ensure that supervisors carry out the right activities to support delivery of service to the customer. The HMIC thematic report Leading from the Frontline (2008) looked at the role of the sergeant. The report outlined that there are strong elements of leadership required for effective frontline supervision; part of that leadership will inevitably entail the management of processes and the supervision of individuals, teams and incidents. The report further stated that regardless of a sergeant s experience and technical knowledge, they need to maintain standards and lead from the frontline. Whilst the report focused on the role of the police sergeant, it is important to note that in many instances the recommendations equally apply to police staff supervisory roles. The report is available to download here. 45

46 Supporting Our People Quality services are delivered when forces have the right people in the right place doing the right job. Staff that feel valued and inspired by a sense of service and have people s needs at the forefront of their minds are likely to be more productive and motivated to deliver force goals. Our people are more likely to be motivated and inspired where they receive high quality training and development and are rewarded for delivering the best possible customer experience. It remains clear that the first contact is, more often than not, the most important. Get it wrong and things become ever more difficult to put right. Call handling therefore must be kept under ongoing review to remove overly bureaucratic practices. The most effective way of improving it has been encouraging and empowering front line staff to develop solutions to problems. Jan Berry, Reducing Bureaucracy in Policing, (2009) High Involvement Human Resources Research in strategic human resource management 8 shows a link between organisational performance and human resource (HR) strategies that invest in the workforce. These strategies are often referred to as high involvement systems and generally include coherent sets of HR practices that enhance employee skills, participation in decisions and motivations. The contact management function is complex and requires high involvement HR in order to delivery consistently high level and customer focused service at optimal price. Employers can only deliver the required service if they have the right workforce or resources in place. A human resource (HR) strategy, which may also be called a people or workforce strategy, should help to focus the organisation on the people management interventions that impact on the achievement of corporate objectives and outcomes. The strategy should recognise the benefits of having a committed, capable and skilled workforce and one that is focused on achieving the organisation s objectives. HR managers in policing face significant challenges, including different regulations for police officers and police staff, fixed shift patterns, flexible working, local policy and the ever-increasing intensity of work within the contact management environment. The complexity of police contact management work and the structure it operates within requires the support of high involvement HR and a specific HR strategy for contact management. A HR strategy for contact management needs to encompass: High quality recruitment and retention plans. The provision of the right skills and tools for the job. Resource capability model. Approach to employee engagement. Reward and recognition. Staff wellbeing. Some forces have a HR strategy specifically for contact management, linked to their force strategy. Additionally, a number of forces now have dedicated HR and learning and development expertise to support contact management service delivery. The key is to have dedicated HR expertise, whether centrally located or devolved. Those forces with dedicated expertise have seen a reduction in sickness, increased staff retention and increased productivity and performance. 46

47 Supporting Recruitment and Retention It is crucial that forces recruit and retain the right staff in order to sustain organisational memory, skills and experience and deliver the best possible customer experience at optimal price. To recruit the right staff, processes need to be dynamic and test experience, skills, competencies and behaviours relevant to the role. Career progression and development opportunities should be considered for contact management roles at all levels and should include, for example, duty inspectors; team managers and supervisors; mentors, tutors and coaches; contact handlers and command and control operators. Inevitably, people leave organisations and exit interviews provide leavers with an opportunity to give the reasons behind their decision and the organisation with an opportunity to learn any lessons, where appropriate. Setting high standards in recruitment and learning and development will positively impact on staff retention and ability to deliver consistently high quality customer service. The following key activities support organisational learning: Having a robust process in place to collect and collate timely exit interview results. Ensuring that analysis is carried out and the information is used to improve performance and that the recruitment process is evaluated and developed accordingly. Ensuring that learning and development is central to the employment contract and is individually tailored and designed around organisational and individual needs. Having mentors and tutors in place and measuring and evaluating their effectiveness. Attrition Staff attrition refers to the number of staff that leave their role within a given period of time, usually calculated on an annual basis. Attrition of contact management staff within the police service is generally low when compared to both commercial and public sector. This tends to suggest that the service is viewed as an attractive place to work. Whilst attrition has an impact upon costs, in terms of time to recruit and train, it is also important to note that it is considered healthy to have a level of movement of people flowing between different parts of the organisation, some people leaving and new blood joining. The National Police Contact Management Benchmarking Report (2008) 9 confirmed that the average attrition rate for the police service during the reporting period was 12%. This was considered to be best in class when compared with public and commercial sectors. This report is available to download here. Many forces measure both: Internal attrition staff that have remained with the force but have moved to other departments or business areas. External attrition staff that have left the force. There are a number of organisational factors that have an impact on attrition rates. The most common factors are low job control over how tasks are done and how customers are dealt with. This supports the need for staff to be empowered to use discretion to deliver a quality customer experience that meets individual needs. The excessive use of overtime and under recruitment can also lead to increased attrition rates. Call Centre Helper outlines six main areas to focus on in order to improve performance and reduce staff attrition. These are outlined below: 1. Having a robust recruitment process in place to ensure that staff have the right skills and competencies for the job. 2. Ensuring that role expectations and career development opportunities are clearly mapped out. 3. Streamlining and simplifying processes to support staff in dealing with calls for service. 4. Having the right people scheduled to answer customers calls. 5. Ensuring staff are skilled and empowered to deliver the best customer experience. 6. Having a feedback mechanism to engage staff and recognise and reward excellence. Further information is available by clicking here. 47

48 Supporting Absence Management Commercially, it has been identified that contact centres are known for high absence rates, ranging from 10% to 25% of the workforce. Historically, police contact centres and control rooms have experienced high sickness and absence rates in comparison with other parts of the organisation. The nature of contact management roles and the enclosed environment is a contributing factor to sickness levels. It is important that robust processes are in place to help reduce and manage sickness and absence and that these processes are proactive, in order to address the cause and effect of such. Where forces have invested in managing absence they have seen, in some cases, a significant return on investment. In the current climate it has become essential to support staff to sustain and improve their health. Succession Planning Recruiting staff into any role can be both time consuming and costly. Formal assessment of experience, skills and behaviours will usually form part of the recruitment process for contact management staff and whilst this is crucial to attracting the right staff, it does not provide a quick solution to fill the gap in skills. Succession planning is a process by which one or more successors are identified for key posts and career moves and development activities are planned for these successors. It is about preparing organisations for likely or inevitable changes now, in order to minimise challenges later. It is important to have an approach to succession planning that supports ability to sustain operational performance and recognises individual roles. The duty officer is a key role in any force. Police officers and/or police staff in this role are required to demonstrate effective leadership and real-time critical operational decision-making on a daily basis. Out of hours, the duty officer may often be the backstop for the force and the key fast-time decision maker for critical incidents, pursuits and carrying out spontaneous firearm silver command. Some forces experience difficulty in recruiting to this role. There are a variety of reasons for this; however, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the main this is due to inaccurate perceptions around the role, a lack of financial incentives and reluctance to assume the responsibility that goes with the role, especially around firearms. To improve this situation, forces need to consider raising the status and profile of the duty officer role, be proactive in recruiting the right staff into this critical role and having effective planning, learning and development processes in place to support personal development. 48

49 Supporting Empowering People with Discretion Empowering staff to use their professional judgment and skills to effectively resolve calls for service from the public is fundamental to delivering a tailored service to our communities. Sir Ronnie Flanagan s Review of Policing was published by HMIC in The report discussed how the range of demands on policing and the changing nature of the world mean that policing now needs to be even more dynamic and flexible, so it can more easily prioritise and respond to changing needs. The report is available to download here. Recommendation 21 of the review sought to achieve the goal of public trust and confidence in crime statistics by ensuring all incidents and crimes are recorded and proportionately responded to. A four-force pilot was set up to address the lack of proportionate response in the service and to create a community focused performance regime for local crime. Recommendation 21 focuses on proportionate recording of crime and reducing bureaucracy and also includes using discretion or professional judgment. In order to enable this, effective processes and systems need to be in place to support decisionmaking, not only out on the streets but also at the first point of contact. Having a culture of organisational learning rather than blame is important if service improvements are to be gained. The pilot forces for the introduction of recommendation 21 ensured that robust training on how and when to apply professional, proportionate judgment was given to all frontline officers, front counter staff and control room/contact centre staff. They recognised that in order for this approach to be successful, it needed to be delivered across the whole of the organisation. Having integrated systems such as command and control, intelligence, Airwave and mobile data can support and assist staff in making the right professional judgments. This also reduces bureaucracy by removing double-keying on systems and providing quick-time access to relevant information. Further developments with mobile data provide officers out on the street with more timely and accurate access to information, e.g., PNC checks and the ability to create certain types of information records in real-time whilst on patrol (such as incident and crime records). This has freed up time by reducing the need for officers to return to police stations to complete administrative processes. In order to reduce risk around this approach, the forces ensured that processes were in place to identify any early errors, that professional standards departments were briefed and that the IPCC were included. Taking this approach ensures that early learning is captured and used to continually improve and refine service delivery. 49

50 Supporting Employee Engagement The concept of employee engagement is widely discussed. Sometimes, however, confusion is caused by people using the term interchangeably for other constructs, such as employee commitment, job satisfaction, employee happiness or internal communication. The Work Foundation 10 states that employee engagement describes employees emotional and intellectual commitment to their organisation and its success. Engaged employees experience a compelling purpose and meaning in their work and give of their discrete effort to advance the organisation s objectives. Focus on employee engagement should begin even before employees start working with the organisation. Research shows that there is a clear trend for employees to be highly engaged upon joining an organisation, but engagement levels tend to dip significantly in the early years. Many organisations recognise the benefits of focusing on engagement as part of the whole employee lifecycle. Evidence from the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work for in the UK 11 shows that companies with higher levels of staff engagement (measured using parameters such as employee wellbeing, line management and team working) have 13% lower staff turnover and less than half the sickness of the UK average. It is therefore essential to encourage staff to get involved and share ideas. There are a number of low cost options that will make progress towards staff feeling more engaged and more inclined towards creativity and innovation, including: Suggestion schemes encourage staff to think through ideas, build a business case and develop presentation and negotiation skills. Employee engagement/representation groups often more successful where membership is cross-departmental and where the interests of the organisation and the members are considered equally. Problem solving days. Developing local champions to support new initiatives. A number of forces undertake regular staff perception surveys to find out what their staff think about the organisation. These surveys often result in new ideas and innovations to support improved performance. Suggestion Schemes Our people always have been and always will be a source of creativity, innovation and improvement. The harnessing of this talent is crucial to the success and growth of the organisation and there is therefore a need to proactively encourage employees to generate ideas for innovation and improvement. A staff suggestion scheme is an example of how to generate such ideas. Such a scheme should aim to promote the involvement of employees in assisting the organisation to achieve its goals. Suggestion schemes can deliver a number of benefits, from improved processes and inspired and motivated staff who feel that their opinion is valued, to direct savings and cost reduction. When developing an approach to employee engagement, forces need to consider what employee engagement looks like and means within their force and how they will attract the right people to work for them. It is also crucial to have an understanding of what skills, knowledge and experience new members of staff bring to the force and how these can be best utilised. A good internal communications strategy is vital to open up routes for direct employee involvement. It can also ensure that staff understand and support the corporate vision. The strategy needs to be two-way to enable questions, feedback and opinion, as well as provide information. Ideas UK is a non-commercial, not-for-profit association in the UK, dedicated to employee suggestion schemes and reward and recognition processes. Further information is available via the Ideas UK website by clicking here. 50

51 Supporting Investors in People Investors in People (IiP) is a voluntary assessment scheme backed by the UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. The scheme aims to improve organisational performance through better planning, implementation and evaluation of learning and development programmes across organisations of all sizes and sectors. IiP state that organisations that have their accreditation are more likely to achieve organisational goals and meet their strategic objectives. Further information regarding IiP is available by clicking here. Effective development of people talent in line with organisational ambitions is also central to managing change. Research shows that organisations of any type and size that adopt a comprehensive approach to people development perform better than those without. People development must be linked to changes in business goals and supported by inspirational and effective leadership and empowering management practices. A number of forces participate in the IiP scheme. The IiP Framework Summary of is available to download here. 51

52 Supporting Wellbeing of Staff CHAPTER 1 The workplace can be a key setting for improving people s health and wellbeing. The way in which the workplace can affect someone s health and wellbeing is not simply a medical issue. Good health improves an individual s quality of life, and a focus on their wellbeing can also add value to organisations by promoting better health and increasing motivation and engagement of employees, in turn helping to drive increases in productivity and efficiency. The quality of the experience that someone has in the workplace can impact on health and wellbeing. The benefits of health and wellbeing extend far beyond avoiding or reducing the costs of absence or poor performance. This requires a changed perception of health and wellbeing and willingness from both employer and employees to invest resources and change behaviour. Dame Carol Black, the National Director for Health and Work, was commissioned to conduct a review of the health of Britain s working-age population. Her subsequent report Working for a Healthier Tomorrow (2008) 12 suggested that a shift in attitude is necessary to ensure that employers and employees recognise not only the importance of preventing ill-health, but also the key role the workplace can play in promoting health and wellbeing. Promoting wellbeing in the workplace is about more than promoting healthy lifestyles and eating habits. Whilst these initiatives do have a place and show concern for employee welfare, workplace wellbeing covers a wider range of issues including: Work-life balance and flexible working. Stress management. Fairness. Mental health, disability, bullying and harassment. The impact of the physical working environment. Perceptions of safety at work. Support from line managers. The nature and characteristics of the jobs that staff undertake are vitally important in terms of satisfaction, reward and control. Good management can lead to good health, wellbeing and improved performance. An approach to wellbeing needs long term commitment and should be considered as normal practice for both employers and employees. In the current climate it has become essential to help employees take the first steps to improving their health. Investing in staff wellbeing is an employer s responsibility and the returns are significant and, importantly, measurable. The benefits include financial savings, advocacy and improvement in morale, leading to increased outputs of service and productivity. Implementing a structured health and wellbeing programme ensures the investment is sustainable and offers value for money. Maria Bourke, Let s Get Healthy Founder and Managing Director (2009) 52

53 Supporting A number of wellbeing programmes promote an intrusive management approach and include initial workforce assessments, individual health checks, workplace sessions and identifying workplace champions. Some forces have invested to promote health and wellbeing and, as a result, have realised a number of measurable benefits and return on investment. These include: Increased staff morale and engagement Reduced absence and attrition Increased physical activity Improved healthy eating Reduced number of smokers Improved productivity and efficiency Reduced costs There is persuasive evidence that the health and wellbeing of employees are critical determinants of the success of enterprise and service, whether in the public or private sector. Employers are increasingly aware of the benefits that investment in the health and wellbeing of employees can bring, in terms of both performance and reputation. The benefits are tangible, whatever the economic climate. A meaningful programme to safeguard, maintain and restore health and wellbeing can strengthen loyalty, engagement and advocacy and lead to improved morale, productivity, service and product quality and customer satisfaction. It can reduce absenteeism and staff turnover and, by promoting skill retention, will reduce avoidable cost of recruitment and training. Dame Carol Black, National Director for Health and Work (2009) 53

54 Supporting Reward and Recognition CHAPTER 1 As organisations seek to increase the impact of reward practices beyond pay, a well-designed recognition scheme that is aligned to the organisation and its purpose can deliver a return on investment. Reward and recognition is more than remuneration packages base salary, variable pay (such as bonus payments) and benefits. HR Management Suite suggests that extra responsibility and career advancement are positive motivational factors when staff can see a direct connection between their efforts and an outcome that they feel is worth striving for. Factors to consider when designing a recognition scheme: Be inclusive A successful scheme should aim to reward and recognise excellence and motivate everyone, not just the small group of stars in an organisation. Make it fair Establish a proper assessment process to ensure that the scheme is fair and consistent. Using peer panels, where colleagues decide on successful nominations, works successfully for some organisations. Align it to the culture and values The scheme should encourage behaviours that really matter and should therefore be aligned to organisational values. Link it to the organisational mission Ensure the scheme links directly to the force mission. Keep it simple Reinforce the reason why the scheme exists, for example, to reward and recognise special achievements or behaviours that demonstrate force values. Promote the scheme Communication is key to success and should occur as frequently as possible through team briefs, intranet, alerts and posters to keep it top of mind and to encourage nominations. A number of forces are focusing reward and recognition on delivering customer service excellence, bravery and courage, supporting an effective investigation and having an exceptional Performance Development Review (PDR). The Cabinet Office outlines a framework for rewarding staff 14 : The Hay Group Total Reward Elements Framework, is a flexible framework where the core definitions and processes of application can be tailored to fit individual organisations. The framework is shown on page 55 overleaf Figure D. How the concept is applied depends entirely on the organisation and its context, as well as the employee groups involved. The framework, shown overleaf is intended as a strategic guide to designing an appropriate approach, not as a detailed instruction manual. For further information on Total Reward Elements or an informal discussion on reward in general, please contact Mike Hay (Director Hay Group): [email protected] 54

55 Supporting Reward and Recognition CHAPTER 1 Figure D Hay Group Total Reward Elements Framework Intrinsic Elements which contribute to internal value or motivation Extrinsic All the things to which we can assign a monetary value { Common Examples Reward Elements Definition Quality of work Work/Life balance Inspiration/Values Enabling Environment Growth/Opportunity Tangible benefits e.g. Cars Prof. Memberships Discounts Retirement Health and Welfare Holidays Stock/Equity Peformance Shares Annual Incentive Bonus/Split Awards Team Awards Base Salary Hourly Wage Engagement Factors Active Benefits Passive Benefits Long Term Rewards/ Incentives Short Term Variable Base Cash Total Renumeration Total Direct Compensation Total Cash Total Reward Provided by kind permission of Hay Group

56 Supporting National Occupational Standards CHAPTER 1 The Skills for Justice National Occupational Standards (NOS) describe competent performance in terms of outcomes. They allow a clear assessment of competence against nationally agreed standards of performance, across a range of workplace circumstances for all roles. Managers view NOS as an essential tool for managing a highly skilled workforce. They are used widely to support individual and organisational development and quality assurance at all levels. They provide benchmarks of good practice across the UK. NOS form the basis of qualifications, most commonly National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and are also used in the Integrated Competency Framework (ICF). The existing National Call Handling Learning Package (NCHLP) is aligned to meet the requirements of the Skills for Justice role profile for call handlers. These role profiles are based on National Occupational Standards and the National Competency Framework and are the benchmarks against which the occupational competence of those involved in call handling roles are measured. The current NOS for call handling are: AA1 Promote Equality and Diversity. 3A1 Address the needs of callers. 3A2 Develop and maintain supportive relationships with telephone callers. 3A3 Contribute to developing and maintaining positive caller relationships. 3A5 Contribute to the handling of incidents and resources. Copies of role profiles may be obtained by registering with the Skills for Justice Website by clicking here. The current policing prioritisation of contact management and indicates that the existing NCHLP learning materials require review as the scope expands. The NPIA has accepted a commission from ACPO to review the existing NCHLP and to develop a broader National Contact Management Learning Package (NCMLP). The call handling NOS will be re-evaluated as part of this review. Further information regarding development of the NCMLP can be obtained from the NPIA and Neighbourhood Policing Programme team: [email protected] 3A6 Process telephone calls. 56

57 Supporting Knowledge Management CHAPTER 1 Knowledge management (KM) is about building organisational intelligence to improve performance. It involves using the ideas, knowledge and experience of employees, customers and partners to improve an organisation s performance. KM provides people with the tools to improve the way they capture, share and use knowledge. It reveals what works and helps people build on experience to ensure better practice, strategy and policy. Further guidance around developing a knowledge management strategy is available on the IDeA Website by clicking here. Information Matters: The Government Knowledge and Information Management Strategy (2008) sets out how government can further develop capability in its management of knowledge and information by providing an overall framework of principles and capabilities needed to help embed a stronger knowledge and information management culture. Further information on this strategy is available to download here. A statutory code of practice on the management of police information (MoPI) was introduced in 2005, in direct response to recommendations of the Bichard enquiry report. Compliance with the full MoPI standards, on track for 2010, will support consistent national standards across the police service and help forces prepare for the arrival of the Police National Database. The sharing of knowledge within and between organisations depends on a number of factors. These include: Leadership Do leaders encourage the sharing of knowledge and practice and demonstrate it in their daily business? Culture Is the culture conducive to sharing of knowledge and practice? Learning and Development Are there processes in place to capture, evaluate and disseminate operational learning? Organisational memory Are there processes to ensure that organisational memory is retained? Recent developments in information and communication technology, such as Web 2.0, focus on using web technology in the way that purists believe the internet was meant to be used, i.e., for information sharing and collaboration amongst users, usually set up in communities or user groups. It is important for forces to understand how the internet will affect the needs of the architectures and technologies within the contact management environment and that these are considered in line with the overarching customer service strategy. The police service will soon launch the Police Online Knowledge Area (POLKA). This is essentially a set of web-based tools such as wikis, blogs and discussion fora, which can be used to facilitate online communication, collaborative working and the sharing of knowledge between our various stakeholders and ourselves. POLKA is due to be launched nationally in Spring It will be accessible by NPIA, Police Forces, ACPO and third party government agencies. restricted access will also be provided to other third parties, including commercial partners with whom we do business. 57

58 Supporting Its content is structured around communities, for example, the and Neighbourhood Policing Programme, Cabinet Office Service Transformation Programme, etc. The IDeA defines a Community of Practice as a network of individuals with common problems or interests, who get together and explore ways of working to identify common solutions and share good practice and ideas. Further information on the IDeA is available by clicking here. Another useful database that has been developed is the Police National Legal Database Frequently Asked Questions (PNLD FAQs). It has been developed in consultation with forces across the UK and has a national and local information capability. The national database is well established; however, whilst a number of forces have developed the local database to provide enhanced information, this is more sporadic. Whilst there is limited evidence that the PNLD FAQs have decreased demand of calls for service, it has improved accessibility to information for members of the public and can support decisionmaking for frontline staff. The PNLD FAQs are available to download here. Force s incident and crime recording systems contain a rich source of information about service delivery. The recording of crime and incidents are governed by national standards, which ensure the efficacy of the resulting data, both at a local and national level. The National Standard for Incident Recording (NSIR) and the National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) establish citizen or victim focused frameworks for the effective capture of data in order to: better understand demand, provide transparency and accountability for service delivery at a local level, inform intelligence gathering and the tasking and co-ordination of resources and enable an appropriate focus on tackling crime and anti-social behaviour. The standards are intended to assist forces to deliver services that meet customer needs and to ensure that there is sufficient quality of management and performance information to enable effective oversight of service provision. In order to ensure that NCRS and NSIR remain fit for purpose, both are subject to annual review managed by their respective steering groups, which include representation from stakeholders such as ACPO, the Home Office, APA and all forces in England and Wales. 58

59 Supporting Diagnostic Indicators CHAPTER The Supporting diagnostic indicators are part of an overall Suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management that can be found in Appendix C. It is not the intention for the diagnostics to be used in isolation where the focus might be on quantity at the expense of quality, more they are used together to support understanding of our people who support delivery of our service. These indicators are not exhaustive and do not preclude forces from using additional appropriate diagnostics that meet local needs. Core Contact Management Performance Indicators Description Attrition Absence Employee Engagement Indicator and Brief Narrative Number and percentage of staff leaving as a percentage of total FTE employed by the contact management function A measure of the number of unplanned days lost through sickness or other unplanned absence each year Measures how satisfied staff are in their work and activities undertaken to engage with staff 1 59

60 Delivering Value For Money 60

61 Summary This chapter focuses on the importance of achieving the optimum balance between cost and delivering a better customer experience and, explores different business tools and methodologies for delivering value for money for the public. Contact management is an integral part of providing consistently high quality customer service and should not be seen as merely an expensive necessity. Delivering Value For Money At a time of increasing pressure on public finances, there is an explicit requirement for forces to proactively review their business processes and technological systems, in order to achieve greater efficiency and value for money (VfM) in the area of contact management. Furthermore this should take account of our changing society and future developments around for example shared services, 101 and the National Fraud Reporting Centre. Public Sector Approaches to Delivering Value for Money (VfM) The Policing Green Paper From the neighbourhood to the national: policing our communities together (2008), recognises that good quality comparative information is fundamental to effective benchmarking of cost and performance. It is an essential part of the management information for strategic leaders within the police service and the same set of information should be used to inform inspection. HMIC is adopting a more risk based approach to value for money inspection through its VfM Profiles. The profiles will not in themselves be definitive as a test of value for money, but will point to where further investigation may identify opportunities for efficiency savings and support local decision-making in this area. The Cabinet Office established the Contact Council in early 2007 as a key delivery mechanism for Sir David Varney s Report Service transformation: A better service for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer (2006). The Council provides oversight of all customer contact in the public sector and is focused on improving the quality of service customers receive when accessing transactional public services, whilst at the same time substantially cutting the cost to the state of delivering them. A copy of the Varney Report is available to download here. The Audit Commission Use of Resources Framework was published in 2009 and sets out the approach to auditors use of resources work from 2008/09. Use of resources is an Audit Commission assessment of how well organisations are managing and using their resources to deliver value for money and better and more sustainable outcomes for local people. The Audit Commission Use of Resources Framework (2009) will support assessment of how well organisations are managing and using their resources to deliver value for money and better and more sustainable outcomes for local people. 61

62 To ensure that the public are protected by the police and receive a high quality and cost-efficient service, police forces and authorities have been increasingly delivering services in collaboration with each other. The ACPO Finance and Resources Business Area, supported by the NPIA, have developed the Wave Plan Programme to target suppliers and commodities on which the Service spends most. This Programme aims to deliver 5% sustainable efficiency saving (in excess of 35 million) per year. Industry Approaches to Delivering VfM Delivering an excellent customer experience at any cost is not a sustainable option for any organisation. Similarly, cutting costs indiscriminately to reduce the cost to serve equation places the whole customer experience at risk. Getting it right first time and solving problems once at first point of contact provides a massive opportunity for delivering value for money. This philosophy is supported by customer focused methodologies such as lean systems thinking and through various commercial costing models. A different approach to delivering value for money is a lean systems thinking approach. Lean systems is a management style, a way of thinking that focuses on meeting customer (both internal and external) needs and expectations designing and continually seeking to improve services and processes across the end-toend customer journey. It is important to understand the links between using diagnostic performance indicators, which can highlight and show how the contact management function is performing, and measuring what matters from a customer s point of view. The importance of using experts in benchmarking cannot be understated, as making decisions based on poor data and lack of understanding of the science behind contact centre management can result in loss of reputation and increase in cost. Contact management is a complex business area to understand and its capacity can and should be built by using the scientific models that are available in industry such as simulation and the Erlang algorithm. Further information is available by clicking here. Delivering Value For Money 62

63 Principle and Critical Success Factors The main principle discussed within this chapter is finance. This chapter also provides CSFs around key business areas that will support forces in driving and delivering change and performance. Download the Critical Success Factors Delivering Value For Money Principle 4: Finance Providing value for money by ensuring the optimum balance is achieved between the cost of service and delivering an excellent customer experience. Delivering Value for Money: Critical Success Factors/Guidance Creating a culture that champions the customer and recognises success, removing or reducing waste in order to add value. Achieving the balance between cost and service delivery. Understanding contact management functionality, scope, performance and cost when comparing with other organisations and most similar forces. Producing a true comparison and understanding differences in order to identify organisational learning and opportunities for efficiency gains. Considering collaborative procurement opportunities when optimising and developing the service delivery function. 63

64 HMIC Value for Money Profiles HMIC is developing a range of benchmarking indicators using existing data on costs and staff, to show how forces compare against their most similar forces (MSF), the MSF average and other forces. They have designed a value for money profile for each force and Police Authority in England and Wales. The profiles are designed to be used as a diagnostic tool to investigate the reasons for differences and identify opportunities where productivity could be improved. The aim is to produce a single document that brings together information on cost, staffing and crime and survey information, which can be used to support budget decisions. Forces can obtain further information regarding their value for money profile from their regional HMIC office. The importance of understanding the functionality and the complexity of the contact centre, against what it delivers to its communities, is absolutely crucial to providing a consistently high quality customer experience. In addition to cost and performance, functionality of contact management needs to be part of the benchmarking data. Many forces have different structures that include or exclude certain functionalities such as crime recording units, devolved contact handling units and other contact management support functions. Therefore, it is important to understand the differences before trying to undertake cost and service delivery comparison. It is also important to note that this is one area of the organisation that cost and service can be calculated by using scientific formulas (for further information please see page 35). One of the hardest things to quantify in a contact management strategy is the damage done by under-investment or constant cost cutting, but it is a very real danger if allowed to happen unchecked. In our experience, building confidence and gaining acknowledgment for delivering consistently good quality experiences takes months and years and can be destroyed in days. The key is to maintain unrelenting focus on building a sustainable high quality customer experience, benchmarking at regular intervals and constantly challenging your colleagues to achieve higher and higher standards. Paul Scott, Solutions Director, Merchants Group (2009), A Dimension Data Company, The scope of what the contact management function does can be quite different in relation to supporting varying planned and unplanned operations and special events. The need to supply further resources to meet these demands can create additional pressures on the contact management centre. This reinforces the need for effective forecasting and contingency planning that supports delivery of value for money services. In order to produce a true comparison and maximise organisational learning and areas for improvement, the differences need to be understood to enable opportunities for efficiency gains to be identified and to support local decision-making in this business area. There is a risk that by not fully understanding functionality, a league table approach, centred on cost and not balanced with customer requirements will develop and, has the potential unintended consequence of damaging not improving public confidence. Further information regarding HMIC is available by clicking here. Delivering Value For Money 64

65 Cabinet Office Service Transformation The Varney Report: Transformational Government The Varney Report (2006) focused on how to save government, citizen and business time and money by examining the scope for integrating frontline service delivery. The reported outlined that efficiencies could arise from: Less duplication of services and customer contact. Clearer accountability for, and challenge of, excess costs through the application of benchmarks. A shift to cheaper and more effective channels, primarily by improved overall channel management. Process redesign arising from the use of shared data. As a key delivery mechanism of the Cabinet Office, and in support of the Varney Report, the Contact Council was established in February Council membership includes contact directors and service transformation leads from customer-facing central government departments, as well as broader public sector representation from the local government regions, the emergency services, Ofcom and other relevant bodies. ACPO is represented on the Council. The Council began overseeing the improvement of performance and standards in publicly-funded contact centres by encouraging their accreditation and promoting a range of best practices. However, over time its responsibilities have broadened to include setting and delivering a vision for future public service contact and delivering a joined-up view of how efficiency savings in government contact centre s will be delivered. Further information on the remit of the Contact Council can be obtained by clicking here. Various resources have been developed to support the work of the Contact Council and other key external stakeholders. To date, the Council has developed/ supported development of: Various guidance documents, including: customer matters, customer journey mapping, channel strategy, segmentation, numbering strategy, avoidable contact baseline statement and the digital Britain report. Various contact management forums and events. Blueprint best practice for contact centres. Online performance management framework (PMF) in response to a recommendation in the Varney Report, which called for the implementation of public sector contact centre benchmarking. The police service is actively involved in the Contact Council and a number of forces continue to support its work through quarterly PMF submissions, contribution of good practice, attendance at events and feeding back on new developments. Delivering Value For Money Further information on the above resources can be accessed by clicking here. 65

66 Audit Commission Use of Resources Framework Each year, the Audit Commission will publish scored judgments about value for money in the use of resources for local authorities, fire and rescue authorities, police authorities and primary care trusts. The use of resources assessment forms part of the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) from 2009 and feeds into other relevant performance assessment frameworks. The use of resources framework outlines the key features of use of resources judgments for CAA. It also describes how the specified key lines of enquiry (KLOE) form the basis of the auditor s value for money conclusion under the Code of Audit Practice. Under the Code of Audit Practice, auditors have a responsibility to conclude whether the audited body has put in place proper arrangements to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources. This conclusion is the value for money conclusion. Figure E, opposite outlines the Audit Commission Use of Resources Framework. Figure E The Audit Commission Use of Resources Framework Managing finances Value for money in the use of resources Managing resources Governing the business The framework consists of the following three themes: 1. Managing finances How effectively does the organisation manage its finances to deliver value for money? 2. Governing the business How well does the organisation govern itself and commission services that provide value for money and deliver better outcomes for local people? 3. Managing resources How well does the organisation manage its natural resources, physical assets and people to meet current and future needs and deliver value for money? Auditors will reach judgments on the above themes by considering Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE). The KLOE are outlined in more detail overleaf. Delivering Value For Money 66

67 Theme Managing Finances Governing the Business Managing Resources Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE) Does the organisation plan its finances effectively to deliver its strategic priorities and secure sound financial health? Does the organisation have a sound understanding of its costs and performance and achieve efficiencies in its activities? Is the organisations financial reporting timely and reliable and does it meet the needs of internal users, stakeholders and local people? Does the organisation commission and procure quality services and supplies, tailored to local needs, to deliver sustainable outcomes and value for money? Does the organisation produce relevant and reliable data and information to support decision-making and manage performance? Does the organisation promote and demonstrate the principles and values of good governance? Does the organisation manage its risks and maintain a sound system of internal control? Is the organisation making effective use of natural resources? Does the organisation manage its assets effectively to help deliver its strategic priorities and service needs? Does the organisation plan, organise and develop its workforce effectively to support the achievement of its strategic priorities? Delivering Value For Money Appendix 1 of the Use of Resources Framework provides focus statements to support the key lines of enquiry. The framework is available to download here. 67

68 Procurement Collaboration The global economic downturn will inevitably present financial challenges over the next five years and the government White Paper: Protecting the Public: Supporting the Police to Succeed, (2009) outlines the government s commitment to protecting the investment that has been made over the last 12 years in frontline policing services. In return, the government expects the police to renew its focus on improving efficiency and ensure that every pound spent delivers the greatest possible value for the public. To ensure that the public are protected by the police and receive a high quality and cost-efficient service, police forces and authorities have been increasingly delivering services in collaboration with each other. We will deliver better value for money and achieve more frontline delivery through improving business processes, cutting bureaucracy and securing better deployment, at the same time saving money by reducing overtime. We are ending the current system whereby the goods and services needed for policing may be bought in 43 different ways across the country. We will make savings through national frameworks for procurement which forces and Police Authorities will be required to use. The White Paper is available to download here. The ACPO/NPIA Wave Plan Programme will target suppliers and commodities on which the service spends most. Encouraging forces to select preferred national or regional collaborative procurement options, rather than procure on an individual force basis, provides significant opportunities for standardisation of equipment and services and value for money. Delivering Value For Money Government White Paper Protecting the Public: Supporting the Police to Succeed (2009) 68

69 The HMIC Informed Choice Model In November 2008, Tony McNulty, then Minister for Policing asked HMIC for its view on how collaboration between police forces could improve services to the public. As a result the HMIC published their report Getting Together a better deal for the public through joint working in June The report outlined that collaboration between police forces offers opportunity to improve services for the public in terms of preventing serious crime and reducing financial costs. The report found significant variation between forces and groups of forces in how they deliver operational and support services. Additionally, whilst forces and authorities support the idea of collaboration in principle, they struggle in practice against a number of barriers some real and some perceived to joint working. HMIC concluded that an approach to collaboration should be complemented by a more robust strategic direction for collaboration nationally. Managing finances Governing the business The Informed Choice Model proposed a mechanism to capture collaborative working arrangements across the service, examining the benefits and improvements in service, the cost of particular approaches and lessons learnt. These findings would support and inform future decisions. The Informed Choice Model is outlined in Figure F, opposite. Figure F The HMIC Informed Choice Model National Policing Board Resource Co-ordination Board Resource Co-ordination Support Team Business Intelligence Unit Organisational Learning & Environmental Scan Forces & Authorities Further information on the HMIC structure can be obtained from your regional HMIC office. Home Office Developments The Home Office is currently developing Statutory Guidance for Police Collaboration in support of new provisions on collaboration introduced by the Policing and Crime Act It is expected that those provisions will be commenced early 2010, with an aim to publish the guidance at the same time. A toolkit for police collaboration is also being developed. This broader, online document will include the statutory guidance, good practice advice, examples and templates to assist police forces and authorities on the whole journey, from choosing a collaboration approach, through design and implementation and ultimately to completion or renewal. The toolkit will include detail on procurement collaboration, and will be available early in The statutory guidance is currently undergoing a wide policing stakeholder review and the toolkit is being circulated among key reviewers and practitioners as a short pilot exercise prior to the two products being finalised by the end of the year, ready for final review and official sign-off. Delivering Value For Money 69

70 Lean Systems Thinking The lean approach is defined as a philosophy and practice of ongoing identification and elimination of waste in the delivery of customer value, by everyone in the organisation 15. Therefore, a lean systems approach is not just an initiative to reduce cost, although ultimately that is a by-product of improving the efficiency and productivity of an organisation s services and processes. Lean organisations work in a planned and systematic way and seek to remove/reduce waste across the organisation and engender a culture of getting it right first time every time. Waste can be, for example, down to: Service delivery defects avoidable contact/rework. Dealing with repeat contact on the same matter, complaints due to service delivery failure, etc Signposting to another lead agency. Bureaucracy more steps or time involved in processes than is necessary to meet customer needs. Empowerment staff have limited authority/ discretion. There are many organisations that state they use the systems thinking approach; however, their focus is on efficiency savings and productivity. This is not a true systems approach and can often fail or generate unintended consequences. To take the systems view is to understand demand and design and measure from the outside in. Decision-making is integrated with work and uses measures derived from the work. The role of management moves from hierarchical to complementary. John Seddon, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector, 2008 Lean systems thinking is a proven and truly citizen focused way to make work work. By placing the customer at the heart of organisational thinking, it ensures a citizen focused approach to the design and alignment of services. This means services can be configured and delivered in the most efficient and productive ways to meet needs and that, in turn, means our people can be managed to be available to do the right thing, in the right place, at the right time, to deliver quality services. A lean approach is diametrically opposed to a command and control way of working. The below table explains the difference between a command and control style of management thinking and a lean systems style of management thinking. A number of organisations that have embraced lean systems thinking as part of day to day business have realised a number of benefits, including significant reduction of preventable demand / waste (up to 40% in some cases) and increased customer satisfaction. By encouraging staff to be part of the solution they have also unleashed innovation from within. The lean approach has been used successfully in many public sector organisations and police forces. Further guidance on lean systems thinking can be found by clicking here. Delivering Value For Money Command and Control Thinking Lean Systems Thinking Hierarchical or top-down approach Perspective Outside-in (customer focused) approach Functional specialisation and procedures Design of Work Demand, value and flow are important Contractual nature of relationships Attitude to Customers What matters to the Customer Separated from work Decision-making An integrated approach Outputs, targets, standards: related to budgets Measurement Capability and variation related to purpose Control budgets manage people Management Ethos Continuous learning through analysis and action 70

71 Commercial Cost Models In order to truly establish best practice and give value for money, functionality and service delivery need to be fully understood to avoid making decisions that could negatively affect customers. There are a number of models available in the commercial world to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of contact centre service delivery. A model, successfully used by a global organisation, is the Merchants Customer Experience Cost Optimisation (CECO) Model. The CECO model is an example of what can be used to ensure that equal focus is given to the customer experience, whilst still ensuring it is balanced against cost. Merchants Customer Experience Cost Optimisation (CECO) Model Delivering an excellent customer experience at any cost is not a sustainable option for any organisation. Similarly, just cutting costs indiscriminately to reduce the cost to serve equation is placing the whole customer experience at risk. There needs to be way of maintaining equilibrium and ensuring that the best possible customer experience is delivered at the optimal price. The CECO tool is a tried and tested management tool, which can evaluate the way forces deliver customer experience to citizens and third parties. It allows measurement against cost in order to give a current CECO score. Cost (per citizen, per contact, per business function e.g. contact centre or front of house etc) Customer Experience Index CECO Point Acceptable CECO Zone (Score derived from various empirical sources including increasing public confidence and satisfaction, response times to incidents, FCR, time to answer, etc) Target CECO Zone Copyright Merchants Delivering Value For Money 71

72 This same framework can be used to define a desired future CECO state: High Importance Low Driver A Driver D Driver E Driver C Driver B Driver F It is important to prioritise the drivers that are high cost but performing poorly, as these will impact negatively on the overall CECO score in a number of ways: Inappropriate day-to-day focus on objectives, supporting management information systems and drawing management attention away from higher value adding areas. Development and investment budgets may be wasted or spent on the wrong priorities. Drivers identified Why use the CECO Model? Using CECO means that forces: Identify their current position from a customer experience versus cost perspective. Define the desired future CECO state by isolating the key drivers for customer experience, their relative weightings and priorities. This allows forces to: Define objectives and targets that are aligned to customer experience and cost imperatives at both the local and national level. Focus management effort day-to-day on objectives that matter and realise tangible/trackable results. Delivering Value For Money Low Performance High The Customer Experience Index can be derived from a number of factors: service standards and outcomes, quality of problem solving, dissatisfaction and empathy and professionalism of staff. Action weighted and prioritised Developments and investments Develop initiatives and make investments in people, processes and technology that will deliver the best returns in line with the overall National Contact Management Strategy. Further information on the CECO model is available from Merchants, a Dimension Data Company, by clicking here. Each of these drivers has a cost associated with it, which leads us to be able to map them onto a matrix to show relative importance. 72

73 Diagnostic Indicator The Delivering Value for Money diagnostic indicator is part of an overall Suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management that can be found in Appendix C. It is not the intention for the diagnostic to be used in isolation where the focus might be on quantity at the expense of quality; more they are used to support understanding of how the contact management demand forecasting and financial budgeting processes are aligned to actual spend. These indicators are not exhaustive and do not preclude forces from using additional appropriate diagnostics that meet local needs. Core Contact Management Performance Indicator Description Budget Tolerance Indicator and Brief Narrative Remaining within a % and comparing actual spend versus budgeted spend Delivering Value For Money 73

74 Appendix A Cabinet Office Multi-Channel Strategy The Cabinet Office provides a suggested channel framework which can be broken down into three main stages and outlines key activities/principles. Stage 1 Developing a Channel Framework: The Basic Rules This stage focuses on establishing what service(s) and customer mean in the context of your organisation: 1. Know who you are trying to reach Collect relevant data this will include qualitative or quantitative data or a mixture of both that meets your needs. Analyse this data and use the insight gained to construct a view of your customers segmentation that will help you understand and target different groups based on their discrete views, needs and characteristics and likelihood of accessing different types of service. Consider the environment in which the service will be delivered. This will help you to improve the customer experience, the quality of services and the way in which they are delivered. 2. Establish the type of contact that you and they need to have with each other Understand whether there are statutory or other obligations, which influence your service delivery needs (available channels) and priorities. Gather intelligence to inform the most effective and appropriate way to interact with customers this could include research, surveys or feedback forms. You may wish to create a customer service/insight function to help you identify and focus on customer needs. If you have a clear profile of your customers and know why they engage with you, it becomes easier to understand why some people are reluctant to interact. Continue to monitor development in channel use outside of your organisation, as this will drive future customer expectations. 3. Analyse the current channels of service access customers use, along with their performance and reliability Knowing about your customers and channel usage will enable you to examine the role and effectiveness of these channels. Collect data on current channel usage and ascertain the degree to which other organisations are involved. Examine the outbound channels you are using to see if you are unintentionally creating expectation about certain channel availability. You should now have enough insight and data to give an indication as to why customers do/do not interacting with your services and to plan for improved accessibility. 4. Gather cost to serve data on current channels to know what they cost you and calculate savings/ investments for the future The cost of each channel is as important as how much they are used. Start by working out simple costings per channel to give an indication of current efficiency and potential improvement/savings. You may have to model the take up of new channels based on existing services. This information will inform your business case for channel development and planning. 74

75 Stage 2 Developing a Channel Framework: Laying the Foundations This stage focuses on exploring the uptake of services across channels by customers to meet their varying needs 1. Treat different people differently. Equity of treatment is not the only way to achieve equity of outcome: appreciate customer values. Your segmentation can now be used to assist in planning for the future, if you know your customer demographics, attitudes and behaviours; you will have a better understanding of how to meet their needs. Customer journey mapping and a deep understanding of the customer experience will help you to understand how customers experience your organisation and the services it delivers. A powerful way to see your service from a customer perspective is to ask your staff to walk through the journey as if they were themselves the customer. Survey results, general feedback and complaints analysis will show you how your service is perceived and experienced by customers. 2. Understand that different people use different channels and channel combinations for different purposes and under different circumstances Map different channel functions for different purposes use your understanding of channel behaviour to think about the most appropriate channel for each function and customer group. Track patterns of channel hopping to understand the way that customers will switch channel even during one transaction, this will give you a more sophisticated view of how channels can be utilised in the future. This cross channel usage is difficult to measure; so it may help to look at how other organisations have managed it. 3. Take into account the often complex nature of public service provision Consider the fact that there may be specific services you provide which require the use of a single channel or that your customers may be more likely to be at a particular life stage or undergoing a particular experience when trying to understand your channel options. 4. Organise and measure current service and future plans around the Citizens and business that you are trying to reach A customer-centred approach to service provision is vital. Empowerment, trust and buy in can be gained if you focus on making your services accessible, simple and effective for all. You should consider joining up and collaborating with other service providers. If others can provide an aspect of the service: do you really need to provide it as well? You must manage customers expectations of your service, what it can provide and the ways in which it can be provided in a realistic and effective manner. 75

76 Stage 3 Develop your ongoing strategic plan This stage uses the information gathered in stages one and two to formulate an overall strategy and make predictions about future behaviour and costs. 1. View channels not in distinct silos, but as components of an overall customer contact strategy Your key factors and messages across the organisation must be clearly aligned in all strategy documents You must support your strategy with an effective end-to-end delivery business delivery mechanism 2. Identify reasonable savings in terms of both contact and cost You have already established single channel costs: now you need to factor in total costs for multichannel usage in order to determine your total cost to serve this will be challenging if existing accounting structures do not support this type of detailed calculation To start with it is likely that you will need to set up mechanisms to track customer movement and calculate costs per transaction rather then per channel You must also balance the cost to the organisation against cost to the customer in terms of money, effort, time and satisfaction. All of these will be measures of the success of your strategy and identifiers of future cost savings. Bear in mind that shifting customers to lower cost channels could mean that higher cost channels become more expensive: this could increase the cost of your channel portfolio. Consider whether the volumes of transactions, and therefore the potential savings, are high enough to justify expenditure on building the service and whether it will support a business case. Be aware that channel shift may deliver benefits to another organisation rather than to your own this could make it difficult to justify expenditure by your organisation. 3. Analyse likely future business and citizen behaviour patterns, channel preferences and IT developments to inform longer term strategic decisions Use the customer insight tools to gather data on which channels, citizens and business might be willing to use in the future. Use these findings to inform your strategic planning process and the decisions you take in the light of possible ethnographic and technological trends. 4. Consider any compliance, regulatory or other factors which a new strategy will need to reflect At this point you will need to integrate the compliance and regulatory functions//factors and identify any specific learning points for the future. 5. Create new forms of interactive and channel combinations which generate customer trust, lesson failure demand and physical/emotional cost to both customers and the organisation Your channel strategy will need to demonstrate new ways of delivering services. Your service will be more cost efficient it empowers customers to take control of their relationship with your organisation, to bring this about issues will need to be resolved at the first point of contact wherever possible. This Cabinet Office Multi Channel Strategy document is available to download here. 76

77 Appendix B Matrix aligning NCMS Principles with Critical Success Factors from NCMPG Principle 1: Customer: Designing and delivering contact management on the basis of citizen and business needs to increase customer satisfaction and public confidence. Critical Success Factors (CSFs) Chapter 1: Approach Accessibility and Inclusivity Channel Strategy Communication Marketing and Media Keeping People Informed Quality of Customer Experience Dealing with Complaints and Dissatisfaction Using the Policing Hallmarks as an integral part of understanding business planning and change. Using staff knowledge around citizen interactions is critical to developing a culture that is truly citizen focused. Demonstrating understanding of customers and their needs and designing access to service that provide choice. Having a force-wide approach to secondary contact management which sets out standards of customer service, including voic policy and an effective quality assurance process. Having established processes for non-emergency and secondary SMS access for the hearing and speech impaired. Providing customers with a clear point of access through a single non-emergency number. Having evidence to demonstrate that access to our service supports our non-english speaking communities. Having a force channel strategy that promotes choice and outlines contact methods, which support the needs of local communities. Developing a single view of how customers interact, across all contact channels. Continually exploring opportunities to improve access channels. Having an Information Technology Strategy that is service orientated and is designed around the customer and end users. Having a citizen focus communication strategy for contact management which includes partners and core messages. Ensuring that force contact details are regularly reviewed and kept up to date and publicised to meet the needs of different communities. Having marketing and media plans in place to regularly inform and update the public of access channels and current and future activity. Having a strategy for engaging, consulting and involving the customer in designing our service delivery. Reviewing the strategy to ensure methods are effective and provide reliable representative results. Using customer journey mapping to provide insight into community s needs and expectations and to shape, design and deliver services. Being able to demonstrate how service users will be kept informed on progress and outcomes relating to them. Exploiting technology to increase the choice of channels available to keep people informed on progress and outcomes relating to them. Having a non-bureaucratic quality management approach that focuses on delivering customer satisfaction and public confidence. Using a variety of methods to capture and understand the quality of the customer experience, in order to design and deliver service. Ensuring that where shared services are provided, processes exist to fully understand the quality of the customer experience. Having a robust process for reporting, monitoring and tracking trends of complaints and dissatisfaction. Providing clear information to the public on how to make a complaint and report dissatisfaction. Ensuring that procedures for dealing with complaints and dissatisfaction are embedded into contact management learning programmes. Acknowledging and resolving complaints and dissatisfaction in a timely fashion and in a way that leaves the customer with a sense of closure. Undertaking root causes analysis of complaints and dissatisfaction to understand trends and learning the lessons in order to improve service design and delivery. 77

78 Principle 6. Demand: Understanding the demand profile and workflow across the organisation, in order to optimise service delivery. Principle 7. Resources: Satisfying demand for contact service through the most efficient and effective use of resources, to deliver responsive local policing. Principle 8. Partners: Optimising resilience through effective planning and collaboration with partners, to enhance contact management capability. Critical Success Factors (CSFs) Chapter 2: Deliver Demand Management / Resource Planning Protective Services Incident Management National Contact Grades Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Working with Partners Creating an environment where planning / forecasting optimises resources and is used across the organisation to effectively manage demand. Having a single process owner for demand to support cross-functional working and provide final decision-making. Having dedicated demand forecasting and resource planning expertise. Showing evidence of understanding customer contact demand in order to determine what changes are required across the organisation. Including protective services in initial and ongoing learning and development programmes for contact management staff. Having evidence of involving contact management function in planning for and debriefing of operations and critical incidents. Having joint accountability for service delivery across the organisation in order to deliver the best possible customer experience. Having relevant and comprehensive initial / refresher training for contact management staff to support frontline response. Scheduling appointments with callers at a time and place that is convenient to them. Utilising integrated technology to optimise the efficiency of incident management resources and services. Ensuring BCU commanders and supervisors are held accountable for patrol availability and response. Ensuring that all radio users adopt the Airwave Speak standard in order to support more efficient and disciplined communications. Ensuring that individuals who create and close incidents have the necessary skills to effectively manage operational risk. Using the national contact grades as a framework to prioritise and standardise the response to calls for service. Ensuring that contact handlers understand the importance of using the national contact grades to priorities and deliver local services. Ensuring that contact management staff have the requisite skills, abilities and support systems to identify and manage risk, vulnerability and threat to safety. Having a force process / policy to downgrading incidents that effectively manages organisational risk and promotes the professional judgment of contact handlers. Having Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recover (DR) plans to ensure the continued delivery of functions in the event of an emergency or partial or complete loss of service. Being able to demonstrate that BC and DR plans are regularly tested, including with partners, in order to assess impact on the force s ability to support business critical contact management functions. Supporting opportunities for collaboration, particularly on a regional basis, to enhance resilience, achieve value for money and support BC. Having chief officer support for a partnership approach to service delivery improvement. Having processes in place to measure and review the efficiency and effectiveness of working with partners in order to identify opportunities for continual improvement. Having a commitment to implement regional or nationally developed systems, processes or procedures that support improved collaborative working and service delivery. 78

79 Principle 2. Leadership: Delivering effective leadership at all levels to promote and enhance citizen focused contact management. Principle 3. People: Investing in people and involving them in shaping contact management Principle 5. Knowledge: Exploiting the value of citizen and business knowledge to understand performance and improve local accountability. Critical Success Factors (CSFs) Chapter 3: Supporting Leadership and Culture Our People Employee Engagement Investors in People Wellbeing of Staff Having in place identified Chief Officer and Police Authority Leads for contact management. Having structures in place to support joined up decision-making and joint accountability at all levels, to support effective service delivery. Recognising the specialist nature of contact management when selecting senior managers and supporting through effective succession planning. Being able to demonstrate how frontline leaders support their staff to deliver citizen focused outcomes. Ensuring contact management staff understand the connections between the part of the service they deliver and the overall customer experience. Having a HR strategy for contact management that supports a force HR strategy and contact management strategy. Having effective and robust Human Resource functions and processes to drive operational performance. Ensuring learning and development is central to employment contract and individually tailored and designed around organisational and individual needs. Ensuring recruitment processes are dynamic and test experience, skills, competencies and behaviours relevant to each role within the contact management function. Having an absence management policy that is proactive and recognises the needs of the roles and responsibilities of contact management staff. Demonstrating effective succession planning that supports ability to sustain operational performance and recognises individual roles. Being able to demonstrate a culture of service improvement that promotes organisational learning. Empowering staff to use their professional judgment and skills to effectively resolves calls for service from the public. Having effective processes and systems in place to support decision-making and reduce bureaucracy. Being able to evidence a process for engaging staff at all levels, to improve contact management service delivery. Having an underpinning communication strategy to ensure that all staff understand how they can be involved in designing the service they deliver. Undertaking staff perception surveys, ensuring that they are relevant and that the findings are fed back to staff and action planned. Having a recognised accreditation process that supports effective development of people talent in line with organisational ambitions and to support improved performance. Implementing a structured health and wellbeing programme that is long lasting and supports staff in the workplace. 79

80 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) continued Chapter 3: Supporting Reward and Recognition National Occupations Standards Knowledge Management Having effective reward, recognition and retention plans in place to support and maintain contact management service delivery. Ensuring that reward and recognition plans are fair and inclusive and linked to organisational values. Using the National Occupational Standards to support development of contact management role descriptions and Performance Development Review criteria. Using the National Occupational Standards to support staff decision-making and use of professional judgment order to reduce risk and manage threat and vulnerability. Providing effective leadership to ensure that knowledge and information contributes to organisational success and management of risk. Working towards MoPI compliance to assist the organisation in achieving accurate, relevant and accessible information. Having a knowledge management strategy that is underpinned by the appropriate policies and processes. Ensuring that knowledge management is embedded into contact management and force learning programmes. Principle 4. Finance: Providing VFM by ensuring the optimum balance is achieved between the cost of service and delivering an excellent customer experience. Critical Success Factors (CSFs) Chapter 4: Value for Money (VFM) Creating a culture that champions the customer and recognises success, removing or reducing waste in order to add value. Achieving the balance between cost and service delivery. Understanding contact management functionality, scope, performance and cost when comparing with other organisations and most similar forces. Producing a true comparison and understanding differences in order to identify organisational learning and opportunities for efficiency gains Considering collaborative procurement opportunities when optimising and developing the service delivery function. 80

81 Appendix C Suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management Introduction To promote the right behaviours and to support effective service delivery the Suite of Diagnostic Indicators for Contact Management has been developed and includes a mixture of targets and measures. The indicators are customer focused and aim to support knowledge and understanding of contact management services. It is important to note that these diagnostics cover the contact management environment, which is much wider than the contact centre, including for example front counters, crime desks and neighbourhood and response teams. The Suite of Diagnostics for Contact Management includes: Government set targets including the public confidence target and measures that support delivery of the Policing Pledge (2008). Measures from the ACPO National Call Handling Standards (2005) that are still relevant to delivering customer focused service delivery including call abandonment and average time to answer. Additional core contact management measures these are optional measures for forces to use to understand and improve quality and to support consistency of service delivery. New customer focused measures including 999 calls over 2 minutes, forecast demand accuracy and breakdown of incidents per grade. Information relating to the origin / source of each indicator is shown in the tables that follow. It is not the intention for these indicators to be used in isolation, where the focus might be on quantity at the expense of quality. More that they are used together to promote quality outcomes and support understanding of contact management service delivery. They aim to identify trends and patterns and provide focus on areas for improvement to deliver a consistent approach. These indicators are not exhaustive and do not preclude forces from using additional appropriate diagnostics that meet local needs. Furthermore it is recognised that some of the indicators outlined will be subject to local (pledge) commitments. The indicators are grouped into the following areas: Key Outcomes Emergency Contact Non-Emergency Contact Incident Response Core Contact Management Measures 81

82 Key Outcomes Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Improved Public Confidence Force confidence target Set by the Home Office The confidence measure is now the single remaining top down target, the Home office having removed all others. Each police force has its own individual target and, nationally, the target is for 60% of the population to have confidence in the police and partners by March From a baseline of 45%, this will require an increase of 15 percentage points nationally. The single top down measure is being collected on a quarterly basis through the British Crime Survey (BCS). The relevant question asked in the survey is: It is the responsibility of the police and local council working in partnership to deal with anti-social behaviour and crime in your area. How much would you agree or disagree that the police and local council are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area? Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Improved Public Satisfaction Ease of emergency contact APACS British Crime Survey Ease of non-emergency contact Satisfaction with contacting the police can in turn influence confidence. The research evidence shows a difference between police initiated contacts and public initiated contacts. In particular unsatisfactory public initiated contacts will have a negative impact on confidence in the police. This suggests that analysis of contact with the police should separate out the type of contact that is experienced. Forces need to understand satisfaction of emergency provision and of non-emergency provision. APACS British Crime Survey Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Dissatisfaction Volume of reports of dissatisfaction Policing Pledge and % responded to in 24 hours Complaints are a potentially rich source of customer insight that identifies areas for improvement. An audit of these would aim to examine a number of complaints over a period of time to identify commonly occurring themes. These provide an opportunity to use existing data to improve police practice. Focusing on problems in the first instance is an important place to start for improving confidence. Pledge Point 10 states that forces should Acknowledge any dissatisfaction with the service you have received within 24 hours of reporting it to us. To help us fully resolve the matter, discuss with you how it will be handled, give you an opportunity to talk in person to someone about your concerns and agree with you what will be done about them and how quickly. 82

83 Emergency Contact Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor 999 Calls answered in 10 seconds Volume and % of 999 calls answered in 10 seconds The Policing Pledge Pledge Point 5 states that forces will aim to answer 999 calls within 10 seconds. There are a number of indicators that can be used to support this including Service level which will outline the % of overall 999 calls received that are answered in 10 seconds. Understanding of 999 service provision across channels is key to providing a consistent level of service. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Abandoned 999 Calls Volume and % of abandoned 999 calls ACPO (NCHS 2005) Target: Less than 2% abandoned 999 calls Customer focused measure if you can t get through you don t get a service. Pledge commitment aim to answer 999 calls in 10 seconds understanding abandonment will support force performance against pledge commitments. Looking at the whole each call is potentially a member of the pubic that has not been able to get through. Understand and explore the reasons for failure to support improvement i.e. technology, failure to meet demand, identify trends etc. Identify where in the call journey customers are abandoning their attempt to get a response. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor 999 Average Time to Answer (ATA) Average time to answer an emergency call / contact ACPO (NCHS 2005) Average time to answer is the time it takes on average to answer calls presented to the service. Different to service levels, average time to answer gives an indication of the time frame a member of the public would usually get answered within a given time period i.e. daily, monthly, annually etc. This measure is often used to communicate the level of service that the public can expect to receive. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor 999 Calls Over 2 minutes Volume and % of calls / contacts answered after 2 minutes HMIC Origins from the HMIC Thematic First Contact (Recommendation 15). This measure supports the importance of providing a timely emergency service to the public. 83

84 Non-Emergency Contact Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Non-emergency contact service level Volume / % of non-emergency calls Local Pledge answered within locally derived time There is no national target although forces may have a locally agreed service level. Link to Pledge Statement Pledge Point 6: Answer all non-emergency calls promptly. Service levels take into account the usual and unusual times it takes to be answered and indicates fluctuations, spikes in demand and inconsistent service delivery. This should take account of different force structures forces that have switchboard and call handling centres should for example understand the service level of each business area. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Abandoned non-emergency calls Volume and % of abandoned non-emergency calls ACPO (NCHS 2005) Target: Less than 5% abandoned non-emergency calls Customer focused measure if you can t get through you don t get a service Pledge commitment aim to answer calls promptly abandonment will support force performance against pledge commitments. Understand the reasons for failure to support improvement explore reasons for i.e. technology, failure to meet demand, identify trends etc Identify where in the call journey customers are abandoning their attempt to get a response. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Average Time to Answer (ATA) Average time to answer a non-emergency call / contact ACPO (NCHS 2005) Non-Emergency Average time to answer is the time it takes on average to answer calls presented to the service. Different to service levels, average time to answer gives an indication of the time frame a member of the public would usually get answered within a given time period i.e. daily, monthly, annually etc. 84

85 Incident Response Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Emergency Response URBAN Volume and % incidents attended within 15 minutes The Policing Pledge Deploying to emergencies immediately, giving an estimated time of arrival (where appropriate), getting to you safely, and as quickly as possible. In URBAN areas, we will aim to get to you within 15 minutes. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Emergency Response RURAL Volume and % incidents attended within 20 minutes The Policing Pledge Deploying to emergencies immediately, giving an estimated time of arrival (where appropriate), getting to you safely, and as quickly as possible. In RURAL areas, we will aim to get to you within 20 minutes. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Priority Response Volume and % incidents attended within 60 minutes The Policing Pledge Volume and % incidents attended within 60 minutes: vulnerable Volume and % incidents attended within 60 minutes: neighbourhood priority If attendance is needed, send a patrol giving you an estimated time of arrival, and: If you are vulnerable or upset aim to be with you within 60 minutes. If you are calling about an issue that we have agreed with your community will be a neighbourhood priority and attendance is required, we will aim to be with you within 60 minutes The Policing Pledge The Policing Pledge Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Scheduled Response Volume and % of incidents attended within 48 hours The Policing Pledge Alternatively, if appropriate, we will make an appointment to see you at a time that fits in with your life and within 48 hours. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Resolution without Deployment Volume and % of incidents resolved without deployment The Policing Pledge If agreed that attendance is not necessary we will give you advice, answer your questions and/or put you in touch with someone who can help. 85

86 Core Contact Management Performance Indicators Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Demand Forecast Accuracy Ability to accurately forecast contact demand by NCMPG comparing forecasted demand against actual demand Measuring forecast accuracy is an ongoing activity carried out against short-term, medium term and long term demand forecasts. Its purpose is to show consistency and accuracy of forecasting across a set period. This metric is an essential part of the business planning process. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Incidents per Grade Volume and % of contacts graded as Emergency / Immediate NCMPG Volume and % of contacts graded as Priority / Prompt NCMPG Volume and % of contacts graded as Scheduled Appointment NCMPG Volume and % of contacts graded as Resolution without Deployment NCMPG The breakdown of incidents per grade will support understanding of the demand profile and may highlight issues regarding over / under grading. This information will further support alignment of resources required to fulfil demand. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Staff Utilisation Time spent on customer contact activity NCMPG This measures the amount of time a call handler is actively working on customer contact activity and this can help identify over and under utilisation of staff to help achieve the best balance. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Attrition Number / percentage of staff leaving the contact management function as NCMPG a percentage of total FTE employed by the contact management function Defined as the total number of contact management staff that leave their role (resign, staff who are asked to leave, staff who fail probationary training periods, staff that leave the contact centre to take up a permanent or seconded post elsewhere in the organisation) in a year. 86

87 Core Contact Management Performance Indicators continued Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Absence A measure of the number of unplanned days lost through NCMPG sickness or other unplanned absence each year A measure of the number of unplanned days (or hours) lost through sickness or other unplanned absence each year. Expressed as average working days (or hours) lost per FTE per year. It includes both short and long term absence and for clarity excludes known events such as annual leave or maternity/paternity leave. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Employee Engagement Measures how satisfied staff are in their work and activities NCMPG undertaken to engage with staff Measures how satisfied staff are in their work and the activities undertaken to understand the level of engagement, sense of ownership, loyalty and pride staff have in their work. Description Indicator and Brief Narrative Origin/Sponsor Budget Tolerance Comparing actual spend versus budgeted spend NCMPG Shows how the contact management demand forecasting and financial budgeting processes are aligned to actual spend. 87

88 References 1. Multi-channel Transformation in the Public Sector (2009). 2. Footnote: Taylor P/Bain P (1999) An Assembly Line in the Head : Work and Employee Relations in the Call Centre, Industrial Relations Journal.30:2, p HMIC thematic inspection of frontline supervision and leadership, at the rank of sergeant in the Police Service of England and Wales: Leading from the Front Line. 4. Ekblom, P. and Heal. K. (1982) The Police Response to Calls from the Public. 5. HM Government Report: Working Together Public Services on Your Side: HMIC Thematic Inspection of Police Contact Management, recommendation 16, page Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg and Kalleberg, 2000; Delery, National Police Contact Management Benchmarking Report (2008) Ref: Employee engagement and the bottom line Bradon Taken from Dame Carol Black Review: Working for a Healthier Tomorrow Freedom from Command and Control: A better way to make the work work, Vanguard Education,

89 Useful Websites ACPO APA HMIC NPIA NPIA and Neighbourhood Policing Home Office Cabinet Office HM Treasury Direct Gov Audit Commission Ofcom IPCC IIP Skills for Justice IDEA PNLD FAQs (ask the police) N-Calt IPCC Learning the Lessons cfnp.npia.police.uk

90 Glossary Explanation of terms, commonly used phrases and abbreviations. Term Definition or Explanation Term Definition or Explanation Abandoned calls Absence Calls that are presented but terminate before being answered. A measure of the number of unplanned days (or hours) lost through sickness or other unplanned absence each year. BCS The British Crime Survey a large nationally representative victimisation survey of adults living in private households in England and Wales. It asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime and crime-related topics such as anti-social behaviour and the police. ACPO Airwave APA APLS Attrition AVLS Avoidable contact Association of Chief Police Officers. The national digital trunked radio system. Association of Police Authorities. Automatic People Location System A product that transmits accurate satellite positioning of human resources enabling them to be displayed on mapping systems. The annual average number of staff that leave an organisation/role expressed as a percentage of the total number of staff in that organisation or role. Also known as churn or staff turnover. Automatic Vehicle Location System A product that transmits accurate satellite positioning of vehicle resources enabling them to be displayed on mapping systems. Avoidable contact occurs if one, or more, of the following occurs: A. The customer is seeking unnecessary clarification B. The contact is caused by poor signposting/transfer C. There is repeat contact with the customer: To provide the same information a number of times Because of premature closure of an earlier contact Because customers are chasing progress updates BCU Benchmarking Blog BT Budget tolerance Call/contact centre CDRPs Basic Command Unit a geographic policing unit. Also known as a policing division in some forces. Benchmarking involves identifying gaps and weaknesses in performance by comparing information against others. It involves measurement, analysis, learning and the identification of effective (or best) practice. A contraction of web log an online diary with each entry is referred to as a post. British Telecom. Is a measure of actual spend versus the budgeted spend over an agreed time period A central point for the receipt of calls for service. This is routinely about more than telephony contact and may also provide contact through and progressively through web chat. Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships statutory local partnerships required under the Crime and Disorder Act 1988 to work together to reduce crime and disorder. 90

91 CECO Model Command and control operator CSR CRM Customer segmentation Customer Experience Cost Optimisation model a commercial cost model devised by Merchants which ensures that equal focus is given to the customer experience balanced against the cost of service delivery. A term used to describe both those staff that carry out a call handling function (answer, investigate and initiate call responses) and those that assign/dispatch operational units to incidents and support their activities. Comprehensive Spending Review a process carried out by HM Treasury to decide how much money will go into schools, hospitals and other public services (excluding social security benefits). Customer Relationship Management entails all aspects of interactions with customers. Often complex software is used to both understand and to seek to improve the customer experience. A process by which customers are divided into groups in order that services can be communicated and delivered in a consistent and appropriate way that meets needs. ESMS FCR FOSS GIS HMIC Emergency Short Message Service enables the passing of emergency text messages from mobile phones. It is effectively a 999-text service and is particularly useful to the deaf and speech and hearing impaired communities and/or users. First Contact Resolution also called one-and-done or firsttouch resolution. First-contact resolution (FCR) is a measure used in contact centres to understand those transactions resolved or completed to the satisfaction of the caller/ customer at the point of first contact. Front Office Shared Services a public sector programme to investigate opportunities for delivering more integrated and efficient services through shared front office arrangements including; One-stop shops, contact centres and web portals Geographic Information System an approach to creating and storing geographic information in the form of maps that are linked to other data sets. Her Majesty s Inspectorate of Constabulary. DDI DEIT EISEC Erlang Direct Dial Inward enables everyone in an organisation to be directly dial-able from the public phone network (as opposed to using a human operator). Direct Electronic Incident Transfer the ability to automatically pass of incidents logs between communications facilities/centres. DEIT enables the effective exchange of data between forces/organisations. Enhanced Information Service for Emergency Calls enables the emergency caller s details (name, address, and telephone number) to be automatically captured and displayed thereby saving time in data recording. A proven formula developed to determine call traffic management, including scheduling of calls forecasting and service level achievement. ICF IDeA IiP IPCC Integrated Competency Framework a series of national standards and guidelines that will enable forces and individuals to improve the quality and consistency of performance and behaviour in jobs. Improvement and Development Agency supports improvement and innovation in local government by working with local authorities and their partners to develop and share good practice. Investors in People a voluntary assessment scheme backed by the UK Department for Innovation. It is a business improvement tool designed to advance an organisation s performance through its people. Independent Police Complaints Commission. 91

92 IVR KPI LGA MOPI MSF Multi-media NCHS NCMP NCMPG NCMS Interactive Voice Response software that automatically interacts with a caller either through a keypad or by using voice recognition processes to provide information or route calls. Key performance indicator those areas which are critical to measure in order to achieve success. Local Government Association. Management of Police Information a statutory code of practice on the management of police information (MoPI), was introduced in MoPI is about making information relevant and accessible. Most Similar Force for each force a list of other forces that are the most similar to it has been identified. This enables peer review and assessment. Decisions on which forces are the most similar to each other are made using a range of geographic, demographic, and socio-economic information. Combining multiple forms of media such as voice, web, and text in the communication of information. National Call Handling Standards. National Contact Management Programme. National Contact Management Principles and Guidance. National Contact Management Strategy. NCMLP National Contact Management Learning Package this product updates the previous National Call Handling Learning Package. NCRS NIM National Crime Recording Standard. National Intelligence Model. NOS NPIA NSIR NVQ OEP PDR PECS PNLD POLKA Primary call handling PSAs QoSC National Occupational Standards. National Policing Improvement Agency. National Standard for Incident Recording. National Vocational Qualifications. Operational Efficiency Programme a government programme examining operational spending in the public sector, targets efficiency savings from; back office operations and IT, collaborative procurement, asset management and sales, property and local incentives. Personal Development Review sets individual and group/ departmental objectives and plans derived from the force plan and strategic priorities in order to improve performance and record learning and development and individuals achievements. Public Emergency Call Services a code of practice between communication providers and the emergency services about handling 999 calls. Police National Legal Database. Police on-line Knowledge Area. All calls which are received or handled by the main contact management function. Public Service Agreements set out the government s top priorities as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. These apply over the spending period from 2008 to The Quality of Service Commitment Published by the Home Office it identifies a series of six service delivery commitment for police forces to be compliant with by 1st November

93 ROI Secondary call handling Service level Return On Investment a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment (or a number of different investments). Calculated by dividing the benefit (or return) against the cost of the initial investment. All calls to a force, which are either transferred from, or dealt with outside of, the main contact centre function. This includes direct dial extensions, departments and BCUs. The percentage of calls answered in a specific number of seconds. Web chat Wiki WFM A system that allows users to communicate in real time using web interfaces. A wiki is a website that allows different authors to read, edit and write web pages to produce and publish a collaborative document on the internet. Workforce Management telephony based system that predicts real time call volumes and resources required to achieve service levels. SMS Short Message Service also known as text messaging; involves written messages being passed from phone to phone. SNEN Single non-emergency number a national project started in 2006, providing a single memorable national number (101) to report non-emergency incidents. Intended to reduce the number of non-emergency calls made to the 999 services. Staff utilisation A measure of staff capacity and a critical indicator of an organisations ability to plan and manage resources based on the actual time that staff spend on various work activities. It does not include any time waiting for work. Under and over utilisation of staff are bad reflections on business delivery. VfM Value for Money is about achieving the right local balance between economy, efficiency and effectiveness (the 3Es). It seeks to obtain the maximum benefit with the resources available. VoIP Voice Over Internet Protocol a convergence of voice and data networks 93