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Changing perceptions
If the sources mentioned by a recently published report are to be believed, then public satisfaction with police services is moving in the wrong direction. Could technology help?
According to the report A new beat: options for more accountable policing, members of the public who’ve had contact with the police rate them lower than if they hadn’t had any previous contact – in contrast with those from other public services who rate equivalent experiences with schools and hospitals higher than those who haven’t had direct contact.
As regards the police, it is the follow-up contact that seems to be suffering the most – one survey showed 89 per cent satisfaction with initial contact compared to 58 per cent satisfaction with follow-up contact.
Are things really changing for the worse, or could there be another explanation? George Godliman, managing director of Fortek Computers thinks part of the answer could lie elsewhere. He thinks that here is a case of public expectation changing at a faster pace than the technology employed by the emergency services.
Technology used by private sector service providers (such as public utilities) has raised the bar to the point that the public sector now appears to be less efficient – even if this is not necessarily the case. “If there is a land line fault in a private household, for example, members of the public receive a very structured response from the line provider even if the service itself doesn’t change and it still takes days to fix. But the expectations are met because the customer receives regular updates by text messages or phone calls to say that it is still being reviewed. This level of service is now becoming expected by the public and they expect the same from the emergency services.
Genuine emergencies where resources are despatched immediately are not the issue here, believes Godliman. “But in more complicated cases, optimising the response in terms of cost and response is a lot more difficult – and that is the area that has to be worked on. Callers expect the call handler to know that this is the third time they’ve called in three days. And showing that level of awareness can mean that the situation is successfully handled immediately, rather than having to send a policeman round.” Godliman’s point is that current C&C systems have applications that can help in raising public perception, but there are barriers. Many forces are still using legacy, proprietary systems, and are uncertain how to embrace more open system architecture or consider utilising commercially available technologies. “We have to recognise that there’s one thing to have the right product and another to get it deployed in an organisation, because it often requires a faster rate of change than the organisation realises.”
AVLS (Automatic Vehicle Location System) is one such example. Unfortunately, the exploitation of AVLS has been more challenging than expected, says Godliman. One thing is knowing where a police officer is (without having to ask him), and another is exploring how that knowledge allows the force to work differently. “There are two areas we are focussing on. Firstly, response optimisation. When you get an emergency it is nice to know where the officers are without having to ask, and that improves ability to respond. Secondly, as regards the Safer Neighbourhood Scheme, people want to see officers and most forces have schemes to encourage patrolling vehicles to visit certain locations. There are also agreements with the local police to spend a certain amount of time there. AVLS allows those schemes and agreements to be monitored.”
Unfortunately officers do not necessarily want to be told where to go or indeed have someone check up on them. “The technology is here, but the challenge lies in the transitional period.”
