The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

SERVICE RESPONSE

Indicators in this section are intended to address how effectively the police are providing their service and corresponding levels of public satisfaction.

High Level Objectives:

• Accessible policing services for all
• Increased public satisfaction with service delivery
• Keep victims of crime informed and provide access to support
• Timely and professional response to the public
• Efficient and effective call handling
• Meet the needs of communities through effective partnerships³
• Effective response to service delivery complaints
• Improved custody processing times

Performance Measures 2007-08

• Outcomes:
  • Level of service user satisfaction
• Activities:
  • Proportion of 999 calls answered within 10 seconds
• Inputs:
  • None at present
• Context:
  • Number of telephone calls and incidents
  • Proportion of population from minority ethnic groups
  • Number of sudden deaths reported to the procurator fiscal

Performance summary

The graph below summarises the key performance indicators measured to date, comparing 2007-08 figures with those for 2006-07. The brown points falling outside the fixed pentagon (in blue) indicate improved/better performance, those inside the navy pentagon, reduced/poorer performance.

Until recently forces were only required to conduct satisfaction surveys every three years, in line with the Accounts Commission statutory indicator. Consequently not all could provide data for both years examined here. Bearing in mind the incomplete data, performance has improved on two of the five measures, has more or less remained the same for two, and has fallen in one instance. In terms of public satisfaction, initial contact with the police remains the point at which satisfaction levels are highest. That said, satisfaction with force performance generally shows the greatest increase over the two years. A decline, however, can be seen in satisfaction with how the matter was dealt with overall. The figures for each of the individual indicators in this pillar are described in more detail in the following section.

Multigraph 1: Service response measures of performance

( NB: While most forces have been able to provide data on each of the indicators for the first full year (2007-08) of the Framework, not all could supply equivalent data for 2006-07. This has affected the presentation of statistics as follows:

• where the tables show data for 2007-08 only, all forces that supplied 2007-08 data have been included in the Scotland totals; however,
• because the multigraphs compare performance over the two years, only forces that were able to provide data for both years have been included in the Scotland totals.

As a result, there may be differences between the Scotland totals appearing in the tables and those in the multigraphs.)

OUTCOMES

Level of service user satisfaction

Forces regularly survey members of the public who have contacted them, in order to ascertain their level of satisfaction as users of police services. These users will have contacted the police for various reasons, including to report a crime, a disturbance/nuisance, a road accident or a missing person. The indicator requires 50% of those surveyed to have reported a crime and is an Accounts Commission indicator.

Table 1

Satisfaction is measured on a five-point scale, ranging from 'very satisfied' to 'very dissatisfied'. (Lothian & Borders uses a four-point scale which excludes the option 'neither satisfied or dissatisfied'.) Because of their current survey cycle, neither Northern or Strathclyde have data for 2007-08.

Table 2

Commentary

Most forces use postal surveys. This method tends to attract a return rate of between 30% and 40% and as such, the 31.8% response rate for Scottish forces combined is at the lower end of the expected range (see Table 1). The significantly higher rate shown by Grampian is due to their use of a telephone survey. The direct contact with respondents that this involves commonly leads to a better response. What we cannot say at this stage, is whether this has also had an indirect effect on recorded satisfaction levels.

The first three rows of Table 2 show the percentage of respondents who were 'fairly' or 'very' satisfied with the service they received. Percentages in the final row reflect the proportion of respondents, where applicable who said that 'yes', the police had kept them adequately informed while dealing with the matter. The figures suggest that satisfaction consistently falls between the point of first contact and the matter being resolved. There is evidence to suggest that it may in part be correlated with how well respondents feel they have been kept informed of progress - what we commonly refer to as 'feedback'. For example, the final row of the table implies that more than half of users (54.7%) to whom this question was applicable did not feel they had been kept adequately informed.

In our recent report on Quality of Service⁴, we made a number of recommendations to improve the service received by members of the public. One of these was that forces produce and publish standards of service that describe what actions they will take in the event of a call from a member of the public. In this way, anyone approaching the police for assistance will be able to understand what they can and cannot reasonably expect the police to do. Corresponding internal guidance for police officers and staff should stress the importance of improving the quality of service they provide, with an emphasis on giving feedback. We also urged forces to agree a national approach to user surveys that is capable of generating a greater understanding and more complete picture of user satisfaction. By responding to our recommendations, we hope that forces will be in a stronger position to increase satisfaction levels.

ACTIVITIES

Proportion of 999 calls answered within 10 seconds

The prompt answering of 999 calls is a priority for the police, and all forces aim to answer at least 90% of such calls within ten seconds. For the purpose of this measure, the time is counted from the first ring of call to the police switchboard until a police employee answers it - it does not examine the subsequent speed at which police attend these incidents. This indicator is also an Accounts Commission statutory performance indicator.

Table 3

Commentary

Despite most forces experiencing some fluctuation in the proportion of 999 calls answered within ten seconds, the proportion for Scotland as a whole (91.3%) sits above the 90% target. In fact, as we know from past data from Audit Scotland, this national proportion has been rising steadily since 2004.

Unfortunately, it is still the case that a large proportion of 999 calls are not police emergencies. An emergency is when someone is in immediate danger or that a crime is in the process of being committed, but many people dial 999 for other, non-urgent reasons. In an effort to minimise these occasions, a report by Audit Scotland ⁶ recommended that forces and other local agencies make greater efforts to explain to members of the public both when to use 999 and what other numbers to use in different situations.

INPUTS

The SPPF currently has no input measures in this section.

Annual report on Scottish Policing Performance Framework ( SPPF) 2007-2008

CONTEXT ⁷

Number of telephone calls and incidents

These context measures are intended to demonstrate the level of demand on forces incurred through telephone contact from members of the public. All forces now use electronic incident management systems, known as 'command and control' systems, which generate unique incidents following a call from a member of the public, police officer or other organisation/emergency service.

Table 4

Commentary

At 10,338 calls per 10,000 population, this is equivalent to more than every person in Scotland calling the police at some point during 2007-08. Roughly one in every eight calls was a 999 call, and nearly 45% were subsequently recorded as incidents. How these figures differ from the previous year is not known, as two forces have not provided data for 2006-07.

Unfortunately, there is as yet no standard definition of 'incident' in use in Scotland, so that what gets recorded as an incident will vary from force to force. The variation in incident numbers per 10,000 population might indeed suggest inconsistency in recording practices. The move towards a common command and control system offers forces the opportunity to agree a shared approach to incident recording. Such a development would make it easier to understand the nature and extent of demand on forces as measured by this indicator.

Number of sudden deaths reported to the procurator fiscal

The police, on behalf of the procurator fiscal, investigate all sudden, suspicious and unexplained deaths, including those occurring outdoors, suicides, and those where a general practitioner cannot certify the cause of death. They will also examine deaths where the circumstances give rise to serious public concern.

Table 5

Commentary

The table shows a decline in the number of such deaths recorded by the police in 2007-08, for Scotland as a whole and across most forces.

Please note that these data are based on the 2001 Census. For this reason the figures do not reflect more recent trends in migration from the
European Union ( EU) Accession countries. A revised form will be used in the next census in 2011 that will be able to capture this information.

Courtesy of 2001 Census by General Register Office for Scotland ( GROS)

Commentary

The data for 2001 showed that approximately 98% of the population in Scotland classified themselves as being 'white'. The biggest minority groups were those who described their ethnic grouping as Pakistani (0.63%) and Chinese (0.32%).

Table 6

« Previous | Contents | Next »