Gloucestershire Constabulary: closure of cause of concern
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Letter information
From
Roy Wilsher OBE QFSM
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary
His Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services
To
Interim Chief Constable Maggie Blyth
Gloucestershire Constabulary
Sent on
9 December 2024
Closure of cause of concern
I am writing to you to confirm we are closing the cause of concern we raised in our 2023‑25 police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy inspection.
Cause of concern
The constabulary needs to improve the time it takes to answer emergency and non-emergency calls
The constabulary needs to improve the time it takes to answer emergency calls for service. This was identified as a cause of concern when the constabulary was last inspected in 2021. In the year ending 30 June 2023, Gloucestershire Constabulary answered 59.2 percent of its 999 calls within 10 seconds. This was lower than the standard expected of forces in England and Wales of answering 90 percent of 999 calls within 10 seconds.
Recommendations
Within six months, Gloucestershire Constabulary should:
- make sure it can answer a greater proportion of emergency calls more quickly to provide a better service for the public; and
- make sure it can answer a greater proportion of non-emergency 101 calls so that caller abandonment levels are reduced and kept as low as possible.
Progress
We revisited the constabulary in May 2024 and examined some of the work it had done to address the cause of concern. It had carried out peer reviews, renewed its recruitment efforts, provided mentoring and training for officers and staff, made improvements to IT systems, and introduced robust and proactive leadership within its control room.
We found the constabulary had improved how promptly it was answering 999 calls. It had answered over 80 percent of 999 calls within 10 seconds over the preceding 9 months. As a result, we confirmed the constabulary had completed our recommendation on answering a greater proportion of emergency calls more quickly.
In May 2024, we found the constabulary had made some progress on how often callers to the 101 non-emergency line abandoned calls before they were answered. Since then, we have continued our monitoring to confirm whether it could sustain this improvement over the busy summer period.
Conclusion
I am pleased to report that the constabulary has sustained an improved 101 abandonment rate over the summer, with a September 2024 year-to-date abandonment rate of 15.79 percent. I am aware the monthly figure since then continues to be lower than this average. As a result, the constabulary has completed this recommendation and this cause of concern is closed.
I congratulate you and your officers and staff for the continued improvement in this area.