Bedfordshire Police is taking steps to make sure it is “slicker” at handling customer service, the force’s assistant chief constable has claimed.
The PCC, Festus Akinbusoye, told the force’s executive at a delivery and beating crime meeting this week (31 March) that the public is concerned with how the force deals with complaints and customer service.
ACC Sharn Basra said: “This is an area that we concede that perhaps the processes need to be a little bit slicker.”
He explained that complaints are managed by the customer service team.
“We have some staffing challenges within there and we have, most importantly, a changing leadership,” the ACC said.
“We’ve got a new manager starting on April 19, and that person is completely independent of policing.
“In terms of finding those gaps within the team, there is an advert out currently and we are going to recruitment process to fill those gaps.
“It’s really important that we get this right.
“I would recommend when the manager starts that we go into a deep dive in terms of what those process issues are, with a view to an improvement plan showing what immediate steps we can take to improve the service
“And then some medium and longer term activity to make sure we get this right,” he said.
The PCC said he appreciated that there are staffing issues.
“But from a public point of view, what should be the minimum that they should expect if they want to express their views about the quality of service they’ve received,” he asked.
“Is there a benchmark that you as a leadership have in place for those teams to meet,” he added.
The ACC replied that the force should be aspiring to make contact with the person contacting the force as a “matter of urgency”.
“We have to take into account the working hours, so sometimes there will be a delay.
“If somebody makes contact with us on a Saturday morning, it may well not be until the Monday morning that they get contact [from us]
“There is that expectation that within 48hrs everyone is contacted.”
The PCC said he is sure that the new manager will do a “fantastic job”, and although the force can’t control what happens ‘outside’ it can control how it will respond to people who genuinely want to engage with it.
Deputy Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst said: “I think we both want the same things, we want people to have a response that gives them a good explanation, that manages their expectations in terms of when we will get back to them.
“We want then to listen to their concerns, because ultimately if we don’t we don’t deal with that well, they’ll be ringing into our control room and that will be another call that our staff will have to manage.
“We recognise with complaints you will never keep everyone happy all the time, but actually we still need to give a prompt, courteous and as fuller an answer as we can,” he said.
by John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
