North Yorkshire Police Call Centre and Database

Case Study

Visit to Newby Wiske HQ, November 1999 by Mark Ashcroft.

Business Background

North Yorkshire Police Authority (NYPA) have their headquarters at Newby Wiske, near Northallerton. From these headquarters various management and administrative functions take place for the county. NYPA presently also operate 20 call centres which handle calls from the public, log them and decide on a course of action which is then transmitted to police officers by radio. In line with the current trends, NYPA are consolidating these call centres into two separate centres. They believe that this will create a better sense of ‘co-operacy’, common call handling and substantial cost savings. Smaller call centres have more critical staffing issues, e.g. when someone goes off sick then they are harder to replace at short notice. Consolidation into two call centres offers increased resilience (able to copy with staff shortages more easily). On the other side however, NYPA are aware that some local knowledge may be lost in the consolidation but believe the benefits to the public outweigh the disadvantages. On average there are 700 incidents logged each day at the call centre, which is low compared to somewhere like London.

Police Database Systems

In the call centres, staff have access to two main computer databases: Indepol (Intelligent Defence Policework) offering North Yorkshire based information and the PNC (Police National Computer) offering national crime information. Both of these systems are mainframe based, Indepol is local and the PNC is accessed via a private leased line to the Police National HQ.

Indepol: A bespoke database developed for North Yorkshire which offers team briefing information, bulletin board service (for all sorts of reasons including internal police sports clubs news), incident reports (999 calls, burglaries, homicides, etc..). Users can search on almost any field on the database using wildcards. Reports are generated for regular information or can be made more specific by selecting certain parameters. All screens are text and PF key based only. This is a standard mainframe DBMS system and does not give the user a GUI. But it is very fast!

PNC: A nationally developed database available to all UK police forces which holds information about vehicle registrations, stolen and abandoned vehicles, convictions and wanted files. Text based mainframe DBMS similar to Indepol. However, NYPA have developed their own ‘front-end’ system to link in to their own in-house systems.

Access to Systems

To access the databases requires a workstation running terminal emulation (3270). The user must enter a password to gain access and view a screen giving the Data Protection Act warning before viewing any actual data. Each user is given a different access level depending on their job function.

Call Centre Facilities

The new call centre has a pass card protected front entrance with a reception. The access to the call centre and incident room is requires a higher access level. In the call centre is a modern, open plan office with positions for approximately 20 staff. Each of the call centre staff will have a telephone with headset, two computers and a reasonable amount of desk space. Desks are divided with small low-level partitions that enable staff to see each other but which reduces noise levels. Spot lighting is used all round the office and cables etc are carried within the desks.

There is an incident room next door to the call centre, which is also cabled for communications equipment and can be used if required. There will always be space available for emergency situations if required. The centre will be manned 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and will be run on a two or three pattern shift system. Staff who are not on shift may be called in to support sick staff from another shift. This will be possible because all the staff will live reasonably locally.

Mark Ashcroft

March 2000.

For more information visit the NYPA web site at www.nypa.org.uk.