Who you gonna call? Not the cops…

Sunday, 18 February 2024

The country’s 111 system is collapsing, and new information shows half of non-emergency calls to police are going unanswered, while wait times for 105 calls have ballooned dangerously. Is this another symptom of a police force at breaking point, or just communications chaos? Mike White reports.

In March 2019, more than 40 police crowded into Auckland’s Stebbing Studios, ditched uniforms, donned headphones, and got groovy.

They were there to record a jingle promoting Police’s new non-emergency, 105 phone line - the number for the public to call if they saw something suspicious, found a dumped car, had a tip to report.

“So you know who to contact if you find a lost pram/Need advice about replying to a Nigerian prince’s scam….” they rhymed.

To the repeated chorus of “The number’s ten-five, yeah, it’s ten-five”, staff, including the Counties Manukau Police Choir, melodically reinforced the message to phone the new line, to take pressure off the 111 emergency system.

There was even a stilted cameo from then-police commissioner Mike Bush.

The 105 line was launched with a million-dollar marketing campaign, and went live at 10.05am on 10 May 2019 - the 10th of the 5th.

It was an immediate success, with more than 1.6 million calls logged by 105 call centre staff in the first year.

That year, the average time for answering calls was one minute 47 seconds.

But the wait time for people calling 105 has climbed steadily in the five years since, and in 2023 was nearly six minutes - despite the number of 105 calls dropping by nearly a quarter in the same period.

As a result, the rate of people giving up and hanging up before their 105 call is answered tripled, from 18% in 2019, to 56% in 2022. (In 2023, it was 42%.)

That means, in 2022, more than 776,000 calls to the police 105 line went unanswered.

In 2023, it was 530,000.

Police note that some of these people may have completed a 105 report online, as a recording suggests they can do. But the fact the average time to abandon calls has remained the same suggests most people just get fed up with waiting to speak with someone.

In a recent briefing to Police Minister Mark Mitchell, police said their target was to answer 70% of 105 calls within 90 seconds.

But they admitted to Mitchell they were achieving that goal just 18% of the time. The current figure, provided to the Sunday Star-Times under the Official Information Act, is even worse - 15% in 2023.

Police have never got close to their timeliness target, and the proportion of calls answered within 90 seconds has dropped every year, from almost 50% in 2019; to 34% in 2020; to 24% in 2021; to 21% in 2022; and now 15%.

In 2022, the longest time someone waited on the phone to speak to someone was five hours and 57 minutes. In 2023, it was two hours and 28 minutes.

Revelations of the 105 line’s failures come on the back of news this week that the 111 emergency call system is also broken.

Documents obtained by RNZ show the Government was warned a year ago the 25-year-old 111 system was so fractured, it was leading to deaths and injuries.

In one instance, a woman calling 111 was overheard by her partner, who then stabbed her to death. Most callers are unable to text the 111 line, or contact it via social media, or other less obvious ways.

The system had broken down 59 times in the 2021-22 year.

Police, and Fire and Emergency New Zealand, made a plea to the previous government to urgently upgrade the system, saying it was cumbersome, got locations wrong, and they were concerned about its security.

After initial agreement the 111 system needed to be overhauled, in August 2023 the Government deferred plans to replace it, citing other higher priorities.

Despite this, the 111 system continues to perform better than its non-emergency sibling, the 105 line.

The police target is to answer 90% of 111 calls within 10 seconds.

In 2023, 81% of calls were answered within that time-frame. And 90% of 111 calls are answered within 60 seconds.

Only 1% of 111 calls take over two minutes to answer, though the longest wait time for a 111 call in 2023 was 30 minutes, compared to six minutes and 15 seconds in 2018.

(Police note the longest wait times may be outliers due to extreme circumstances, with an event such as Cyclone Gabrielle seeing a doubling of 111 calls to police.)

Over a million 111 calls were made in 2023. The Police Emergency Communications Centre, which operates the 111 line, has 223 staff, and an annual budget of nearly $60 million.

Meanwhile, between 240 and 293 staff have run the 105 system since its inception, but there is no specific budget for its operation.

What the two systems have in common, is high staff turnover.

The turnover rate for police call centres was 6% in 2020. The next year it was 12%. By 2022, it was 15%.

This only relates to people who have quit the job - not those who’ve taken another role with police, or ended fixed-term contracts.

In comparison, the turnover rate for sworn police staff is around 5% annually.

In 2023, 96 staff from a total of around 270 left their job at 105 call centres - about a third of staff. While 46 went to other roles in police, 50 quit the organisation completely.

Police Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming points to call centre industry turnover rates generally being high, and claims their rates compare well internationally. While insisting they have a strong and supportive culture at their communication centres, McSkimming didn’t comment on the rapid rise in staff leaving.

But Police Association president Chris Cahill admits staff have felt under the pump.

“Anecdotally, it’s the burnout. It’s just the constant calls.

“You do a shift, it’s just one call after another, after another, and it just becomes very challenging.”

Cahill struggles to explain why, when the number of 105 calls is dropping, and staffing and budget have stayed much the same, wait times and call abandonment rates have tripled since the system was introduced.

The only thing he can think of is that calls are becoming more complex.

Increasingly, Cahill says, police are expected to deal with every difficult aspect of society, such as mental health, homelessness, and family harm.

“And police just can’t continue to operate in these spheres and be able to meet the other demands.”

Cahill accepts it’s frustrating when people try to do the right thing by reporting crime, only to be stuck on a phone until they give up.

And he accepts that this inevitably must lead to considerable unreported crime.

But the 105 system’s failures are just symptomatic of a police force that’s increasingly under stress, and creaking at the seams, because the demand is too great, Cahill says.

When asked if the Police Association was calling for the 105 line to be better resourced, Cahill hesitates, and says there are lots of areas where police need more help.

“We’ve got big demands around child abuse, sexual assault investigations, we’ve got retailers crying out for higher visibility of sworn officers.

“So that’s a particular challenge - where is the priority where staff should be?

“And the first thing I’d want to make sure is that people are getting a response to emergency events - and that’s more frontline cops on the street that can respond immediately.”

So what can be done to improve the 105 line, a crucial conduit between the public and police, and a vital tool in combating crime?

“It’s difficult, to be honest,” sighs Cahill. “I don’t know if there is a silver bullet.

“It’s really trying to reduce the demand in the first place - that’s the key.

“Why are all these people reporting so much crime?

“In the end, it comes back to stopping the crime happening - that’s the silver bullet.”

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says he expects “when the public put their hand up for help, there will be a prompt and efficient response”, but excuses the system’s serious failings.

“Given the enormous increase in demand on Police’s resources over the last six years, it is not surprising that there has been a difficulty meeting these targets.”

But this seems to ignore the fact that nearly all staff in 111 and 105 call centres are “non-sworn” - not frontline cops diverted to deal with all manner of social problems.

And it also doesn’t explain why the 105 system’s performance has crashed so badly, when it is actually receiving nearly a quarter fewer calls than when it began.

Mitchell says he’s working to ensure frontline police are supported, “and the public can have confidence that Police are working hard to keep them safe.”

However, Cahill says the minister has a huge job to choose what police priorities get funded, when so many things need attention, and the Government is intent on trimming costs.

“I think he’s probably pretty overwhelmed and challenged by how big a problem this is.

“There’s not a lot of good news out there for him.”

But Cahill stresses the Government somehow has to find the funds to invest in police, and keep society safe.

“I wish I did have an immediate solution - but it feels like finger-in-the-dyke stuff at the moment.”