Police's 105 non-emergency line has now been in operation for a year and has proved hugely beneficial, a top cop says.
The 105 number was launched on May 10, 2019, for Kiwis to dial when a situation doesn't require immediate police attendance, such as if a theft has occurred or if someone has information that may assist an ongoing investigation.
In announcing the number, then-Police Commissioner Mike Bush said 105 would help "modernise" how services were delivered and make it "easier for the public to engage with us for non-emergency help".
Looking back on the first year, the man in charge of police's infrastructure and service delivery, Assistant Commissioner Jevon McSkimming, is pleased with the number's results.
"I think we are absolutely happy with where we have got to. I have an ambition that we improve everyday, so we are not resting on our laurels," he told Newshub.
In the year since the number launched, 105 has received just under 600,000 calls. It supports the traditional 111 line, as well as an online non-emergency reporting system set up in November 2018, which has had around 75,000 reports since.
The new channels to get in touch with the cops have given Kiwis greater confidence that their reports will be heard promptly, Asst Cmmr McSkimming tells Newshub.
"What has happened is the number of people who are calling us has radically gone up. We have created a space where people are reporting stuff that they may have not have sat in the queue for," he says.
“What people are looking for, wherever they are calling, whether it is police or any call line, is a predictable service. One of the things we have tried to establish is if we provide a high-level, predictable service in the non-emergency space, whether it is on telephony or in digital, over a period of time, people are more likely to call that non-emergency space.
"What we have known from past research is when people were looking for predictability in an outcome they rung 111. Worldwide, you can't abstract the demand out of your emergency queue fast, so it is a long burn but we are already seeing more people are calling us in our non-emergency space."
Asst Cmmr McSkimming says in the first three months of the year, service satisfaction among those calling 105 was at 93 percent, while police have also been hitting their "pretty ambitious" target of answering 90 percent of emergency calls within 10 seconds.
He says it has "absolutely" been helpful to police in responding to crime and other tragic events requiring police involvement.
"If you think of COVID, White Island and even pre-the 105 number, we had the telephony system set up, and around the Christchurch massacre, the amount of calls we took through our system because it was scalable that we would not have been able to cope with if we were using our local calling numbers has massively benefited both the public and the New Zealand police."
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a myriad of restrictions onto Kiwis, especially under alert level 4 when New Zealanders were instructed to stay home and not travel unless they were accessing or providing essential services.
Police have been on the frontline enforcing the rules, but Kiwis have also been contacting authorities reporting breaches. In the day prior to the alert level 4 lockdown, 111 came under "significant pressure" from people calling about others not self-isolating.
"We understand that COVID-19 is having a significant impact on members of our community, and many people are feeling very anxious and unsettled," said Superintendent Dave Trappitt, national manager communication centres.
"However, it is absolutely vital that people only call 111 if they are facing an emergency situation."
Asst Cmmr McSkimming said in just one day during the pandemic, police received more than 12,000 COVID-19 related calls, while an online COVID-19 reporting service organised alongside the digital 105 form has received 72,800 reports.
The greater demand has been matched, Asst Cmmr McSkimming says, by investment in more than 300 extra staff members across the digital and the telephone services. He said the new channels are also allowing staff opportunities to diversify their skillset.
"Some people find [change] easy, some people don't. What we do know is that we have now got a career structure for those people that enable them to grow as their skills grow and to do different things in a broader group of people rather than just answering phones," he said.
"We see it as being significantly beneficial and the feedback in terms of our internal engagement in our part of the business has been really, really good."
The cop has great ambition about where the police can go next with their services.
"We continue to survey monthly with people that call into our service to see what we can improve on. That is not only in terms of investing in having high-quality people and the right number of people, but also leveraging technology. Whether it is new online forms, artificial intelligence or, in the future, how we can leverage AI and digital humans to give people another channel that they can get through to police and get that quality experience.
"We have had a programme of work around all of those things. I have an ambition that this community, the New Zealand community, gets the service that they deserve, which is a great service."
