Purpose and Direction
The Communications Department exists to support the delivery of a high quality of service to the people of County Durham and Darlington. The Department's high-level aim will be to contribute to the realisation of the Chief Constable's vision for the Force.
The Department will principally achieve this in the following ways:
- By ensuring that a professional, courteous and timely response is provided to those who contact Durham Constabulary. The quality of this initial contact will, not only influence the outcome of any subsequent investigation, but will also shape the caller's long term view of Durham Constabulary. Quite clearly this contact gives the Communications Department a golden opportunity to impact positively on public reassurance. It is an opportunity that we will fully exploit.
- By ensuring that the Durham Constabulary Graded Response Policy is implemented and applied in a consistent and appropriate way. This will ensure that officers are only dispatched to deal with incidents when their presence can add value to the process of resolution and in accordance with current Force policy. This in turn will free up a proportion of officer time that can be directed towards the resolution of more complex issues and the provision of high visibility patrol.
- By ensuring the accurate recording of information relating to the initial report of an incident and the resultant deployment and police action.
Every member of the Communications Department will have a clear understanding of the Chief Constable's vision and how their individual role contributes to its achievement. This is a fundamental principle of Aiming For Excellence and it will be the responsibility of all supervisors and managers to ensure that members of staff, for whom they have responsibility, are aware of what is expected of them and the support they can expect from others.
The Department will deliver a service to its main internal customers, which is appropriate and quality driven. This will be done by the negotiation of the Departmental Service Standards that will be regularly reviewed and updated. Standard Operating Procedures will be developed in consultation with both internal and external stakeholders. These procedures will not only facilitate the department's compliance with its service standards but will provide clear guidelines against which all stakeholders will be held accountable.
The Department will ensure that it continually monitors the quality of service that it provides to the public of County Durham and Darlington. This will be done by supervisors who will systematically dip sample operator's performance when interfacing with the public, re-contacting of callers to assess the performance of operatives and regular analysis of raft of statistical indicators. Feedback from Areas and other internal customers will also inform this process.
All members of the department will ensure that they treat public and colleagues alike with a high degree of dignity and respect. Standards of acceptable behaviour will be set and rigorously enforced by departmental managers and supervisors.
