New £39m system causing hours-long delays in response to 999 calls at Hampshire police

The over-budget and delayed Microsoft-developed software has been in full use at Hampshire police since February.

Around 100,000 calls have since been taken by call handlers in Southampton using the system, who then send the most pressing to the force’s control room in Netley so officers can be deployed.

But The News has uncovered details of incidents where the 999 call – including in a violent domestic situation - vanished into no man’s land between the two teams.

These were uncovered before the coronavirus lockdown came into effect.

A police spokesman said: ‘We do not believe that public safety has been compromised.’

Councillor Trevor Cartwright is set to raise the issue at Hampshire’s police and crime panel next month.

He branded the issue ‘concerning’ and added: ‘It may well be something that needs to be asked. It’s a bit of a worry.’

Around 20 systems were due to have been replaced by the £39m contact management platform scheme for Hampshire and Thames Valley forces. It had been due to cost £27m.

System was planned for 2017

A June 2017 document by the forces’ chief information officer said CMP was due in ‘later this year’.

As reported, the then part-installed 999 system was still yet to take 999 calls by October last year. It was installed on the Isle of Wight in January.

It has now been rolled out across Hampshire but has been repeatedly updated to fix problems, and is yet to be taken on by Thames Valley.

A police spokesman said: ‘We have had no instances where public safety has been compromised.

‘With any new system, particularly one of this scale and complexity, we would expect to see a level of adjustment as we start to use it and as our people get used to a new way of working.

‘This has included the need to make some technology updates and changes.’

But asked if the force denied the delay incidents have happened, he said: ‘There have been rare occasions when this error has occurred, but we have processes in place to mitigate this and we do not believe that public safety has been compromised.’

The issue is believed to be caused by a mix of glitches and human error, he added.

He said: ‘We have a significant IT and business support network in place 24/7 with senior oversight monitoring the system’s performance and our adoption of it during this transitional time, taking into account user feedback and ensuring any issues are escalated quickly.

‘We have always planned for a phased implementation for CMP across the two forces and preparations are well underway for the final transition over in Thames Valley Police.’

Coronavirus lockdown pushed TVP’s adoption of the system to this summer.

Extra cash is being used to expand 999 call handling team

It comes, separately, as around a third of the 24,900 grade one 999 calls in 2019 resulted in a longer than 15-minute response, when the national standard is 15 minutes.

Some 400 people waited longer than an hour.

Police previously admitted response times were not good enough in 2016.

Each year since then the force has annually said it received an ‘unprecedented’ number of 999 calls.

An extra £2.248m is being spent bringing in 18 officers and 35 staff to the team.

‘Insufficient resources' to answer all 101 calls in 2019

Last year all 999 calls were answered but ‘there were insufficient resources to answer all 101 non-emergency calls,’ a report from Hampshire police and crime commissioner Michael Lane’s office said.

A police spokesman said: ‘We face high levels of demand into our control rooms and contact centres, and are always looking at ways we can improve our service to members of the public.

‘The introduction of CMP is part of that ongoing process and we are actively recruiting more operational officers to protect people and prevent crime.’

Nuisance callers putting extra pressure on police

Pressures on police call handlers have been revealed in a court case of a notorious nuisance who repeatedly drunk dials 999.

Despite being banned from calling 101 and 999 unless in an emergency, Louise Hathaway made 85 calls to emergency services in one spate of offending.

But even that does not depict the true scale of her bothersome and dangerous behaviour – with another 40 calls in another period of time.

As reported, Hathaway, 46, of Hampage Green, Havant, is under a criminal behaviour order banning her from making the calls. She was previously barred from having a phone for six months – stopping her making the nuisance calls.

Gavin Pottinger, prosecuting last month at Portsmouth Crown Court, said: She would ring up, either there would be mumbling quite incoherent or things such as “I love you” being said and sometimes there were a large number of calls on a single day.

‘And of course the real difficulty being whilst she’s making those calls other genuine calls are being delayed.’

Hathaway admitted three breaches of her criminal behaviour order, and breaching two suspended jail terms imposed in March 8 and May 31 last year for a total of 28 breaches of her behaviour order.

Anyone informing police about people breaching lockdown rules is supposed to report this online. There have been nearly 16,000 reports.

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