Hertfordshire Police Authority has embedded citizen focus within the culture of the force. As a result, confidence and satisfaction with police services in Hertfordshire is high. It has been described as a leader in citizen focused policing by Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabularies (HMIC).
Excellent performance on citizen focus has been enhanced through following up feedback. Members of the public are able to make a complaint or comment about a service via an electronic form on Hertfordshire Constabulary's website. The force responds to feedback on an on going basis and acts immediately when negative trends appear. It is one of only three forces assessed by HMIC as 'Exceeding the Standard' in the Citizen Focus category.
As part of the Contact Management strategy, the force opened a purpose built contact centre to deal with single tier call handling, crime recording and despatch. The centre, which has over 300 staff and a budget of £11.5 million, is at the core of the force's customer service delivery. The centre has enabled staff to multi-skill and has increased staffing resilience, performance and customer satisfaction. The force now answers 91 per cent of 999 calls within 10 seconds and 86 per cent of non-999 calls within 30 seconds.
The authority is one of the top performers compared against Most Similar Group (MSG) of forces in all satisfaction categories for users. According to the British Crime Survey, public confidence in local police is high in Hertfordshire:
- 60.5 per cent believe the local police do a good job, first in the MSG
- 69.0 per cent believe the police understand the issues that affect the community, first in the MSG
- 50.9 per cent believe the police and the local council are dealing with anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in the area, first in the MSG
The performance of neighbourhood and intervention constables is assessed against the force's priorities areas. This is to ensure a good quality of service to the public. The Improving Personal Performance assessments include measures of victim satisfaction surveys and other quality measures.
The force has set priorities based on citizen focus, such as getting it right first time, and introducing organisational change including the contact centre and the performance assessment of staff. These have helped to embed the importance of citizen focus into the culture of the force.