Police need to maximise opportunities of digital contact with the public
The huge shift to digital contact with the police by the public was highlighted at the Police Digital Summit on Thursday (February 4).
Chief Superintendent David Jackson, who leads on the Metropolitan Police Service’s (MPS) contact, command and control services, said digital contact was now “becoming equitable to telephone contacts”.
In 2020, the MPS handled 6.45 million contacts – equivalent to 72 per cent of London’s population – of which 2.61 million were ‘digital’ through social media and other online channels.
“Ninety-six per cent of the UK population are on the internet – and on average for five-and-a-half hours each day,” said Chief Supt Jackson. “As police we need to be in that space.”
He said forces need to seize the opportunities offered by social media and online engagement to “maximise the service they provide”.
In particular, it was highlighted how domestic abuse victims, for example, were less likely to use the phone but could be willing to use ‘chat channels’.
However, Chief Supt Jackson warned that ‘customer experience’ was really important, particularly for victims of crime, and this requires an “effortless citizen experience”.
One delegate agreed that it was “vital” to focus on the ‘public’ part of ‘public contact’.
Another said ‘contact’ goes beyond the reporting of events and into basic details, adding: “Difficult and terrible experience for officers but far worse for victims. This hit home for me when responding to an emergency call for repeated domestic abuse victim who has had multiple interactions with police and aired their frustration that on each interaction the first contact asked his name.”
‘Seamless citizen experience’ is one of the five digital ‘ambitions’ in the National Policing Digital Strategy 2020-2030, which was launched at last year’s Police ICT Summit.
It is described as “digitally-enabled engagement with the public, giving people more choice in using channels, media or devices most relevant to them to make contact”.
As one delegate commented, it was “eye opening” the number of social channels that police forces may now need/wish to think about as potential channels for communication.
