[jezza]

Hello I have just received my mobile phone bill there's a charge on it I've just queried it's for calling 101 last week a call that lasted 45 minutes and never answered I've told the phone company to send the bill to the chief constable he has more money than me for doing nowt  jezza

[Blackpool rocket]

Hello I have just received my mobile phone bill there's a charge on it I've just queried it's for calling 101 last week a call that lasted 45 minutes and never answered I've told the phone company to send the bill to the chief constable he has more money than me for doing nowt  jezza

It makes you wonder if any of our public services are fit for purpose. This kind of thing really boils my £!$$
I assume you were connected and shoved on hold.

[JayG]

Hello I have just received my mobile phone bill there's a charge on it I've just queried it's for calling 101 last week a call that lasted 45 minutes and never answered I've told the phone company to send the bill to the chief constable he has more money than me for doing nowt  jezza

Was it 15p?
If so, doesn't sound unreasonable for a non-emergency call to the police (better value if they'd answered it of course, and even better value if such calls were free.  )

[jezza]

Hello the charge was actually 0.38p I was connected to an operator who pirmt me through to the controller who said they were busy and my call would be answered by the next available person(slurp) I think I had got the Char lady got this every few seconds never did get through to any one,reckon char lady must have had at least 4 mugs if tea   jezza

[mumofstig]

There is a fixed price for each call of 15p. Perhaps ask your provider why you were charged more? Probably cost more to query it than you were charged, though..... 

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q781.htm

[Mr Dog]

A few years ago Mrs Dog and myself were out walking and saw some kids playing on the railway lines. I called the number shown on a nearby sign and was charged £1.50 for the privilege of reporting it as requested by the said sign.....

[TonyB.]

Mr Dog - your call was a genuine threat to life so would be a valid 999 emergency call.

However back to the original post. I vote Conservative but this is down to Mrs May. The cuts to Police officers and Civilian Staff were and are devastating. Those answering the non emergency number are taking details for a crime report over the phone because there are not enough officers to deal with every report. This ties them up for a while as I am sure you will understand. Add to that there are less staff than there were and you have the recipe for disaster.

Please don't blame the person on the other end of the phone. They may be drinking tea or coffee at their desk but they are still working their socks off trying to provide a service.
 

[jezza]

Hello I have just been chatting to a police liason officer ,it seems that the setting up charge is a government policy, yet another scam, as from April the calls will be free the calls to 101 will take even longer to answer  as the operator will be on longer tea breaks  jezza

[TonyB.]

Jezza - What tea breaks? West Mids Police control rooms - 8 hour shift 42 min break; 12 hour shift 1 hr 10 min break which can be split. Toilet breaks are monitored for frequency and time.

I am glad I retired even though I enjoyed the actual work.

[jezza]

I thought it was constant tea breaks and answer phone when mugs empty you must have a different police service to my atea

[TonyB.]

Jezza - enough. I spent 38 years in police control rooms from answering 999 calls to being a controller. In the 80's there were sufficient staff to answer the calls and sufficient officers to send to incidents. In 2018 it was not unusual in Birmingham to have over 10 immediate response jobs (15 min allowed from call to officers arriving on scene) non of them resourced and literaly no one to send. It was heartbreaking calling up officers to see if they would be able to clear soon. At least in the control room we were able to take our unpaid breaks but the officers were not allowed breaks if there were immediate incidents unresourced.

[John]

I think we've had more than enough slagging off people on the basis of one phone call that maybe got misrouted or something. A lot of government services seem to be very under-resourced at the front line. There's only so much people can do - when you hear of how people abuse the 999 system and demand ambulances like an uber service, that annoys me mightily.
When my back went into spasm (which is agony) a friend who is a trained first aider and medical herbalist called 999 fearing it may have been a blood clot. Since it was considered not to be life threatening they quoted 4 hours for an ambulance. However, they put a doctor on the line who asked various questions and decided it wasn't a clot. She arranged medicine at the local doctor's which my wife nipped down and got. To me that was far better than being taken to A&E where they'd eventually have given the same treatment. Maybe not perfect but very good and cost effective use of limited resources. 10 out of 10 IMHO.
BTW, a local policeman revealed that one Friday night they had 4 officers covering from Caernarfon and all down the Llyn peninsular (look it up on a map, it's a huge area). This meant police attending potentially violent incidents etc. on their own. To me that's a testament to the bravery of officers who put their own life at risk to keep the public safe and enforce the law.
Doesn't stop me moaning when they point a speed gun at me, though