Kent Police: One third of non-emergency 101 calls unanswered

Callers are being encouraged to contact police online when possible

About one third of non-emergency calls to Kent Police went unanswered between February and August, figures obtained by the BBC show.

In July more than 55% of calls to 101 were not answered, with callers spending more than 15 minutes on hold.

Kent Police have received more than 296,000 calls this year so far with over 191,000 being answered.

A Kent Police spokeswoman said the force was recruiting more call handlers.

She said: "It's important to remember that not all of them won't have simply been unanswered, the caller may have hung up and tried online instead."

Matthew Scott, Kent's police and crime commissioner, said: "I'm very sorry for people in Kent who have tried to contact Kent Police via 101 and haven't had the service they deserve.

"I want people to be able to report crime as easily as possible and that hasn't been the case," Mr Scott told BBC Radio Kent.

He said a quarter of rape victims, a third of sexual violence victims, and about half of stalking and harassment victims used the 101 service to report their crimes.

Matthew Scott said Kent Police had a high turnover of call-handling staff

Mr Scott said: "I'm keeping an eye on crime numbers because I wouldn't want crimes to go unreported and then for us to celebrate a reduction in crime because people haven't actually been able to get through and report crimes in the first place."

Ch Supt Mark Nottage said: "101 is a real challenge for us at the moment and we know we need to improve."

"999 calls are also increasing and we have to get to those emergency calls first and sometimes that takes almost all our operators.

"We were getting 11% more calls on the emergency lines in October than we got last year, and that's 4,000 additional calls," he told BBC Radio Kent.

"We have to get to those first."

He asked the public to "click before they call", and use online services when possible, rather than calling 101.

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