101 call charges to Wiltshire Police to be scrapped

28 May 2019, 14:18 | Updated: 28 May 2019, 14:20

The Home Office has confirmed a charge for calling the police non-emergency number is to be scrapped next year.

At the moment phoning the 101 number costs callers a 15p connection fee.

Angus Macpherson, Police and Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire and Swindon has welcomed the news: ''We're in the process of improving officer numbers in community policing teams, and it's important to me that the police are as accessible as possible and today's announcement is a really positive step forward.

''A lot has gone into improving the Force's performance in answering 101 calls and those most affected by this charge, which goes directly to the telephony provider, tend to be those most vulnerable.

''Reporting crime, passing on intelligence or ringing for an update should not cost callers 15p, and this is good news for victims and the people of Wiltshire.''

Over the past two years, significant investment has gone into improving the performance of the Force's crime and communications centre after concerns about its performance.

The time is takes to answer a 101 call has also improved from just over 5 minutes in 2017 to 1.21minutes at the end of 2018.

Since then, abandonment rates have dropped 17% from 22.2% in 2017 to 4.8% this year.