XN000022-1995-12-13 — Page 35

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(a) of the average number of police communication personnel responsible for answering "999" calls and the average number of calls they have to handle per shift at present, and how do these figures compare with the corresponding figures in each of the past three years;

(b) of the total number of calls made to "999" to report crime which received the recorded reply "the line is busy" this year;

(c) of the average time currently taken for a call to "999" to be answered by the staff manning the number, and how does this figure compare with those of the past three years?

Reply:

Mr President,

The answers to the three parts of the question are as follows:

(a) There are eighteen Police Communications Officers and three Senior Police Communications Officers manning the "999" Consoles per shift in the three Police Regional Command and Control Centres in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories. The number of staff deployed for such duties is the same for the past three year. In the first 10 months of this year, each shift handles an average of 445 calls. The average figures for 1992, 1993 and 1994 are 328, 338 and 401 respectively.

(b) The pre-recorded bilingual broadcast message was introduced in September 1994. Our computer system does not capture statistics on the number of calls answered by the message. However, the pre-recorded message invariably asks the caller not to hang-up in order that the call could be dealt with as soon as possible.

(c) While we do not have statistics on the average time taken to answer a "999" call in the past three years, the findings of a recent snap-shot survey conducted by the Police show that on average a "999" call is answered within six seconds. It is possible that a caller may need to wait longer than six seconds to get through when a major incident takes place. However, this does not affect the response time of the Police because such cases are often reported by more than one caller. For example, in the case referred to in the question, the Police received two other reports of the same case at the time of the bank robbery. It should be noted that the first police officer arrived at the scene six minutes from the receipt of the calls.

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