Calls to Northland police stations answered in Auckland

Calls to all Northland police stations, including the main Whangāreī station, above, will now be answered in Auckland. Photo / File

Non-emergency phone calls to all of Northland's 21 police stations are now being answered by staff in a call centre in Auckland.

So calls to stations including Whangārei, Kaikohe, Dargaville or Kaitāia will all be answered in the "city of sails".

The new answering service was rolled out on Wednesday across the region with calls being automatically routed to Crime Reporting Line staff, in a centralised customer service centre. It is part of a nationwide project already rolled out in Central, Eastern and Auckland City districts.

Police said they are making a significant commitment to providing the best possible service to the public and part of their commitment was the project to centralise telephony services.

Northland police boss Superintendent Russell Le Prou said sometimes when people tried to contact police for support or advice at local stations, by telephone or online, they could receive an outdated and frustrating experience.

"The centralised system is a precursor to our introduction of a single non-emergency number and the availability of online reporting for the public to report low level incidents."

Le Prou said it would result in an improved service to the public enabling them to contact police more easily and more satisfactorily.

"These staff are able to answer and resolve the bulk of calls, and where necessary a small number of calls will be directed back to relevant stations and staff. In the short time this has been operating, we have found this has also helped free up staff to work on other important work."

In the 24 hours to 7am on Friday calls received for Northland were 174, with 170 being answered. The average length of the calls was seven minutes 50 seconds and 93.7 per cent of the calls were answered in 30 seconds.

"The Police Connect telephony system ensures there is always someone to answer the important calls that we get from our community. Often our staff are undertaking important operational work and if a call needs to go directly to a staff member that still happens and they will return the call according to the priorities they are managing at the time."

However, Le Prou said it could take time for the process to become embedded. If people had an emergency or required police help they should ring 111.