Enabling Victoria Police to focus on core policing activities whilst making it easier for citizens to access non-emergency services

Our customers 2019

In 2018, we began working with Victoria Police in southeast Australia to design and implement a new police assistance line and online reporting service, which launched in 2019. The new service provides citizens with two new channels to access Victoria Police for non-emergency services – via a Serco contact centre and an online portal.

Calls are answered and triaged by Serco agents who, working in partnership with Victoria Police Officers onsite, take reports and give advice on non-emergency situations where direct police attendance is not time critical, such as noise complaints and neighbourhood disputes.

The technology and contact centre solution we designed for Victoria Police is the first of its kind in Australia. By re-directing non-emergency enquiries, the benefits delivered to Victoria Police and Victorian citizens include:

• increased capacity of Victoria Police to devote to core policing activities;
• increased capacity for the emergency call and dispatch service to respond to urgent and emergency calls; and
• easier access to non-emergency services for citizens.

Former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said: “It does provide now an opportunity that we haven’t had before and that is to properly triage calls and be able to assist the community in a more detailed way.”

“Normally calls will come in and they will be distributed to our divisional van for operational vehicles to respond too, but 30 percent of those calls do not need to go to those cars for immediate action. Now we can have an immediate call and start a conversation about the needs of the people that are ringing us and respond to them in different ways. This will allow police to get onto the matters that are higher priority and are a much greater risk.”