July 01, 2010
Face To Face With The Police - Have Your Say!
Have you ever used the enquiry office at your local police station? If not – why not?
Bedfordshire Police is in the process of conducting a review of the face-to-face service it gives the public at all of its public premises.
Most people will be familiar with the large town centre police stations at Luton, Dunstable and Bedford. These have an enquiry desk which is open most of the time and staff at the desks perform an almost limitless range of functions such as greeting visitors for meetings, helping relatives of those who are being held in police cells, providing advice for members of the public about policing issues, taking details from motorists who need to produce their documents and writing crime reports. They are the point for people to hand in and pick up lost property (which has included live snakes and live hand grenades in the past!) – or just ask for directions.
But enquiry desks are also open for more limited hours at Ampthill, Biggleswade, Leighton Buzzard, Leagrave, Houghton and Riseley stations – and people can now also use the expanding number of Safer Neighbourhood offices and surgeries in more accessible places such as Luton’s Purley Centre, Kempston’s Springfield Centre or at Castle Road in Bedford.
The enquiry desks only deal with visits from the public – so when they are closed to callers the police officers who are based in the area are still working behind the scenes or they are out on patrol. For instance Greyfriars police station enquiry desk opens to the public 7am-10pm, but obviously there are officers on duty and looking after the town 24 hours a day.
With all these different posts, stations and surgeries now operating, the force has decided to do a comprehensive review of which are the easiest and most used facilities – and if different ways can be found to help people who don’t find it so easy to access the main stations.
“We want to know how people use the enquiry desk facilities and how they rated their experience there,” said Customer Service Manager Mark Evans. “But we also want to know if what we are providing at the moment is actually what people want.”
“We are open to suggestions as to how we can make it easier for people to use the service and have designed our survey with questions about opening times, locations and facilities,” he said. “I’d like to hear from as many people as possible so we can get a really good idea about how to improve the service – and find out what people like about the desks so we can do more of that.”
Complete the on-line survey
