A prosecution service contact centre to help both victims and witnesses of crime is failing to answer around a fifth of all calls it receives.
The National Enquiry Point customer contact centre was set up by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to deal with enquiries from victims, witnesses, next of kin and accused.
It provides important information to the public, from giving victims updates about the progress of their cases to answering queries from other professionals working in the justice system.
An in-depth review carried out by HM Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland noted the service received 343,205 calls in the year between October 2023 and September 2024.
The review found Enquiry Point operators were polite, respectful and empathetic with callers – who may be using the service at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
It said in most cases, operators provided accurate information to those making enquiries and that they resolved the calls appropriately.
However, it found that in the period it reviewed, 19% of callers were not admitted to the Enquiry Point call queue because it was full.
Of those calls that were placed in the queue, 50% were then abandoned by the caller before they spoke to an operator.
Callers waited an average of eight minutes and 34 seconds to speak to an operator – although the maximum time a caller spent in the queue was 74 minutes, which COPFS say was on a date when it suffered a system failure. The next longest time a caller spent in the queue was 45 minutes.
In a report published today, HM Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland has made 18 recommendations designed to support improvement in how COPFS responds to enquiries.
These include that the COPFS should explore opportunities to pre-empt and reduce demand on its Enquiry Point service.
HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution in Scotland, Laura Paton, said: “The data we collected during our inspections shows that Enquiry Point is not meeting the demand for its service.
“We found that when someone gets through to an Enquiry Point operator, the way their enquiry is dealt with is generally good.
“But what is alarming is the number of people who aren’t getting through. Unmet demand is a key concern.”
As part of the review, inspectors carried out an audit on a random sample of calls received by Enquiry Point, they did a survey of those who had used the service, they observed Enquiry Point staff at work, and they interviewed more than 70 Enquiry Point and COPFS staff.
The report noted Enquiry Point limits the number of callers that enter its phone queue. When the queue is full, additional callers hear a message thanking them for their call and asking them to phone back later or send an email.
Ms Paton said: “During the period we reviewed, 65,669 calls were not admitted to the queue. This was an average of 5,472 calls per month.
“These were callers who were effectively turned away, albeit some may have called back another time or made their enquiry by email instead.
“Once admitted to the queue, some callers hang up and abandon the call.
“Among those who responded to our survey were those who said they abandoned their call because they were frustrated it was not answered in reasonable time.”
The inspection noted the average number of calls abandoned each month was 11,535.
It found the average queue time for calls that were abandoned was two minutes. However, some callers abandoned their calls after much longer waits, including one caller who spent 55 minutes in the queue.
The report – ‘Responding to enquiries: Service delivery through National Enquiry Point’ – highlighted that many of the calls made and emails sent to Enquiry Point related to information that could or should have been given or more easily accessed at an earlier stage.
Ms Paton said: “We estimate that almost a quarter of enquiries received each year are as a result of COPFS failing to do something correctly or at all.
“This ‘failure to get it right first time’ tends to happen out with Enquiry Point, but it is Enquiry Point that is often the recipient of the resulting failure demand.
“Failing to get it right first time not only causes additional and unnecessary work for COPFS, but damages public confidence in the service.”
Staff working in Enquiry Point will try to answer enquiries themselves or, when necessary, will pass enquiries onto other teams working in COPFS. Inspectors found staff faced difficulties transferring enquiries to other teams. This significantly slowed down how quickly accurate information could be given to anyone who called COPFS.
The report said COPFS should work to understand and address the reasons that staff across the organisation are unable or unwilling to accept transferred calls from Enquiry Point.
It said better guidance, training, systems and processes for staff could further improve the quality of service offered to anyone who gets in touch.
Enquiry Point deals with email enquiries as well as queries by phone.
Inspectors found limited data was available about how the emails it receives are managed. They highlighted the need to ensure comparable levels of service regardless of how a person contacts Enquiry Point.
Other recommendations in the report included that COPFS should consider designating a prosecutor who can be readily available to support Enquiry Point with legal support and advice, and that it should review the training provided to operators.
ends
Notes
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland (IPS) aims to promote excellence and confidence in Scotland’s prosecution service through independent, evidence-based scrutiny.
The IPS inspection of how COPFS responds to enquiries will be available to download from the IPS website (https://www.prosecutioninspectorate.scot/) from 1000 hrs on Wednesday, 29 January 2025.
In response to the report by IPS, COPFS will produce an action plan setting out how it will respond to the recommendations. IPS will monitor the plan’s implementation.