THE senior officer given the task of overseeing the introduction of a new call-handling system by North Yorkshire police has admitted that it could be another year before it is working as effectively as he would like.

Chief Insp Ken McIntosh told Richmondshire community and police group that the force had given the makers of new technology a deadline of December 13 to iron out teething problems which have generated complaints from the public.

He said the force had made significant improvements in answering calls, particularly 999 calls, and had completely changed the culture of training and development demanded by the new system.

The force covering England's largest county has undergone a massive change by converting to a new radio-based system and reducing call-handling centres from seven to two - at York and Newby Wiske, near Northallerton.

New chief constable Della Canning, who took up her post last week, has already said that resolving call handling issues is high on her list of priorities.

Giving what he described as an honest assessment, Chief Insp McIntosh told the CAP group: "We have had significant problems and we cannot wave a magic wand and say everything is all right.

"It is not the staff in the control rooms. We have excellent staff who are really keen to give a good service."

He said that when the system began it took between three and five months to replace a staff member who left but it was now taking less than a month.

At first there was a 20pc turnover of staff but only one person had left in the last three months. There was a high sickness rate in the department because of stress but the force was working hard to alleviate this.

A lot of time and money was being invested in training and the force was thinking of bringing in staff to cover for meal breaks.

Chief Insp McIntosh said: "The service has improved over the last few months, particularly on the 999 side, which is one of the best in the country."

But he added: "There is a lot of work to be done and we are still 12 months away from how I would like to see it running.".

Ifti Ahmed, a former member of the controlling police authority, told Chief Insp McIntosh: "I think you have recognised the problems, which is good, but I cannot believe that this many years on you are giving us these excuses, if you like.

"The technology that is not right is the equipment that you need. It's ridiculous. This has been going on for a long time. You have been very honest but if I go out and tell the community what you have told us, they will just laugh. There is not any real light at the end of the tunnel."

Anne French, representing Colburn Town, said: "At our last meeting in April we were told it would be better by July but now it's worse, it's atrocious.

"Crime is down because people are not reporting crime and they cannot get through to report it."

Chief Insp McIntosh said the force handled 82,000 calls a month, adding that 13 letters of complaint about the new system had been received in July and August and seven in September.

County Coun Carl Les, a police authority member, said he was concerned about calls disappearing into electronic "black holes" and Chief Insp McIntosh acknowledged that there could be leakage from the system if cable was not of the best quality.

* The meeting was told that BT should be pressed to correct an anomalous situation in which 999 calls from some parts of North Yorkshire went to a County Durham police control room.

Coun John Gill, a Richmondshire councillor representing a parish forum, said it was more than two years since he had raised the issue at a meeting of the police authority but BT had done nothing about it.

He said that in parts of his area and along the A1 corridor, people with Darlington telephone dialling codes had 999 calls directed to County Durham, which then passed them back to North Yorkshire, because it was a boundary issue and BT still worked on old exchange codes.

* See leading article: page 24.