A SENIOR police officer has apologised for teething problems resulting from the switch from two control rooms to one.

North Yorkshire Police made the switch earlier in the year, as a result of being forced to make savings of about £2.8m from its £9m ‘command and control’ budget, as part of the public spending cuts.

The force’s control room at its headquarters at Newby Wiske, near Northallerton, was mothballed, with operations now centralised around a communications hub in York.

Superintendent Glyn Payne, speaking at a meeting of Richmond Town Council this week, admitted that call-handling standards were “not as high as they had been” for a time, but that things had now improved.

In September, the force came under fire after it was revealed that the proportion of 999 calls answered within the target of ten seconds had fallen from 94 per cent in August last year to 77 per cent in August this year.

The average time taken to answer emergency calls had crept up to nine seconds, but Supt Payne said the latest figures showed that had now fallen to six seconds.

Supt Payne said the force plans to introduce a new automated switchboard service this month.

He told Monday’s meeting: “We want to make it easier for people to be able to contact police.

“One of the complaints we would get was that people were not able to leave voicemail when they were trying to get in touch with a named contact. That will change under the new system.”

As well as the new switchboard, the force is also preparing for the launch of a new non-emergency number, which will replace the existing 0845 number.

The number has already been rolled out across forces in Wales and some southern counties.

Supt Payne said one of the benefits of the new number was that it would cost a flat rate of 15p per call, considerably less than presently.

The new number is expected to be launched in North Yorkshire, as well as other force areas in the region, next month.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman stressed the new number is not in use yet, and all non-emergency calls to police should still be made using the outgoing contact number, 0845-60-60-24-7.