Police call centres understaffed and number of dropped calls is 'shocking'

There is a massive staff shortage at SAPS 10111 call centres and a huge number of calls are being dropped.

Police minister Bheki Cele revealed the problems besetting call centres this week in a response to a parliamentary question from DA spokesperson on policing MP Andrew Whitfield.

Whitfield asked Cele how many personnel should have been employed at each 10111 call centre for the 2020/21 and 2021/22  financial years, and since April 1 2022. He also asked the police minister for the number of people employed during the specified years and the number of dropped calls “recorded in respect of each call centre in each province in each of the specified periods”.

For the 2020/2021 financial year, Cele said the ideal number of personnel at Eastern Cape call centres — under the Police and Public Service acts — was 628, but only 256 were employed. In the Free State call centres should be staffed by 328 people, but there were only 81. Gauteng call centres required 630 personnel, but only had 366, while KwaZulu-Natal call centres required 551, but only had 235. Limpopo call centres required 237 personnel, but had 94, while Mpumalanga had 405 vacancies, with only 93 filled.

Northern Cape call centres were better off compared with those in other provinces. The province required 58 personnel and had 46 during the 2020/2021 financial year. The same situation applied to the Western Cape. The ideal number of personnel there was 179, with the province having 183. The worst affected province was the North West. Its call centres required 328 personnel, but only had 38.

The number of personnel decreased in the majority of centres across the country during the 2021/2022 financial year. In the previous financial year, Eastern Cape call centres had 41% of personnel. This decreased by 2% in the 2021/2022 financial year. The Free State’s personnel remained at 25% of the ideal number. Gauteng’s personnel dropped from 366 to 352, leaving the province with only 56% of its required staff component. KwaZulu-Natal call centres retained the number of staff from the previous financial year — 43% of ideal capacity. Limpopo dropped by 2%, from 94 personnel to 91. Mpumalanga lost one employee during this financial year. The Northern Cape dropped from 79% to 72% and the Western Cape from 102% to 97%. The downward trend continued in most provinces from April 1 2022, with Western Cape staff dropping to 94%.

In the Eastern Cape, East London call centres recorded 47,517 dropped calls during the 2020/2021 financial year, 44,600 during the 2021/2022 financial year and 15,821 since April 1 2022. In Mthatha, the “call manager functionality to retrieve the statistics is outdated”, said Cele. The number of dropped calls in Free State call centres could not be determined because “the SAPS is in the process of upgrading the software”.

In Gauteng, the Midrand call centre recorded 1,691,201 dropped calls during the 2020/2021 financial year, 1,604,370 during the following financial year and 537,974 from April 1 2022. In KwaZulu-Natal, Durban recorded 195,268 dropped calls during the 2020/2021 financial year, 41,263 during the following financial year and 51,465 from April 1 2022. Dropped calls in Limpopo could not be recorded because call centres in Polokwane and Mahwelereng were relocating. They could not be recorded in the North West because the “unit is not yet operational, as it is newly established”. In Mpumalanga, the White River call centre recorded 136,966 dropped calls during the 2020/2021 financial year, 151,600 during the next financial year and 176,670 from April 1 2022. The number of dropped calls in the Northern Cape could not be determined because the software is being upgraded.

In the Western Cape, the Maitland call centre recorded 393,302 dropped calls during the 2020/2021 financial year and 501,978 during the following financial year. The number of dropped calls since April 1 2022 could not be determined because the software is being upgraded.

Whitfield said Cele’s response “demonstrates yet again the state of crisis the SAPS is in”.

“You can see that there is a steady decline in the number of call centre agents at the 10111 call centres over the past three years,” he said.

“What is shocking is the number of dropped calls that we see, either due to the callers dropping the call or the calls being abandoned by call centre agents, or people simply being not able to get through and so they drop the call while they are in the queue. There shouldn’t be a queue.

“There should be a short amount of time that somebody calling should have to wait. They should be attended to and the call should be transferred to the correct responding units. People’s calls need to be responded to timeously so that we can rebuild confidence in the police.”

Whitfield said the picture painted by Cele dents the public’s confidence in the SAPS.

“This is precisely why people don’t have confidence in the police and most South Africans who have access to private security don’t even bother phoning 10111 because no one picks up the phone. They end up calling their private security or taking matters into their own hands,” he said.

“The 10111 call operation across the country needs to be a priority focus for the minister going into this year. He needs to ensure these are overhauled, that state-of-the-art technology is provided to these centres, that call centre agents are adequately trained, supported and looked after in very stressful environments and make sure that the police stations on the other end of the phone call actually have the resources to deploy to an emergency which may arise.”

Whitfield added: “At the heart of this crisis at 10111 is that SAPS has forgotten about basic service delivery to the people of South Africa as far as their constitutional mandate is concerned and, really, 10111 is just a telephone number that people call. I don’t believe people have confidence that they are going to get the kind of response they need and we simply can’t live in such a violent country without a fully operational ... 10111 call centre operation.”

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