Abbotsford police hire staff to triage non-emergency calls
Posted April 12, 2023 11:09 am.
Last Updated April 12, 2023 8:46 pm.
In an effort to address lengthy delays, the Abbotsford Police Department says it has hired staff of its own to help triage non-emergency calls.
A police spokesperson says its non-emergency lines “have had long delays over the last few years with E-Comm not answering them in a timely fashion.”
“The citizens in our community have been extremely frustrated with this and so have we,” said Sgt. Paul Walker in an email to CityNews.
“Having to wait long periods of time before their calls are answered is completely unacceptable and not up to our service delivery standards.”
Walker says the department has taken this step to reduce waits as it continues to work with E-Comm, which is contracted by the APD to handle calls.
Abbotsford isn’t the only jurisdiction that has raised concerns with wait times.
In a statement, the Vancouver Police Department says it’s “working directly” with E-Comm “to address some of the systemic issues that have resulted in their inability to answer non-emergency calls in an timely manner.”
“We believe when someone calls police, whether it’s an emergency or non, their call should be answered in a reasonable time, and ECOMM has been unable to do that recently,” the statement from VPD Sgt. Steve Addison reads.
The department says nearly 50 per cent of non-emergency calls were abandoned by E-Comm last year. That figure was up from 2021, when just over 39 per cent of non-emergency calls were abandoned by E-Comm.
In its report from 2022, the VPD said these calls were those on the non-emergency line that were “abandoned before they could be answered by an E-Comm call taker (often after lengthy delays).”
“These abandoned calls mean that some crimes were not brought to the attention of the VPD, couldn’t be investigated, and were not counted as part of Vancouver’s crime rate or CSI measures,” the report reads.
In Delta, police say Police Board Chair George Harvie wrote to Police Services late last year to “express the Board’s concern over lengthy wait times and call abandonment rates [at] E-Comm.”
The Port Moody Police Department, meanwhile, tells CityNews it is “aware of the challenges” the agency is facing related to non-emergency call delays, adding it shares those concerns.
“We have not dedicated local resources to bolster capacity and lower wait times for non-emergency calls but are monitoring the wait time and call abandonment data closely,” a statement from that department reads. “The PMPD are aware of the transformation plan from EComm to reduce non-emergency wait times and we continue to work closely with EComm on service level improvements.”
West Vancouver police say they’ve “developed a partnership” with the Metro Vancouver Transit Police (MVTP) to address “significant delays” within the non-emergency system noting it transitioned to the MVTP for its non-emergency calls in February of last year.
“We wanted to provide our community with a more efficient non-emergency reporting process,” the department said of its decision, adding E-Comm is still responsible for 911 calls.
E-Comm staffing
E-Comm, like many other emergency services, has experienced major staffing issues in the past few years.
Communications Manager Kaila Butler says the agency is aware of the concerns raised by various municipalities.
“Those concerns are heard loud and clearly by E-Comm senior management, by our board of directors. We fully acknowledge that wait times on non-emergency lines have been too long and they have been too long for quite a while now,” she told CityNews.
Butler says wait times have been long because the volume of calls – including emergency ones, which take priority – have increased amid ongoing staffing issues. She says a number of initiatives are underway to mitigate the issue – including a new pool of dedicated non-emergency call takers, set up in December.
“Traditionally, E-Comm call takers have answered both 911 emergency and non-emergency calls. And we know that that’s not working because with volumes on 911 increasing, that means that those call takers are focusing almost solely sometimes on emergency calls,” she said.
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In July 2022, the union representing B.C.’s 911 call takers told CityNews many of its members were “just simply stretched to the max.”
According to Donald Grant, the president of Emergency Communication Professionals of BC, staffing levels at that time were lower than ever in the province. He added many call takers were finding it difficult to keep up with demand.
In an interview Wednesday, April 12, 2023, Grant said the situation has improved overall — though more work still needs to be done.
“We are still seeing waits on the emergency line. We have seen improvements on the non-emergency line, as these local government officials continue to hold E-Comm’s management to account and really focusing them on increasing staffing levels,” he explained.
He notes January, February, and March of this year saw record-breaking 911 call volumes. In March, Grant says they were “up 15 per cent from the year before.”
Concerns from E-Comm union
When it comes to the Abbotsford Police Department’s decision, Grant says the union has been raising the alarm over underfunding and staffing challenges for years.
“Municipalities and the province have been stepping up to increasing the funding, although it takes time to increase staffing levels. Now, municipalities are, rightfully, demanding that E-Comm increase staffing levels in order to meet service levels. The difficult part of different municipalities hiring their own non-emergency agents is that it’s creating a system where there’s competition for these 911 operators,” he explained.
“If they’re only answering for one police department, they aren’t helping the whole entire region. It becomes a problem where we’re really seeing a difficulty in hiring staff and retaining them,” Grant added.
He clarifies that while APD has hired staff to help triage calls and deal with non-police matters, E-Comm employees still monitor the department’s non-emergency line.
Grant says E-Comm answers calls for 33 police agencies, including emergency and non-emergency calls for most of those departments.
