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Role: Call Handler and Dispatch Operator

Department: Force Control Room

Location: Atlas Court, Sheffield

Salary: £26,487 - £29,085 plus Shift Allowance and Weekend Working Allowance

Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Role Purpose:

This is an exciting opportunity to join South Yorkshire Police as a Call Handler and also receive training for the role of a Dispatch Operator. As part of a dedicated team, you will be the first point of contact for all types of contacts from the public and other agencies, including 999, 101, crime reports, intelligence and general enquiries including both telephone and electronic media. You will be responsible for identifying and assessing risk and make resolution and deployment decisions using a range of systems. You will also allocate resources to incidents and support them in any radio transmissions.

You will be part of the wider policing family helping to keep South Yorkshire safe as well as part of a team of great people. Most people join the police service because they want to help others and make a difference to people’s lives. Working in the Force Control Room, there is no doubt that you will be making a difference – every day.

Therefore, we are looking for motivated people who are excellent team players with the ability, after training, to work unsupervised and use their own initiative.

To be successful in the role, you will need excellent verbal communications skills, but you will also need the ability to:

Apply active/deep listening skills – this involves listening intently and going beyond simply hearing the words that another person speaks but also seeking to understand the meaning and intent behind them.

Multi- task – to be able to type at the same time as listening, speaking and entering data onto systems in a timely way. You should also be able to think ahead, and risk assess a situation by asking the right questions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Receive and critically assess all types of contacts including 999, 101 and other types of contacts, by telephone or online, from the general public, police and other agencies, maintaining high levels of customer service, manage customer expectations and meet national and organisational service level agreements and take appropriate response action.
• Identifies the purpose and nature of each contact by eliciting relevant and sufficient information to enable an accurate and timely assessment of appropriate means of resolution.
• Assesses risk and identifies the appropriate action to resolve or determine the appropriate agency, deployment grading and priority of contacts.
• Manages customer expectations regarding the service that can be provided by giving advice and taking appropriate action.
• Maintains accurate records of relevant information using appropriate systems to ensure an audit trail and to measure and improve performance.
• Use a variety of applications and systems to maintain and update incident records, audit trails and resource availability to measure and improve performance.
• Follow up contacts received to agree resolution and close down contact and file appropriately to meet organisational and national requirements.
• Analyses and codes reported crimes to national guidance and files appropriate to enable accurate reporting of local crime statistics.
• Act in adherence to all other legal frameworks, key working principles, policies and guidance relevant to the role.
• Ensure that the Graded Response system is carried out correctly.
• Operate the appropriate Airwave, UHF and VHF radio network, linked to operational patrols within the guidelines and procedures of the Force.
• Deploy resources to incidents within the guidelines and procedures of the Force.
• Operate message systems, fax and others including maintaining a watch on internal messages.
• Have knowledge of all Contingency plans and implement when necessary.
• Monitor CCTV IMAGES where appropriate.

Skills and experience:

Essential Criteria (You will need to evidence these on our application form):

• Communication skills - ability to listen, empathise and provide support.
• Communication skills – adapt language to meet the needs of different people/audiences.
• Experience of information gathering and problem solving.
• Able to utilise IT packages, systems and/or databases.
• Able to appropriately prioritise and plan own work.
• Ability to work under pressure, making logical and appropriate decisions.

Desirable Criteria:

• Previous experience of working unsocial hours - shifts/weekends

Benefits:

We offer generous entitlements and supportive policies to enable a better work-life balance, some of which are listed below:

• Generous annual leave allowance (starting at 29 days per year + bank holidays)
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Generous ‘family’ leave
• Voluntary CPD Events for all staff to allow continuous development
• Mentoring & Coaching Scheme
• Access to a range of occupational health facilities
• Generous pension scheme
• Employee assistance service (accessible 24/7)
• Additional benefits for Westfield Health members
• Cycle to work scheme
• Sports and Social Club

Eligibility:

Applicants must meet the minimum requirement checkable history criteria, which must be taken into account for individuals applying to work with South Yorkshire Police in any capacity. A minimum checkable history of 5 years has been identified for this role and successfully undergoing recruitment vetting procedure is a pre-requisite of employment with South Yorkshire Police.

Appearance and Standards:

SYP is committed to striking a proportionate balance between self-expression and the need to maintain role sensitive professional standards in dress and appearance. Officers, staff and volunteers of South Yorkshire Police are permitted to have tattoos visible whilst on duty provided the tattoo is not considered to be unacceptable or otherwise inappropriate. Tattoos will be reviewed as part of the recruitment and selection process.

South Yorkshire Police’s Key Values:

Please find attached information sheet on South Yorkshire Police’s Key Values. The force has a particular focus on three area, Fairness, Integrity and Trust. Under each of these three headings there are key behaviours we expect all employees to adhere to.

Smarter ways of Working:

South Yorkshire Police is committed to developing working practices which assist staff to balance their personal and professional lives, whilst meeting the needs of the organisation. This in turn enables SYP to provide an outstanding service to the community.

There are 3 different categories as part of this which are: Fixed, Field and Hybrid.

This role has been evaluated as a Fixed role.

Fixed: This is a traditional arrangement, applicable when the work is mostly required to be undertaken at a fixed single place of work (on police premises) for most of the time. The work can only or is more effectively delivered from a police premises or other agreed organisational/partner premises.

Further Information:

You will be based on Atlas Court, Sheffield which is located 5 minutes from Sheffield City Centre and Meadowhall.

You must be prepared to work shifts and bank holidays with the service operating 24/7, 365 days of the year.

Working a 24/7 shift pattern, full time or part time, attracts a salary of £26,487 - £29,085 (pro-rata for part time hours) and 20% shift allowance and weekend working taking the starting pay to approximately £35,400 (pro rata part time).

Please note the current shift pattern is under review.

Contact:

For further information about the role, please contact Stephanie Ballantyne on 0114 2196724.

Familiarisation Event: Wednesday, 6 September 2023, 6.00pm to 8.00pm.

We are holding a familiarisation event via MS Teams, on Wednesday, 6 September 2023 at 6.00pm. If you are interested in attending the event and discussing the role, please click on the link below to create an account and book yourself a place.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK

Once you have created an account, a link to this event will be sent to you prior to the event taking place.

Important information on the Recruitment Process:

Applications forms will be shortlisted after the closing date, all successfully shortlisted candidates, will be invited to take an assessment.

All candidates who pass this stage will be invited to an interview for the role. Interviews are scheduled to take place between 23rd October and 3rd November 2023.

If you are successful at the interview stage you will then progress through the pre-employment checks including vetting, references etc. The training courses are scheduled to commence in March 2024.

As part of your employment contract, you would be required to engage with routine audiometry (hearing) testing as part of the force health surveillance programme. This test would be provided through the force Occupational Health Unit (OHU).

Diversity & Inclusion:

Expressions of interest are particularly welcome from female and ethnic minority applicants.

It’s really important to us that the department represents the community we serve, in order for us to provide the best service, utilising a range of backgrounds, experience and skills. We support and value all officers and staff and the unique experiences they bring to the role. We strongly encourage and welcome expressions of interest from these valuable underrepresented groups.

If you are from an underrepresented group and want to find out more about the support we can offer, please contact our dedicated team on [email protected]

In addition, we will look to support anyone who requires Part Time/Job share working hours.

Closing Date: Sunday, 17th September 2023

Closing dates are not normally extended, other than in exceptional circumstances and agreement is made with the Talent Acquisition Manager and the Line Manager for the role.