Explosive email confirms police aren’t keeping up with calls to Triple-0 despite overtime shifts

The extent of pressure on the police Triple-0 emergency service has been laid bare in a leaked urgent plea for more staff as the service buckles under demand. Read the leaked email

A senior police officer has admitted the service can’t keep-up with the calls to Triple-0 despite hundreds of hours of overtime a week.

In a desperate email to staff on Monday, the senior sergeant and officer in charge of a station south-west of Brisbane, urged officers to consider extra shifts answering calls.

“PCC (Police Communication Centres) cannot at the moment keep up with demand coming in on 000” they wrote.

“We are not meeting our obligations to members of the public. We also have certain contractual obligations with Telstra.”

Staff were offered paid refresher training and additional overtime “all the time” as the Queensland Police Service (QPS) continues to miss emergency calls.

“The PCC is issuing large amounts of overtime” the officer said. “In the last 7 days for example approximately 800 hours of overtime was used and we still aren’t answering every call.”

The Queensland Police Service was unable to respond to Bulletin questions by deadline.

Earlier this month, the Bulletin revealed hundreds of calls to the QPS triple-0 network were ringing out every week and was regularly not meeting its benchmark of answering 90 per cent of calls in 10 seconds or less.

Leaked data showed at times more than 20 callers were waiting in a queue and the service was answering half of all calls within the time set by safety guidelines.

In response at the time, QPS claimed calls were “being allocated and resourced appropriately” with processes for dealing with demand.

“With business continuity plans in place to ensure emergency call staffing is forecast and meets national standards,” a QPS spokesman said.

“When queuing occurs due to a surge in telephone calls from unplanned increased demand, additional Police Communications Centre staff are tasked to triple-0.

“Business processes are in place for Police Communications Centre staff to answer and manage the triple-0 service with agility.”

The Queensland Police Union described claims of a crisis in the QPS triple-0 network as “absolutely accurate”.

New Premier David Crisafulli said today generally on police pressure: “There is no doubt fronline police are under more pressure than they have ever been.”

The Triple-0 crisis - first revealed weeks ago in the Bulletin - comes as Queensland police also deal with being directed to find savings after a $200 million budget black hole emerged.

Originally published as Explosive email confirms police aren’t keeping up with calls to Triple-0 despite overtime shifts