I have been working in the North East of the country for the last three weeks, delivering a series of Citizen Focused Policing workshops to senior staff in Northumbria Police.

A key element of delivering a citizen focused service is becoming more accessible and responsive to citizen and customer needs. In order to do that, you have to have a clear, comprehensive and current understanding of the needs of key customer segments and groups.

From the conversations that I had with them, an area where Northumbria appear to be working creatively and collaboratively to address customer needs, is in contact management. This was reinforced for me when I arrived back at the office from the North East and found a press release from the Northumbria 101 partnership about the launch of their new textphone service for the deaf and hard of hearing.

The service, which will make contact regarding community safety and anti social behaviour issues easier for the deaf community, is delivered by a partnership between all 12 local councils across Northumberland and Tyne and Wear and Northumbria Police and is unusual in its make up, as it uses existing contact centres and staff to deliver the service from separate centres at Sunderland City Council, Newcastle City Council and Northumbria Police.

Looks to me like a good example of effective and responsive partnership working that will make a real difference to people.

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