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For most people, their first interaction with the police will not be with an officer at their front door. It will be over the phone, through a website or increasingly, via a digital service.
That makes police contact management one of the most important, and often least visible, parts of policing. Behind every 999 call, online report or digital enquiry are teams making decisions at speed, often while dealing with people at some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
For Clare Knibbs, Chief Superintendent, Head of Contact Management across Thames Valley Police and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, moving into contact management has offered a new perspective on an area of policing she had not previously worked in.
Clare joined Thames Valley Police in 1999 and has spent 26 years moving between uniform and detective roles, including extensive experience in child protection and domestic abuse. Promoted to chief superintendent in May, she now oversees contact centres, control rooms and front counters across Thames Valley, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Her experience in public protection has helped her understand the importance of asking the right questions, building relationships with victims and making decisions around risk. The difference is that contact management has to do all of this at speed, with teams handling between 1,500 and 2,000 calls a day.
Managing demand in an unpredictable environment
One of the biggest challenges facing contact centres is predicting when that demand will arrive.
“It’s that seasonal demand and forecasting demand. We don’t always know when we’re going to have busy periods. You can add a heatwave and the World Cup into it and you’ve got that sudden spike in demand. Even something as simple as shifting a game a few hours and the pub staying open until five massively changes our forecasting.”
Clare Knibbs, Head of Contact Management, TVP and HIOWC.
That unpredictability is changing the way teams are staffed. Rather than having people trained for one particular function, contact management increasingly needs an agile workforce able to move between call handling, dispatch and digital services depending on where demand is greatest.
Technology is also beginning to help. For Clare, the value of AI is not about replacing people, but about removing repetitive administrative work so staff can concentrate on the person in front of them. Voice recognition and automated transcripts, for example, could reduce the amount of information call handlers have to manually record, allowing them to focus on listening, assessing risk and making decisions.
“The benefits of AI so far are very much around those low-value, high-volume administrative tasks that take people ages, but don’t offer any value to the public. It will never replace that human decision-making or the empathy. What we’re doing is freeing up people’s time to listen more clearly and engage with the public on that call.”
Making AI work for people
That distinction is important as AI becomes increasingly embedded in public services. There is understandable concern that automation could come at the expense of human interaction, but Clare believes the technology can actually create more opportunities for people to receive human support when they need it.
That approach is already being tested through Thames Valley Police’s AI chatbot, Bobbi. Introduced as part of the force’s digital contact strategy, Bobbi helps people with non-emergency enquiries and directs them towards the most appropriate service. For Clare, the benefit is as much about giving the public choice as it is about technology.
“Not everybody wants to speak to anyone. People often decide, ‘This doesn’t feel like an emergency, but I really want to tell someone.’ That’s where the online home and web forms are really good because it gives the user the time and space to write down the problem and think about it. Bobbi gives them self-service where they might just have a question.”
The approach is also helping protect the 999 service by diverting appropriate non-emergency demand elsewhere. Thames Valley has a dedicated digital desk handling Bobbi live chats and online enquiries, while staff are being trained across different functions so they can move where demand requires it. You can read more about Bobbi here in Catherine Levin’s interview with Mike Lattanzio, Chief Digital and Information Officer.
An internal version of Bobbi is also being developed to help staff quickly access legislation, policies and procedures without having to leave one system and search through another.
The human side of contact management
But digital transformation doesn’t remove the need for people. In fact, the human impact of contact management is something Clare has become increasingly conscious of since taking on the role.
Contact centre staff can deal with highly traumatic situations without ever knowing how the story ends. A call handler might speak to someone threatening to jump from a bridge or involved in a serious collision, make the necessary decisions and then move on to the next call without knowing whether that person survived.
“They never really know how these situations turn out. You’re left wondering, ‘Did we get that person off the bridge? Did they survive that traffic collision?’ That was something that really struck me when I went into contact management. I asked the teams how they dealt with it, and the answer was simply that you have to move on to the next thing.”
She is now interested in whether a feedback loop could be created for particularly traumatic incidents, giving staff some understanding of what happened after they made that initial call. It is part of a wider focus on welfare within contact management. Supervisors are encouraged to be visible on the floor, difficult incidents are debriefed and staff have access to force-wide welfare support.
A new trauma tracker is also being introduced to help identify staff who have dealt with multiple traumatic incidents within a particular period, allowing supervisors to recognise when someone may need additional support.
Supporting women to progress
That people-focused approach also runs through Clare’s leadership style. Having completed a psychology degree, she says she has always been interested in what motivates people and how different individuals respond to the workplace. Throughout her career, she has prioritised coaching, mentoring and getting to know the teams she manages. She also previously developed a female development pathway, which she plans to bring into her new role.
“I’m very people focused. I like the performance side and the processes too, but ultimately, people are much more complicated than a process. You can’t just put everyone in the same box and expect them to respond in the same way, so understanding what motivates people and what they need from you is really important.”
As part of Emergency Services Times’ #SheServesToo campaign, Clare also reflects candidly on her own experience as a woman progressing through policing. She challenges the idea that women need to work harder or speak louder to be heard, arguing that women can sometimes put up their own barriers by feeling they have to appear strong and resilient at all times.
For Clare, part of leadership is recognising that it is okay to ask for help and to admit when things are not always fine. She also wants to challenge the way strong female leaders can sometimes be perceived as intimidating. “Why are we intimidating just because we’re in a position of leadership, making decisions and running a large department?” she asks.
Her approach is about recognising that strength does not have to mean doing everything alone. Being able to accept support, acknowledge when you need help and be open about the pressures of leadership can be just as important.
One of the biggest challenges she has seen for women progressing through policing, however, is balancing the demands of a career with family life. While recruitment is close to a 50/50 male and female split, Clare says the proportion of women falls significantly further up the organisation. Shift patterns, weekend working and roles requiring long or unpredictable hours can make promotion difficult for those with childcare responsibilities. Her own experience has shaped her approach to supporting other women.
For Clare, creating opportunities for women is not simply about encouraging them to join policing. It’s about making sure they can continue to progress once they are there.
A more human future
Looking ahead, Clare expects technology to continue reshaping contact management. Demand forecasting tools could help forces predict spikes by combining historical data with information such as weather and major events, allowing staff to be placed where they are needed before demand arrives.
AI could also help route calls to the most appropriate available member of staff based on their skills, while elements of crime recording and call handling could become increasingly automated.
But the objective isn’t to make contact centres less human. It’s to make them better at putting people in the right place, with the right information and the right support at the right time. That is perhaps the biggest misconception Clare wants to challenge.
Before moving into contact management, she admits she had imagined call handlers sitting rigidly at their desks, working through a robotic checklist with little opportunity to take a break. The reality, she says, could not be more different.
“There are some incredibly compassionate, empathetic people in those rooms. They really do care. They really want to get it right, and they really want to get it right for the public who are at crisis point.”
It is a fitting description of a part of policing that is often invisible until someone needs it. Behind the technology, forecasting and digital services are people listening to other people on some of the worst days of their lives. And as contact management continues to evolve, Clare’s challenge will be making sure technology strengthens that human connection rather than replacing it.
This article is part of #SheServesToo, our campaign celebrating the stories of women across the emergency services. #SheServesToo is proudly supported by PBI. Find out more about PBI and its work here. If you have a story to share, get in touch with the EST team.
Join us at The Emergency Tech Show this September
Clare will be speaking at The Emergency Tech Show on 16 September.
How to use AI agents to offer choice in a multi-channel world
📅 16 September | 13:30–14:10
Emergency Tech Leaders’ Stage
Women shaping the future of emergency technology
📅 16 September | 15:15 – 15:55
Emergency Tech Leaders’ Stage
Hear Clare discuss the future of emergency technology, AI and the role of digital services in giving the public greater choice in how they contact the police. Find out more and register for The Emergency Tech Show here.
