North Yorkshire Police 'Tweetathon' is back
Taking place from this afternoon until tomorrow morning, the force will tweet every call that comes into them during a 12-hour period.
North Yorkshire Police will tweet details of every incident that they log for 12 hours on their main force Twitter account. Today is 'mad Friday' and is anticipated to be one of the busiest nights of the year for emergency services across the country.
It's taking place from 2pm today to 2am on Saturday 18th December.
Despite recent government announcements, the force is currently anticipating that people will head out to parties, bars and events over the festive period. The force has seen a high demand for calls to service over the last few weekends, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.
This also follows an unprecedent six months where police forces across the country, including in North Yorkshire, have seen record numbers of 999 and 101 calls.
To deal with the expected high demand, extra police officers will be deployed to the streets of North Yorkshire and additional staff will be working in the force’s Force Control Room.
The control room in York is responsible for handling all 999 and 101 calls in North Yorkshire, in addition to the force’s online reporting service through its website. As well as dealing with members of the public, staff in the control room also deploy police officers and take control of incidents.
Every call that the force’s control room receives during the 12-hour period will be tweeted on the North Yorkshire Police Twitter account @NYorksPolice with the hashtag #NYPfor12.
Updates will also be posted on North Yorkshire Police Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/NorthYorkshirePolice) and Instagram account (www.instagram.com/NorthYorkshirePolice)).
The force first took part in a Tweetathon in 2013 when it joined a global event involving police forces across the world.
Their second and third Tweetathons took place in 2018 – one in the summer and one just before Christmas.
Superintendent Jason Dickson, Head of Customer Contact and the Force Control Room at North Yorkshire Police, said:
"The last Friday before Christmas is always one of the busiest days of the year for the police and we expect this year to be no different; I would urge members of the public to plan their night, look out for each other and enjoy the festivities safely.
"When the force last ran the Tweetathon in 2018, members of the public were given a ‘behind the scenes’ view of policing and were astonished by the volume and variety of incidents that the force dealt with.
"Sharing this information allows the public to understand the sheer number of incidents called in to us, the nature of the calls and how we prioritise and respond to them. We also hope that by being open and transparent, it reassures the public that we are here 24/7 to keep them safe, all year round.
"I want to reassure anyone who needs to call the police while the Tweetathon is ongoing that no information will be released that could identify them. We’ll simply be sharing the nature of the incident and our response to it.
"We hope the public will find the tweetathon interesting, eye opening and reassuring."
North Yorkshire Police have provided a breakdown of figures for the calls they receive:
• On average the FCR deals with an average of 7946, 999 calls every month and an average of 262 a day. Although the monthly average in every month since May has been 8950 or 293 per day.
•June 2021 has seen the FCR deal with 9689, 999 calls - this is the highest volume ever seen for a one-month period in North Yorkshire. The previous highest record calls in a month was July 2019 with 9852, 999 calls.
• Calls to 999 Since May 2021 were at their highest volume since 2010. This is mirrored in national 999 figures for Police.
• Since January 2021, more than 2700 hoax calls have been made to 999 in North Yorkshire.
•Around 20% per cent of all calls are referred to another agency.
• 12.3% national increase in police calls since 2017 in 999 calls. (8% increase in calls from last year.)
• Around 25 per cent of all calls to our control room are advice only, with no incident needing to be logged.
• Calls to 999 increase by around 50 per cent over an average bank holiday weekend.