CRIME victims who phone North Yorkshire Police are being cold-called later to see if they are happy with the response.

The move is part of a series of measures by the county force to improve customer service and accessibility, outlined in a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.

It says the introduction of a county-wide single, non-emergency contact number - 0845 6060247 - has resulted in a significant rise in the number of calls to the force from the public.

But improvements in call management meant the force was performing well in relation to its targets. The force is also developing public access to the police through email and text messaging.

The report says the call centres handling telephone calls from the public have employed quality assurance officers, part of whose role is to carry out cold calls to "customers" to ask for their views on the service they received when contacting the police.

Issues raised by the public are then fed back into the "performance management processes."

Supt Dave Coutts, who as head of public access is responsible for the call centres, said today that, while some complained, the cold calls received a "generally positive response" from people.

He said other measures to ensure that callers received a high-quality response included supervisors listening to tapes of calls, selected at random, at the rate of three per month per member of staff - to check they were handling calls courteously and giving out appropriate information and advice.

People who called police, for example to report suspicious behaviour, were asked if they would like to be told the outcome of inquiries.

But crime victims were automatically given updates on "positive outcomes", for example when a suspect was arrested or going to court.

Supt Coutts said the call centres were based at police headquarters at Newby Wiske and at York police station, and manned by civilian support staff working with police officers.

Updated: 10:57 Saturday, November 12, 2005