Head of Kent Police’s Force Communications Centre (FCC) Louise S Delamare-Timms: ‘This is a wonderful achievement not only for Carol and the FCC but also the Force. The award is well deserved as Carol is a committed enthusiastic and loyal manager. Her work in the performance arena of the FCC has resulted in improved results and also the focus on quality as well as quantity. All staff in the FCC are engaged in the delivery of service to the public of Kent and this award is a recognition of this and the manager who has made it happen.’

As a result of the performance focus introduced by Carol, the FCC performance has improved dramatically in the last two years with favourable feedback from the last two HMIC baseline assessments.

Strong performance has been maintained in all aspects of call handling and Kent has continued to perform very strongly with regard to victim satisfaction when making contact with the police.

The focus on quality, as well as quantity, in terms of performance outcomes has resulted in enhanced training and complaints in relation to call handling reduced overall by 21 per cent. Furthermore, no complaints were received in the four months prior to nomination.

The award for Organisational Performance was judged by Ken Jones, Chief Constable and President, ACPO; Peter Neyroud, Chief Constable and Chief Executive, NPIA and John Vine, Chief Constable, Tayside Police and ACPOS lead on operational policing.

The runner up for the award was Chief Superintendent Kevin Lambert, Northumbria Police.

Carol first joined Kent Police in November 1993 as a part-time switchboard operator. She went on to work in the force control room as a force radio operator and 999 call handler. In 1997, she undertook the role of supervisor in the newly created Central Crime Reporting Unit until 2001 when she became an operational shift manager of the new centralised FCC. In 2004, she was promoted to performance and partnership manager.