A NEW telephone system which was meant to be at the heart of a state-of-the-art communication system for Cumbria police has come under intense fire from police and public alike this week.

The force's new £650,000 Call Handling and Despatch system, or CHaD, went live in October, but its poor performance has led to complaints from the Cumbria Police Federation that the system is failing the public and putting lives at risk.

Federation chair Kate Rowley, who represents the county's police men and women, told the Gazette the system was flawed and that its implementation had been bungled by the constabulary.

She said the influx of new civilian staff employed to man the new centralised CHaD control room, in Penrith, had not been given sufficient training.

"The federation and its members have nothing but sympathy for the civilian staff.

We have no problem whatsoever with them.

It is not their fault that too much is being asked of them, but I have to look after the health and safety of my membership."

She said the separation of the role of call handler and despatcher had introduced a delay into the response system which endangered both the public and officers on the street.

She also said that calls taken in Penrith were too often handled by people with little or no knowledge of the area where the incident was happening.

"Local knowledge is worth a million pounds in this situation and we are losing that," she said.

Cumbria police spokesman Mike Head defended the CHaD system saying: "We accept there have been some teething problems with the introduction of CHaD and that we were not delivering the service we wanted."

But he pointed to the establishment of a new board set up to iron-out problems and said he was confident that many of the problems were now being dealt with.

"The system has been improved little by little and a lot of the things people are quoting now are historical issues.

"We are aware that there are problems, but some of those problems do not relate to CHaD, but it is now becoming a situation where everything that goes wrong is being blamed on CHaD.

Mrs Rowley said it was of little comfort to officers to hear that "so-called teething problems" were the problem.

"If you are getting your teeth kicked out on Botchergate that is not a teething problem and that is what is happening to my members.

"We are an excellent force with a wonderful record and we are very very proud of that and we do not want this to let us down.

"I am not blind enough to believe that we can go back to the old system of control rooms, but there are real concerns among my members about the service they give to the public.

There is a problem, let's get it out in the open and address it," she said.