hoax calls

Between March 2005 - 2006, we attended 2,822 incidents which turned out to be hoax.  Based on figures of £1,700 per call out *, this was costing Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service around £4.5 million a year.  To raise awareness of this to the public, we ran a high-profile campaign.

What were the aims of the campaign?

• Highlight the impact of hoax calls on the Fire & Rescue Service,
• Raise awareness of the legal penalties for anyone convicted and to reduce the number of hoax calls received. 
• Reinforce the message that all calls are recorded and traced and can be passed as evidence. 
• Remind the public that hoax calls traced to a mobile phone number can result in that phone being disabled by the service providers, in an agreement between the fire service and mobile phone providers.

Campaigning through radio
We arranged media interviews with the County Fire Officer, a firefighter who was injured while driving a fire engine to a false alarm incident and the Corporate Responsibility Manager (UK) for Orange, one of our partner agencies, reinforcing the message that mobile phones can be disconnected.  We also gave local radio station Key 103, recordings of hoax calls which they played during news items all week to see if anyone recognised the callers. The morning show on Key 103 attracts 293,000 listeners

Key 103 also placed the recordings on their website as did the Bolton Evening News and the Tameside Advertiser along with the CrimeStoppers number for people to call if they recognised the voices. Media releases were sent out to all media and the consequences of hoax calls was widely publicised.

Campaign results
The Bolton Evening News (BEN) logged 1,000 hits per day on their website to listen to the hoax call recordings. The Tameside Advertiser Reported 2,500 hits a day for the period of the campaign. The recordings were heard by listeners of Key 103 (the morning show attracts 293,000 listeners each weekday morning). 

In the months following the campaign a hoax caller from Bolton was caught and fined £2,000 which was made payable to Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service to reimburse some of our costs. The same caller continued to make calls and was subsequently jailed.

The number of incidents involving hoax calls attended by GMFRS in March 2006-March 2007 was 1,422 compared with 2,822 for the same period the previous year – a reduction of 49%.

The campaign and the issue of hoax calls to the fire service in Greater Manchester has raised the equivalent of over £18,000 in media coverage.

 *Figures based on those given from the Office of the Deputy Primeminster (Now Communities and Local Government)