THE communication centre at the hub of Gwent police - which receives 70,000 calls a month - is beating national performance targets.

During the last three months just two per cent of callers were unable to get through.

The Government lost call limit is five per cent for constabularies across the UK.

Before the Gwent communication suite was fully established at Croesyceiliog in April 2003, the public phoned individual police stations and 20 per cent of calls were lost.

Inspector Heather Jones heads the communication centre, staffed by 114 civilian operators.

She told the Argus: "Our staff are helping to save lives and are freeing up time for frontline policing. "I fully understand concerns we have had from members of the public but complaints have dropped.

"We can now assess demand and make sure our resources match that demand."

She explained that the communication suite is split into three sections. These are:

The switchboard - takes in 70,000 calls a month, of which 20,000 relate to specific incidents.

The rest are from callers requesting an extension or with general queries.

The call-handling section - assesses the incident-related calls and directs them appropriately.

The control room - receives the incident calls assessed as emergencies and all the 999 calls from the public.

Inspector Jones said that the communication centre helped release 15,000 hours of police time a year, the equivalent of having 11 extra officers. Since the communication suite was introduced, 97 per cent of calls have been answered within 60 seconds.

Anyone with queries or non-emergency crimes to report can contact Gwent Police on 01633 838111.