Enquiry Officer

Avon and Somerset Police; Bristol; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 25,000; Part time

Job summary

A regional police force in Bristol is seeking an Enquiry Officer to serve as the first point of contact for the public at police stations. The role requires resilience and professionalism while addressing various enquiries, including sensitive situations. Training will be provided for necessary IT skills. This rewarding position involves working 14.8 hours per week, with Thursday and Friday shifts from 08:00 to 16:00. Join our team and help make a difference in the community.

Qualifications

• Comfortable with a rapidly changing day and uncertain situations.
• Professional demeanor as a front-facing image of the organization.
• Ability to search, record, and interpret information using various computer systems.

Responsibilities

• Act as the first point of contact for the public and visitors.
• Research and resolve enquiries in person, over the phone, and online.
• Support vulnerable members of the public, including victims of crime.
• Diffuse volatile situations and escalate emergencies to police.

Skills

Good IT skills

Customer service experience

Resilience

Multilingual abilities

Job description

What happens at an Enquiry Office?

As an organisation we have 24 police stations where members of the public can meet and engage with us in person. At each of these we have individuals that offer front line support to the people who visit, these are our Enquiry Officers.

From the moment the doors open we never know who may come in. It could be someone looking to report the theft of an item, someone reporting a missing person or a victim of online fraud. They may also have to visit us as part of their sentencing conditions where they are required to present themselves to a police station to have documents verified and checked.

Our Enquiry Officers also see the not so nice side of the criminal world—it could sadly be someone who is coming to report sexual assault, or who has seen some suspicious activity or a hate crime.

What links all our Enquiry Officers together is the care, compassion and dedication they all show to the communities we serve and the individuals who visit us.

Key responsibilities

• Act as first point of contact to members of the public, visitors to the site, internal staff and external agencies.
• Respond to, research and resolve enquiries, face to face, over the phone and online.
• Diffuse potentially volatile situations (both verbal and sometimes physical aggression) and escalates for police intervention in emergency situations.
• Support vulnerable members of the public, including victims of crime.
• Be sensitive to confidentiality and the need to protect individual privacy.

About you

You will need to be comfortable with a rapidly changing day. You never know who is going to come through the door next and what help or support they will need.

In this role you are the front‑facing image of our organisation and so will need to be always professional and calm.

You will need to have good IT skills to be able to search, record and interpret information on a number of computer systems. We will provide you with full training on these systems so after the initial training period you will be able to use these systems on a daily basis.

Our visitors have a wide range of backgrounds. If you speak another language or know sign language this is useful as you may find it comes in handy, though it is not essential.

If you have existing transferable skills from a customer service‑based role such as a hotel reception for example this would be a good start; however we will provide full training either way.

In this role you will see people who may tell you things of a sad and distressing nature or could have distrust of the police, so you therefore need to be resilient to these situations.

This is such a rewarding job. Our Enquiry Office teams can and do change so many outcomes for the better.

Could you be part of that change?

Additional information

The working hours for this vacancy is 14.8 hours per week, working the following days/times: Thursday & Friday – from 08:00 am until 16:00 pm.

Interviews will be held week commencing 12 th January 2026.

Discover more about this exciting opportunity by watching our recruitment video: Make a Difference on the Front Line as an Enquiry Officer | Avon and Somerset Police