Police leave 999 callers hanging

All forces but one miss targets to answer phones in 10 seconds in wake of pandemic

POLICE forces are routinely failing to answer 999 calls within target times in the wake of the pandemic, according to the first national data on the issue.

Nearly three million people a year making “life and death” calls are being left to wait longer for help than the national target of 10 seconds, figures from the Home Office have shown.

Only one force, Avon and Somerset, achieved the official aim of answering 90 per cent of 999 calls within 10 seconds. The worst-performing force, Humberside, answered just 2 per cent of its calls within target, while another, Northumbria, took more than a minute to answer one in six calls (16 per cent).

Some forces allowed call handlers to work from home during the pandemic, and the data will add to concerns that public authorities are failing to return to delivering effective services in its aftermath.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, said the data would help “drive up standards” by identifying forces where “vital improvements” needed to be made as well as those that were “excelling”.

“Calling 999 can literally be a matter of life and death. The public deserve to know that their local police force will be at the end of the phone, ready to leap into action at seconds’ notice to protect them from harm,” she said.

The data, based on 5.2million 999 calls to forces across the UK between last November and April, showed 29 per cent of them were not answered within the target time of 10 seconds.

This would equate to nearly three million in a year. Just 11 forces – a quarter of the 44 constabularies – have an average response time below 10 seconds. Northumbria took the longest, at 33.3 seconds on average.

By contrast, Lincolnshire and Avon and Somerset averaged just six seconds for every one of their calls, although Lincolnshire missed the target of 90 per cent within 10 seconds. One in 20 of 999 calls across all forces took more than a minute to answer, equivalent to 500,000 a year and six times the target.

It ranged from 16 per cent in Northumbria to none in Northamptonshire.

“With considerable variation across the country, this information will empower all forces to bring their service up to the public’s expectations,” said a Home Office source.

Rick Muir, the director of the Police Foundation, said response times were critical in saving lives, protecting people from harm and solving crime. “Speed of response is essential. The fact that they are not hitting the target is concerning,” he said.

David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham University, said the combination of rising crime, falling prosecution rates and longer response times was worrying. “It’s part of a pattern where we are being given a secondrate service from what should be a first-rate organisation,” he said.

It follows warnings by HM inspectorate of police that forces are in danger of being overwhelmed by a surge in 999 calls driven by a lack of confidence in the non-emergency 101 line.

It found 999 calls rose by 11 per cent in two years and a quarter of forces were often “overwhelmed” by demand.

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, has previously raised concerns that working from home is less productive and Jacob Rees-mogg, the Cabinet minister for government efficiency, has been tasked with getting civil servants back into the office. Delays at the Passport Office and at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency have been blamed on officials continuing to work from home.

Asst Chief Constable Alan Todd, for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said: “We will learn from this data to improve the speed at which 999 calls are answered.”