Only one in five 999 calls to police is to do with a crime

BARELY a fifth of emergency calls to the police are about crimes, it has emerged.

Instead, the majority of 999 requests concern people with mental health problems, rounding up immigration offenders, anti-social behaviour, road accidents and suicides.

Officers are also forced to spend significant amounts of time on licensing problems, animals and wildlife and attending demonstrations.

A report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office said forces lack a ‘sophisticated understanding’ of how they are spending their time.

It adds: ‘Forces estimate that crime accounts for only 22 per cent of the number of emergency and priority incidents.’

Ministers have acknowledged the increasing strain that dealing with the mentally ill is putting on the police. Currently, the burden for preventing people from harming themselves or others often falls on police officers, who are forced to hold them in cells. In 2014/2015, at least 21,995 people in England and Wales were sectioned under the Mental Health Act, of which a fifth were detained at police stations.

The Government has pledged to spend up to £15million to provide new facilities where people with mental health problems can be taken to keep them safe.

The law is being changed so that police cells will only be used if the person’s behaviour is ‘so extreme they cannot otherwise be safely managed’. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said: ‘The resource implication of calls will differ dramatically dependent on the seriousness and type of offence.

‘Substantial demand comes from public protection issues, such as management of sex offenders and reports of missing people, as well as reallocating resources to deal with a huge increase in reports of child abuse, counter-terrorism issues and cyber-crime.’