GMP takes one of longest times in UK to answer 999 calls

Greater Manchester Police is one of the worst police forces in the UK when it comes to quickly answering an emergency 999 call.

The time it takes each police force in the UK to answer emergency 999 calls has been published for the first time ever, in a bid to further improve the speed of the service provided to the public.

On average across the UK, police forces receive a 999 call every three seconds. The data shows 71% of these are answered within the target of under 10 seconds, with an overall average of 16.1 seconds answer time. This is the first time forces have been able to compare their answering times.

The first data set covers calls made between 1 November 2021 to 30 April 2022. It shows some forces are consistently responsive, while others require improvement. One such high performing force was Avon and Somerset, who consistently answer over 90% of their 999 calls in under 10 seconds.

On average, it takes Greater Manchester Police 24 seconds to answer a 999 call, the fourth longest in the country behind Northumbria (33.3 seconds), North Yorkshire (29.3 seconds) and Gloucestershire Police (27.1 seconds).

Sixty-nine percent of all 999 calls to GMP are answered in under 10 seconds, whilst 12% are answered after 60 seconds – the third highest figure in the country for emergency calls answered after a minute.

Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes, portfolio holder for GMP’s Force Contact Centre, said: “Building public trust and confidence in our response to incidents and emergencies is a force priority and there is no doubt that our performance relating to 999 calls is central to that.

“As part of our plan to deliver improvements, we have focused on our Force Contact Centre to boost our speed of answer and, subsequently, the service we provide to members of the public when they need us most.

“This plan has resulted in several million pounds worth of investment, from the council tax precept, into new leadership; the recruitment of hundreds of additional call handlers; and new technology. This recruitment is ongoing and I’d encourage people to apply on our website.

“Due to the demand on policing rising and falling throughout the year, the overall reduction of our speed of answer is not expected to be linear.

“Though we are not yet where we want to be, we are moving in the right direction and are continuing to liaise with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to update them on our progress.”

There are a range of reasons for disparities and the data is likely to vary each month. Police forces are operationally independent, and each will have its own unique pressures to identify and address.

Prank calls, a lag time in connecting and inappropriate use of 999 to call for issues that are not emergencies, can all contribute to delays in answering.

The lag time, between dialling 999 and being connected to a call-handler, can be up to seven seconds in some areas. Some police forces are already reviewing their telephony systems and working with BT to resolve this.

Seasonal periods, such as New Year’s Eve, particularly hot or cold weather, concerts and festivals, can also have a significant impact on waiting times in some forces, due to peaks in people travelling to the force area.

National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Lead for Contact Management, Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd, said: “We know that there are sometimes lag times in connecting calls to the police and these vary across the country, however this isn’t for a member of public to resolve, it is for us within policing to look at our infrastructure and work with our key partners, including BT, to improve the experience of a member of public calling 999.

“We want the public to have access to the data as part of policing being open and transparent. This is the first time police forces and the public have been able to see the time it takes to answer 999 calls from the call being made by the public, it being connected to the police by BT and local providers, to it being answered by police call handlers.

“We will learn from this data in order to improve the speed at which 999 calls are answered so that the public can expect the fastest possible response when calling 999.

“We know that most people will call the police in their time of need, but unfortunately this isn’t always the case and I would like to remind people to only call 999 in a genuine emergency.

“There is a huge amount of pressure put on call-handlers, who work tireless to provide the right support and advice in someone’s time of need, but we are far too often seeing some from within our society, inappropriately using 999.

“We know one of our biggest areas of concern for 999 calls to the police are prank calls. Not only do they waste police time, it can also delay someone who needs genuine help, in getting it when they need it. When someone dials 999, every second counts, and we can’t have those selfish individuals in our society wilfully wasting police time through prank calls.

“To them, my appeal is to be considerate that their actions may be putting someone’s life at risk. People will be calling 999 when they are in need of emergency help, together we must ensure that the lines are not being put under pressure through things like prank calls aimed at wasting police time.

“I also understand that some people may be concerned about whether they should be dialling 999 or not and in what circumstances. We know when a member of public calls 999 for something which is policing related, it may not be an emergency and they have to be directed to other services such as 101, which results in inadvertently taking up 999 emergency call handlers’ time.

“The message to the public is that you should absolutely call 999, but do so if a serious offence is in progress or has just been committed; if there is a threat to someone’s life, or they are in immediate danger or harm; if property is in danger of being damaged; or if a serious disruption to the public is likely.

“If your call to the police does not fit within these areas but is still policing related and not an emergency, you should contact your local force via the police non-emergency number 101 or via use online reporting via your local force website.”

An overall picture of a force’s effectiveness in answering emergency calls, considering these factors, will continue to be refined as the data collection continues.

The data is accessible to the public via www.police.uk, where you can access their local force’s data under the 999 performance data tab. Going forward the data will be released at the end of each month for the previous month.