Humberside Police defend 999 call response times after data released by Home Office

‘IT’S NOT AN ACCURATE PICTURE’: Deputy Chief Constable Paul Anderson

By Simon Bristow

Humberside Police has defended its response time to answering 999 calls after Home Office data showed it was the worst performing force in the country.

Figures released today show that only one UK police force, Avon and Somerset Police, was meeting the target of answering 90 per cent of 999 calls in under ten seconds (91.3 per cent). Humberside Police was at the bottom of the list, at 2.2 per cent.

But Humberside said the figures did not accurately reflect the force’s performance as they did not represent its response times once calls had been diverted from a BT call handler - which could result in delays of up to seven seconds.

Deputy Chief Constable Paul Anderson has said: “I welcome any data that enables the public to see how their local force is performing, and we are committed to fully supporting this approach.

“However, in this instance, the data presented does not accurately reflect the call handling performance of 999 calls once these are passed to Humberside Police. 

“At present, despite representations, this data still includes the whole journey of a 999 call. This starts with a BT operator, and crucially, includes the time taken for them to divert the call to Humberside Police.

“The time this process takes varies significantly across the whole country, and in our region, there are delays of up to seven seconds for the call to be passed to Humberside Police, and this delay is currently included in this data.

“We have raised this issue with the Home Office, and we are now working closely with communications providers to understand why such delays sometimes occur in us being passed the calls.

“Humberside Police have just moved to a state-of-the-art contact and control centre, providing us with one of the UK’s leading police call centres.

“Once the calls are received by Humberside Police, both 999 and 101 call handling performance remains one of the most timely and effective in the country.”

A total of 43 forces failed to meet the target over the six months from November 2021 to April 2022. Across all forces, 71 per cent of 999 calls were answered within ten seconds.

The second highest performing force was Nottinghamshire Police, with 88.7 per cent. The second lowest was South Yorkshire Police (17.6 per cent).

Of Humberside’s other neighbouring forces, Lincolnshire Police answered 88.5 per of 999 calls within ten seconds, followed by West Yorkshire Police (79.7 per cent), and North Yorkshire Police (42.8 per cent).

The Metropolitan Police, Britain’s biggest force, was answering 69 per cent of 999 calls within ten seconds.

It is the first time such data has been published.

The Home Office said publishing the data “delivers on a key commitment in the government’s Beating Crime Plan to improve transparency and performance, forming part of the government’s wider ongoing work to cut crime, improve public services and make our streets safer”.

On average across the UK, police forces receive a 999 call every three seconds, it said.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “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.

“Fundamentally, publishing this data is about driving up standards in our incredible emergency services even further, so that the public can have every confidence in the police’s ability to save lives and keep our streets safe.

“We can now see where forces are excelling and where vital improvements need to be made and I thank the police for their commitment to ensuring we maintain the best emergency services in the world.”