North Wales Police one of 44 forces failing to answer 90% of 999 calls in under 10 seconds

North Wales Police is answering 76% of 999 calls under the 10 second target time, according to figures released by the Home Office.

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

On average across the UK, police forces receive a 999 call every 3 seconds.

Today’s data shows 71% of these are answered within the target of under 10 seconds, with an overall average of 16.1 seconds’ answer time.

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.

Humberside Police are the slowest when it comes to answering emergency calls, according to new data which showed that just 2% of its 999 calls were picked up within the 10 second target.

Where a large number of calls are answered between 10 to 60 seconds, “the public will rightly expect to see improvements where these league tables show they are required.”

Between November 2021 and April 2022, North Wales Police received 46,310 emergency 999 calls, just over 10,200 were not answered within the 10 second target time.

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

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Local Policing Leads, Alison Hernandez and Jeff Cuthbert, said: “This performance data demonstrates the demand for policing and the volume of calls forces are dealing with across the country.”

“The public quite rightly expect the police to respond to 999 calls in good time, so Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will be using this data to get a grip on performance across our local forces, hold our chief constables to account and ensure members of the public are receiving an efficient and effective response when they report to 999.”

“As the public’s voice in policing, PCCs are very keen to better understand the experiences of the public when contacting their local forces, which is why the APCC issued a national survey on contact management earlier this month to help identify any challenges around where the public report crime through both 101 and 999 services.”

“PCCs are committed to supporting excellence in policing and will use this data to continually drive forward improvements and hold the police to account on behalf of the public.”