THERE has been a big improvement in the speed 999 calls are being answered by West Midlands Police.
Nine in 10 emergency calls made to force are being answered within 10 seconds, the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, has revealed.
This has boosted the force’s ranking in the national league tables to second for answering emergency calls.
Last year West Midlands Police was ranked the lowest.
Mr Foster said: “If people do not have trust and confidence in policing, it will not be possible to deliver an effective and efficient police service.
“For far too long and far too often, despite the hard work of police officers and staff, West Midlands Police was not complying with either its own Citizens Charter or the required service level agreements, in relation to the service provided by force contact and in particular, the answering of 999 and 101 calls.
“However, as a consequence of the Force Contact Optimisation Project, investment and innovation, hard work on the part of officers and staff and the oversight and scrutiny that I have been providing, there has been a significant improvement in performance.”
Currently the force aims to answer 90 per cent of 999 calls within 10 seconds – a national standard.
In May 2022, West Midlands Police answered 47 per cent of calls within this time-frame, with an average answer time of 42 seconds and in the same month, 8.4 per cent of 999 calls were abandoned.
Since April 2023, the force has met the required national standard, with average answering rates between four and eight seconds, while only 0.1 per cent of 999 calls are abandoned.
Answering 101 calls has also improved from an average of 10 minutes to 90 seconds, between March 2023 and July 2023.
