Police can take days to respond to 999 calls, says report

Police are taking days to respond to 999 calls that should be dealt with within the hour, says the policing watchdog.

As budget cuts kick in, almost a quarter of forces in England and Wales are struggling to deal with emergency calls in a timely way, according to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.

The worst offenders are the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire forces. In some cases, incidents that require a “prompt” response – i.e. police action within 60 minutes of the call – are not dealt with for days. Such cases may include serious assault and sexual violence.

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The watchdog says call handlers are not responsible. Instead it blames the delays on a lack of police officers available for emergencies. It says funding has fallen by a fifth since 2010, putting forces under “significant stress”.

Zoe Billingham, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, says that around 25 per cent of forces are all too often “overwhelmed by the demand they face” and this results in “worrying backlogs of emergency jobs”. She said that she had “major concerns" that policing was under "significant stress”.

Labour says the report shows that cuts to police budgets have left the service at breaking point, but the minister for policing says that inspectors found that most forces were effective at keeping people safe.

Earlier this week, Theresa May was officially rebuked for misleading the House of Commons and the public over false claims that the government was providing an extra £450m in funding to local police forces in 2018/19.