Featherstone Forces Police Into Better Response Times

12.00.00am GMT Tue 15th Oct 2002

MPA and London Assembly Member Lynne Featherstone has forced assurances from the Metropolitan Police that performance on 999 call response will be significantly improved.

The Met were responding to Ms Featherstone's severe criticisms of their poor performance on answering 999 calls. The assurances were made at a high level meeting (Friday 11 October) between Ms Featherstone and senior officers of the Metropolitan Police Service, called in response to her concerns.

The figures that sparked Ms Featherstones recent attack revealed that every month more than 5,000* urgent calls for assistance were still unattended 23 minutes after the call was made. The statistics also showed that over 28% of all 999 calls took 63.5 seconds to answer**. Given that these calls were made in crisis situations where every second counts, the performance was a cause of serious concern.

However, the Met has reacted positively to the uncovering of the problems. In the meeting with Ms Featherstone they stated their commitment to improving response, and outlined a number of measures put in place to bring about improvements. Ms Featherstone welcomed their efforts, but maintained a tough stance, stating that the MPA Performance Review Committee on which she sits would be closely monitoring progress over the next few months. Ms Featherstone was particularly anxious to ensure that GLA-funded additional staff for the Met's call centres, due in the New Year, would bring about a reduction in the time taken to answer 999 calls.

Commenting, Ms Featherstone said:

“Right across London, when people are in real trouble, rapid response both in answering 999 calls and arriving on the scene is absolutely vital. It plays a highly significant role in building public confidence in policing and, if performed successfully, can increase feelings of safety for everyday people. That is why I consistently flag up this issue and am working with the Met to bring about improvement.”

*21,869 calls over the period April - July, 5,467 per month, were not responded to for at least 23 minutes.

**between mid-July and mid-August, the average time to answer the calls outside 15 seconds (over 28% of all calls) was a terrible 63.5 seconds.

These figures were obtained from the MPS July performance report.