Nearly 40% of calls to local police unanswered

12.00.00am GMT Thu 6th Feb 2003

Despite increases in police numbers, being able to talk to a local officer about a non-urgent matter remains a 'considerable challenge' according to new research by the Liberal Democrats.

Researchers called all 132 London police stations to get non-urgent advice from an officer1. However, 52 stations failed to even answer their telephone2.

Harrow and Wandsworth topped the league of worst performing boroughs – callers were unable to connect to ANY of the police stations in these boroughs.

Lynne Featherstone, London Assembly and Metropolitan Police Authority member, said:

"Our survey worryingly reveals that contacting a local police station is a considerable challenge for Londoners. In a lamentable 40 per cent of cases our callers were unable to connect to anyone at all. This is just unacceptable from a public service."

"These results confirm a long-held public perception that their local police are distant and inaccessible. Although police numbers are up by over 3000 since January 20013, local stations are failing to man their telephone lines, perhaps indicating a lack of will as much as a lack of resources.

"The police are there to serve the public. It should be easy for the public to contact them when they are in need of advice or assistance. Instead, people are turning to the 999 service, desperately overloading it with non-urgent calls. "Borough Commanders must do more to improve the performance of their police stations in answering non-urgent calls. This would help dispel the belief that the police are hard to get hold of and, most importantly, it would reduce the burden on the 999 service, increasing police response efficiency in genuine emergencies."

"Ms Featherstone will be presenting her survey at the next MPA meeting (27 February 2003). She will also be writing to every Borough Commander to inform them of the survey results and calling on them to improve the performance of their local stations."

"1. Between 19 December 2002 and 3 January 2003, all 132 Metropolitan Police stations in London with open front counters were called. When connected, researchers asked a basic, non-urgent question eg what to do about lost property."

"All calls were initially directed to a central operator, who then transferred the calls to the requested local station's front desk. The time recorded was the length of time taken to connect to the local station."

"Callers let the telephone ring until either:"

"· there was a response"

"· they were cut off"

"· the call 'timed out' (rung off)'"

"· they were connected to an answerphone"

"· or the telephone had rung 100 times without an answer (approximately 6 minutes and 36 seconds, considered to be a maximum time limit to expect a police station to answer a call)."

"If the local station was engaged, callers attempted to call again, up to a limit of three attempts."

"2. Results"

"3. Summary:"

"52 out of the 132 stations called failed to answer their telephone (either the call was unanswered after 100 rings / 6.36 minutes; the call was cut off; the call was not connected to the correct police station; the station was repeatedly engaged or the call was transferred to an answerphone.)"

"Of the remaining 80 stations, 30 took more than one minute / 24 rings to respond. As a comparison, a local authority such as Richmond Borough Council has a response target to answer the telephone within six rings. Just 14 police stations would have achieved Richmond Borough Council's target."

"Only 50 stations responded within one minute."

"3. Home office research in 2001 found that 5,800,000 of the 8,400,000 calls made nationwide via 999 to the police did not need an emergency response – ie almost 70 per cent of calls."