One in three calls to Avon and Somerset police not an emergency

Nearly one-third of 999 calls to Avon and Somerset police have nothing to do with an emergency, a police chief has revealed.

So far this year, about 36,000 out of 120,000 callers are ringing 999 when they should be calling a non-emergency 0845 number.

Chief Superintendent Dave Hayler said around 30 per cent of emergency calls that flood his force's phone lines each day "shouldn't be anywhere near a 999 line".

The target time for an operator to pick up an incoming emergency call is just 10 seconds.

More than 120,000 emergency calls have been received by the police control room so far this year. Of those, about 3,000 went unanswered.

Currently, operators answer 82 per cent of calls within the target time – but the police authority wants this to rise to 90 per cent. On average, each call is picked up in 13 seconds.

The statistics have been revealed in a document to the Evening Post as a result of an inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr Hayler urged people to use the 999 number only if it was an emergency. He said: "We should be able to answer our 999 calls. We are working hard to do that. Our staff are dedicated.

"But we ask people only to call 999 if it is a valid emergency."

The document showed that in January this year police operators took six minutes 29 seconds to answer an emergency call.

Police said on that day control room staff were being inundated with calls about an illegal rave.

Mr Hayler, who is head of police communications, admitted it was "unforgivable" that members of the public waited so long for help.

He said: "On the six minutes 29 seconds figure, the idea that anyone who is close to you, be it an uncle or a mother, waiting for an answer in an emergency is unforgivable."

The document has also revealed that one caller who dialled the force's non-emergency 0845 number was kept waiting for 37 minutes 42 seconds in April last year.

Callers dialling the 0845 456 7000 number should only have to wait 40 seconds according to targets set by the police authority.

So far this year, police have managed to answer just over 80 per cent of general calls within 40 seconds – five per cent above the target. The average queue time for non-emergency calls is 28 seconds.

Mr Hayler said: "We've only had four or five noticeable blips since the incident in April 2007.

"Three years ago we were missing answering 45 per cent of general calls within the target time.

"Now we're answering 81 per cent within that time. That's a pretty good performance."Anomalies aside, we're good at answering calls now."

Another burden the force must deal with is the hundreds of hoax callers who dial 999 each month.

In July the police revealed they received 415 hoax calls since June 2007. Officers were forced to resort to using YouTube videos to try to deter hoaxers. And they released voice recordings in an attempt to identify the callers. The penalty for hoax calling is six months in prison and a £5,000 fine.

Chief Inspector Kevin Rowlands said: "The difficulty that we're trying to get round is the high demand peaks.

"The bottom line is you cannot always staff something like 50 calls in three minutes.

"You don't get the same number of calls at 5am as you do at 10 o'clock at night.

"We sometimes ask BT and Cable and Wireless operators to reroute to other forces, but it takes time for those other forces to respond.

"It's better to put the call in our system and deal with it then. We are working with neighbouring forces to develop a slicker system."

Between 55 and 90 control room staff are on duty at any time.

Mr Hayler said: "We don't want to discourage people from calling 999.

"But we are looking at a number of ways to help people think about what the nature of their response is.

"We deal with offences from litter to murder and obviously any offence will have an impact on the person."

Councillor Derek Pickup, Bristol City Council executive member for care, tackling deprivation and crime, said: "Our aim is to make Bristol, as the new chief constable said, the safest city in the world.

"We need to give people more confidence when they call 999 so they get the service they deserve."