HC Deb 19 February 1998 vol 306 cc783-4W
Mr. Beith

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the average response time to emergency calls by the police, per police force covering(a) urban and (b) rural areas, in each of the last four years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [29776]

Mr. Michael

The latest complete year for which information is available on the performance of all forces in responding to emergency calls from the public is 1996–97. Details of that year's performance for all forces was published in the annual report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary in October 1997 and in the annual publication of the Audit Commission on local authority performance indicators in January 1998.

Clearly, it is of great importance to the public that the police respond as promptly as possible to emergency calls, having established that the call is a genuine emergency. That is why I decided to keep it as a key objective for the police in 1998–99 to respond promptly to emergency calls from the public.

One of the key performance indicators for this objective is the percentage of responses within the local target time to incidents requiring immediate response. Targets are set locally by individual forces to reflect local circumstances, such as traffic conditions. Some forces set separate targets for urban and rural incidents to take account of the different timescales within which it is possible to respond to such incidents.

Mr. Beith

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) fire officers and (b) retained fire officers were in post in each force, by sex and age group, in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [29814]

Mr. George Howarth

Information on the number of wholetime and retained firefighters in each fire brigade for England and Wales is published annually in the reports of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services, copies of which are held in the Library. The latest report, for 1996–97, Cm 3791, contains on page 12 a table giving the required information as at 1 January 1997. Details in respect of the age groups are not held centrally. Corresponding information for earlier years can be found in the annual reports for 1992 (Cm 2275—page 14), 1993–94 (Cm 2679—page 14), 1994–95 (Cm 2998—page 12) and 1995–96 (Cm 3493—page 14).