§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many calls to (a) fire brigades, (b) police forces and (c) ambulance services were (i) false alarms and (ii) malicious calls in each of the past five years; [110315]
(2) what was the total number of 999 call-outs, for (a) the Fire Service, (b) the Police and (c) ambulances in each of the past five years; [110313]
(3) what was the total cost of (a) false alarms and (b) malicious calls to the emergency services in each of the past five years. [110305]
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienFigures for 999 calls received by fire brigades in England and Wales are not collected. This is because brigades often receive multiple 999 calls for a single incident. Brigades, therefore, record the number of incidents actually attended. The figures include fires, false alarms and special service incidents for the last five years for which the information is available, were as follows:
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Number 1994 988,914 1995 1,148,812 1996 1,060,845 1997 991,435 1998 900,287 The following information on numbers of false alarms and malicious calls, therefore, relates to incidents actually attended.
False alarms Malicious calls 1994 295,600 132,200 1995 345,200 102,700 1996 331,600 98,400 1997 341,400 88,800 1998 323,400 74,100 The number of 999 calls received by police forces in England and Wales was as follows:
Number 1993–94 5,297,040 1994–95 6,088,654 1995–96 6,881,163 1996–97 7,297,219 1997–98 7,670,039 No information on false or malicious 999 calls is collected centrally for police forces. Therefore, the information could be made available only at disproportionate cost.
The number of emergency calls received by the ambulance services in England and Wales was as follows:
Calls Response 1994–95 2,611,300 2,609,600 1995–96 3,163,200 2,855,700 1996–97 3,337,000 2,993,800 1997–98 3,576,200 3,160,500 1998–99 3,847,500 3,291,000 The difference between the number of calls and the number of actual responses is due to: duplicate calls, false alarms and hoaxes. It is not possible to separate these into the different categories.