§ The Duke of Montroseasked Her Majesty's Government:
What were the best and worst and the worst average police response times to emergency calls in each of the 16 non-metropolitan police forces for each of the last five years. (HL3071]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bassam of Brighton): Information on the average police response times to emergency calls is not collected centrally. However, each police force sets its own target response time and performance against this is measured by the Audit Commission, which publishes the data in the Council Services Compendium for England, The Local Authority Performance Indicators. The information for 1998–99 is set out in the table. This relates to all the police forces in England and Wales. Similar data, from 1993–94 onwards, can be found on the Audit Commission website, www.audit-commission.gov.uk/ac2/PIfirst.htm.