HC Deb 10 June 2002 vol 386 cc883-4W
Mr. McNamara

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to his answer of 16 April 2002,Official Report, column 839W, on 999 calls, how many 999 calls for each emergency were received at Belfast regional control centre on each day of the Christmas week in 2001; what the standard target is for number of rings before a call is answered by each service; how many calls failed to reach this target on each day; and what targets are set by the PSNI in North Belfast to respond to emergency calls. [57156]

Jane Kennedy

The PSNI performance target in relation to 999 calls is to answer 98 per cent. of all 999 calls within 10 seconds.

In North Belfast, as with all areas in Northern Ireland, the PSNI respond to 999 calls as quickly as possible given the resource availability at any given time.

The following table shows the number of 999 calls received at Belfast Regional Control during the period 20–26 December 2001 and the answer rate.

Date Number of calls % answered in 10 seconds or less Average time to answer each call (seconds)
20 December 2001 389 87.1 6
21 December 2001 451 81.6 7
22 December 2001 532 84.0 7
23 December 2001 391 90.8 6
24 December 2001 378 88.9 6
25 December 2001 338 88.8 6
26 December 2001 449 92.9 5