After demanding drastic improvement on how quickly the Met answer non-emergency calls, following a damning survey in 2002 that showed 40% of London’s police stations not picking up the phone within 6 minutes, Lynne Featherstone MP has this week been to see how the Met have stepped up to the challenge at its new centralised command centre in Bow.

The Bow centre, along with two others in London, now takes all emergency and non-emergency calls from the public. Last year they recorded a new response rate of 30 seconds for 90% of all non-emergency calls. The Met have also recently launched a pan-London non-emergency number (0300 123 1212), and can now also connect you to interpreters in 150 different languages within 30 seconds.

The police pledge, launched this week, will further allow the public for the first time to check-up on police progress against pre-defined targets.Amongst other things, this means that all non-emergency calls should be taken within 30 seconds, and emergency calls within 10 seconds.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“When I carried out my response survey in 2002 I was shocked to see the poor response rate, and pushed hard for the Met to deliver a system that worked for 21st Century London.

“I’m really chuffed to see that the Met have stepped up to the challenge here at Bow and delivered.With response rates down from 6 minutes to 30 seconds, the proof certainly is in the pudding!

“The new police pledge for the first time allows us to check how well Haringey Police are doing in relation to their own targets. I would therefore be really keen to hear from any local residents who might have had a bad or good experience with a police response. Only through continual challenge can we ensure the service local residents deserve.”