Call answering times among best in country as improvements continue in responding to emergencies

We are continuing to improve the journey for the people of Greater Manchester by answering the phone quicker, improving our response times to incidents and making sure that our online services are available to use 24/7. 

In the Force Contact, Crime and Operations Centre (FCCO), our team responds to two million calls each year, which includes over 1,700 calls to 999 every day.

Chief Constable Stephen Watson came into post in 2021 and introduced our ‘back to basics’ policing approach, as we pledged that we would make significant improvements to fight crime, protect victims, and keep communities safe.

One of the first things we did was significantly invest in new staff to answer calls, and new teams to record more crime accurately and centrally. This has led to our average speed of answering 999 calls improving from 25 seconds in March 2021, down to just 4 seconds in the 12 months leading up to March 2024.

For answering 101 non-emergency calls, our average speed of answer in March 2021 was 2 minutes 13 seconds - down to just 54 seconds by March 2024.

As a result, we are answering more calls quicker, meaning we are able to able to get to the public in their time of need, arrest more people, and investigate more crime with outcomes that are to the victim's satisfaction.

We have solved twice as many burglaries, while the rates of residential burglaries, personal robberies, theft from a person and vehicle offences are down. We are also arresting double the amount of people – up from 32,996 to 64,729.

Head of Force Contact and Operations Martine Craven and Head of Force Crime Management Unit Detective Chief Superintendent Natalie Dalby said: “What these stats show us is we have made significant progress since the Chief Constable came in three years ago – we are answering the phones quicker, getting to incidents quicker, recording crime more accurately and solving more of them, and arresting more people.

“These results come from the thousands more calls we are answering and responding to – by making that first point of contact the public have with us a quicker process, we can get out there and tackle more crime at a higher response and solving rate.

“The time-saving released from the above has been reinvested and redirected towards front line policing, providing a better service to the public of Greater Manchester. More recently our Crime Recording and Resolution Unit has opened up CrimeLine as we move towards as much crime as possible being recorded through the expert team at the centre.

“The investment we have put into our Force Contact Centre means we are seeing these fantastic outcomes, and we have more plans to improve our offerings in this department too, which will hopefully see these impressive figures improve further over the next 12 months and beyond.”