The chief inspector in charge of Cumbria police's command and control room has defended the response times to 999 calls, following criticism from an MP.

The force's response to emergency 999 calls came under fire after Tim Farron said Cumbrians were being let down.

He was speaking after an FOI request to Cumbria Police revealed that last year 765 calls to 999 were abandoned before being answered - up more than 50 on 2015.

The request also revealed that the longest a caller had to wait for their 999 call to be answered last year was three minutes and 38 seconds.

Mr Farron said: "The public need to have confidence that in an emergency they can get hold of the police.

"For a distressed caller in an emergency situation to have to wait well over three minutes to get through is simply not good enough. 999 is an emergency number and needs to be treated as such. Local people are being let down.

“It is worrying that hundreds of callers are simply giving up before they manage to get through to anyone. Those callers could have provided vital information to keep our communities safe and tackle crime.


Tim Farron “Last year, 69 police officers and staff were slashed from Cumbria police. The government must stop cutting the force’s funding and make sure they have the resources they need to keep Cumbria safe and respond to local people’s concerns.”

But Ben Swinson, chief inspector of the command and control room, said the response times and abandoned calls had to be analysed in context and reassured people that 999 calls were the force's top priority.

Last year, there were 52,617 calls on 999 to Cumbria Police, which means 1.4 per cent were abandoned. Ch Insp Swinson said there were a variety of reasons why people abandoned calls - perhaps they had misdialled or lost signal - and it shouldn't be assumed they hung up because of long waiting times.

Cumbria police consistently beats national targets for answering 90 per cent of 999 calls within 10 seconds. But Ch Insp Swinson explained that there are times when people may have to wait longer for a 999 call to be answered - if for example there is a crash on the motorway and dozens of people call 999 to report it.

He added that there were contingency plans in place for 999 calls to be answered by other forces if Cumbria Police is overwhelmed or there is a technical problem.

Ch Insp Swinson added: "We will always strive to answer a call and certainly the priority is the treble nines. We will always want to do better and always want to answer faster. But in context, it's a relatively small number."

He added that the numbers of staff in the command and control room had not changed over the last few years.

"It's wrong to say they are unaffected but at the end of the day, we have got the people in there to answer the calls and that's the bit that's important.

"I'm happy we've got sufficient numbers in there to make sure we answer the 999 calls in a timely fashion."