Hounslow Borough Commander Jeff Harris has launched a robust defence of local police performance following the publication of figures on 999 response times.

The figures show that Hounslow has the third slowest average response time in London to calls that are classified as high priority. The target is 12 minutes but the average for Hounslow was just under 16 minutes. 41% of call outs took more than 12 minutes.

Chief Superintendent Harris responded by saying, "The borough response times are slowly improving. Our accident rate involving Police vehicles travelling to calls have improved considerably over the last two years.
Everyone in the borough appreciates the congestion, and ability to drive across the borough in normal conditions."

Hounslow is disadvantaged in comparison with other boroughs in this analysis because of its geographical size and the elongated shape of the borough. Most of the boroughs with inferior response times were larger ones in outer London.

He added that the need to avoid road accidents overrode the need to match artificial benchmarks set for response times saying, "I would rather have officers arrive safely, without being involved in accidents, causing problems for the community, and endangering themselves, the community or other drivers. The difference between success and failure in the current measurement process is two seconds!"

The Metropolitan Police have targets to make sure that all highest priority 999 emergency call outs are responded to within 12 minutes. The number of highest priority 999 police calls responded to within the target of 12 minutes has fallen from 75.2% in December 2002, to just 70.63% in October 2004

Commenting on the figures, Andrew Dakers, the Liberal Democrat's Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brentford & Isleworth said, “I have been very impressed by the professionalism of members of the local force I have recently met and are working hard to serve the public. However they are being stretched desperately thin. Labour have tried to give the impression they are tough on crime through headline grabbing initiatives. But the reality is that we need more police officers on the streets of Hounslow, Brentford, Isleworth and Chiswick and a boost in the number of Immediate Response Vehicle drivers to make the public safer. "

He said that we would be seeking a meeting at the earliest opportunity with the new Chief Superintendent of the Borough, Dr. Ali Dizaei, to discuss how more people can be recruited and retained in the police force as a whole and within the Hounslow area in particular.

In a report to the Met Police Authority on the 22nd April 2004 Met Commissioner Sir John Stevens identified that the Met was 1,000 additional Borough based drivers short of what was needed, "an absence of police drivers at a borough level has impacted upon police response times. Particularly the larger outer boroughs."

Scotland Yard has reportedly stated that 600 more police officers have been put through the official driving course at the Hendon this summer and a further 200 should be processed before the end of the year to address the shortage.

December 15, 2004