Call Handling and Police
Response
It is vital that 999 telephone lines are kept free for
emergencies, such as when a crime is actually in progress or
somebody's life is in danger.
Please bear in mind that if you call 999 to report something
non-urgent, you could be slowing down the call time for someone who
is in immediate danger and needs help more quickly than you do.
Only a very short delay could be the difference between life and
death for that person.
Less than two thirds of the 999 calls made each year are
genuine emergencies that require an immediate response. If you
call 999 from within the City of London and your call is not
urgent, the call handler will redirect your call to the City of
London Police switchboard. For non-urgent matters you should always
call the switchboard direct on 020 7601 2222.
Once we take details of the incident, we will decide whether,
and if so, how quickly we need to get there. This decision is based
on whether something is happening that is threatening life or
property now, and on whether getting there quickly will make a
difference to the witnesses we can talk to, or the evidence we can
collect.
Call Handling
The City of London Police are continuing to make big
improvements responding to telephone calls from the public, the
City of London Police target of answering calls to the switchboard
exceed those required by National Call Handling Standards.
- For non-urgent calls our response time within 20 seconds is
91%, compared to a target of 90%.
Police Response
The City of London Police has one of the highest levels of
police response to urgent and non-urgent incidents in the
country. The current targets are:
- Police Response - 90% of urgent incidents
attended within a target time of 12 minutes
- Police Response - 90% of non-urgent incidents
attended within a target time of 60 minutes
Our current performance is 89% for urgent incidents and 97% for
non-urgent incidents.