To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the average time taken by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in each district command unit was to respond to (a) emergency and (b) routine calls from members of the public in each of the last five years. (180862)

As the PSNI does not record average response times for emergency and non-emergency calls for each DCU, the information requested is not available.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board target is for the PSNI to record the percentage of emergency calls responded to within a 15 minute baseline target.

As at the 18 January 2008 for the financial year to date, the number of emergency response calls where arrival time was available, responded to within 15 minutes, was 79.5 per cent.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board is committed to working with the PSNI to improve response times to emergency calls—the 2007-10 Policing Plan contains a target to increase the percentage of emergency calls responded to within 15 minutes by 2 per cent. points.

An important aspect of improving performance in this area will be the development of an automated system utilising the Barracuda Radio System to streamline the recording of arrival on site for both emergency and non-emergency calls and work is currently ongoing.