Police: Rural Areas

Miss McIntosh
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the maximum acceptable response time is for a police force to respond to a report of a crime in a rural area.

Mr. Hanson
The Policing Pledge, introduced in the Green Paper 2008, sets out the police service’s offer to citizens for delivery of service.

The pledge includes specific elements that encompass how the service aims to respond to reports of crimes. That response will depend on the grading applied in accordance with National Call gradings. There is no maximum acceptable response time, but in the case of an emergency in a rural area, most police forces aim to respond within 20 minutes.

In other cases, the response will be determined in accordance with the caller’s needs and the provisions within the pledge.