Police will be forced to turn up at scenes within 15 minutes in cities to stop crimes from going ‘unpunished’, the government has pledged.
Officers in the countryside will also be made to respond to emergency calls within 20 minutes.
The new reforms – announced on Monday as part of a radical overhaul of the police – will see forces held accountable if these times are not met.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: ‘People are reporting crimes and then waiting hours or even days for a response.
‘By the time the police arrive, the perpetrators and witnesses are long gone.
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‘I will restore neighbourhood policing and scale up patrols in communities to catch criminals and cut crime.’
The government are positioning the plans as a strategy to crack down on ‘an epidemic of everyday offences’ such as ‘shoplifting, drug dealing, phone theft’ which ‘go unpunished’.
They will introduce national standards for officers to respond to emergencies in urban areas within 15 minutes, and within 20 minutes in rural areas.
Officers will also be expected to answer 999 phone calls within 10 seconds.
National standards will also be introduced for lower-priority incidents.
While many forces already have targets to arrive at scenes within these times, the Home Office said there is no way of holding them accountable if they fail to meet those standards.
John Hayward-Cripps, chief executive of Neighbourhood Watch, welcomed the new national standards as a way to deal with ‘real variation in how well different forces respond to incidents’.
He said: ‘It’s a very basic expectation that police will respond when you report a crime, and quickly when it is serious.
‘When that doesn’t happen, it’s not just frustrating, it is very stressful and it damages trust.’
The reforms, which will be set out in a White Paper tomorrow, will also include plans to slash red tape and bureaucracy to get more officers out on the beat.
One way this could be done is by reducing the ‘unnecessary’ recording of non-crime incidents, the government said.
The Home Office also wants to cut down on back-office roles, such as HR and IT support, being filled by uniformed officers.
They say the number of trained officers in support roles has soared by over 40 per cent to more than 12,600 in the last six years.
To reverse this trend, the government say they will scrap the Office Maintenance Grant, which meant forces had to maintain arbitrary officer headcounts each year.
The director of campaigns, public affairs and police at Co-op said the changes were a welcome ‘crackdown on criminality.’
The Home Office has already announced plans to introduce a new national crime-fighting force dubbed the ‘British FBI’ as part of the massive policing reforms.
The National Police Service (NPS) will be created to crack down on serious and complex crimes, bringing the work of existing agencies such as the National Crime Agency (NCA) and regional organised crime units under the same organisation.
Counter Terror Policing (CTP) led by the Metropolitan Police, the National Police Air Service run by West Yorkshire Police and the National Roads Policing will all be merged into the new NPS.
It is hoped to lift the burden on local police forces, who are believed to be diverting time and resources away from everyday policing against shoplifting and antisocial behaviour to deal with national policing issues.
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