Capital police beat emergency response target in 84% of calls

POLICE beat their target of responding to emergency calls in Edinburgh within ten minutes for 84 per cent of incidents reported to the force.

Officers received 12,630 emergency calls during 2011, and arrived inside ten minutes for 10,587.

The average response time for the city was seven minutes and 27 seconds.

In East Lothian and Midlothian the target for responses is 20 minutes, and officers arrived within the limit in 94 per cent of cases in these areas. The average response time stood at nine minutes and 35 seconds.

For West Lothian, the target is also 20 minutes and was achieved for 93 per cent of incidents, with an average response time of nine minutes and 56 seconds.

Across the force area, 88 per cent of 22,124 emergency calls were responded to within the respective targets with an average time of eight minutes and 31 seconds.