NINETY-four per cent of 999 calls to Greater Manchester Police are being answered within the target time of 15 seconds.

The figure for 1995-96 is the same as the previous year although the level for responding to incidents requiring immediate attention shows a significant improvement.

Greater Manchester Police aims to respond to 90 per cent of these calls - involving immediate threat to life or property - within ten-minutes. However, the 1995-96 figure was 84 per cent which was a 13 per cent improvement on the previous year.

The response times and figures have been released by public spending watchdogs, the Audit Commission. Its report shows how police forces in England and Wales are performing and how their performance has changed over time.

Nationally, the statistics show around half of all forces have improved their response times to 999 and other emergency calls. And between 1993-94 and 1995-96, two thirds of forces improved the time taken to arrive at an emergency scene after answering the call.

The report revealed that there were 6.6 violent crimes per 1,000 population in Greater Manchester and 49.0 burglaries per 1,000 dwellings. The force has 2.60 officers per 1,000 population.

This is the third year the Audit Commission has published its police performance indicators.

Controller of the Audit Commission, Andrew Foster said: "I welcome the continued improvement in performance achieved by police forces in responding to emergencies and in the detection of violent crimes. These areas are of great concern to the general public.

"Our aim in publishing these performance indicators is to trigger an informed debate about the performance of local services and the value-for-money they achieve.

"Where forces have had increases in funding, they should explain locally how they are using extra money to improve services."

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