£800k bill for false alarms

Police spent more than £800,000 responding to false alarms in the West Midlands last year – nearly twice what they spent on tackling prostitution, it was revealed today.The West Midlands Police bill for dealing with false alarms came to £830,000, down from £915,000 the year before.

The bill for tackling vice was £488,970, down from £695,789 the previous year. The force's budget was around half a billion pounds. It has also emerged that the force spent more than £6.2 million on court duties and escorting people around the region.

And £629,388 went on "dealing with" informants, according to figures released to the West Midlands Police Authority (WMPA).

The figures have led to fresh concerns about the amount of officers' time which is spent filling in forms detailing how they spend their day.

Wolverhampton Councillor Bob Jones, who sits on the (WMPA), said the figures had been collated after officers filled-in time sheets showing exactly how they spent their shifts.

He said the figures suggested the force was spending its money wisely.

But he said: "It's very resource-intensive to get the information and we're not sure we're able to do that much with the figures."

He said he was supporting proposals to streamline the process.

West Midlands Police spokeswoman Jaspreet Jagdev said: "Reports of alarm activations run into thousands of pounds across the whole force area every year.

"Police have a duty to respond to these premises. National criteria exist to enable police responses to be lowered or withdrawn in order to reduce the wastage of police time attending false alarm activation.

Responding to the comparison with the bill for tackling vice, she added: "West Midlands Police is effectively managing prostitution across the force area with the help of local communities."

In April, the chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation said Government requests for information on how they officers spent their time was keeping them off the streets.