Q4 2021: Average Police Report Turnaround Times

Following our report in Q3 regarding average turnaround times for police forces, we have collated further information to provide an update on how each police force across the UK is performing in fulfilment of requests.

As was the case with our last report, Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies continue to perform incredibly well, with their median response times of five and three days respectively. On more than one occasion in recent months, they have supplied requested information the next working day.

Merseyside Police, who we named as the fastest responding force in Q3, now have a median response time of 14 days.

With continuing challenges due to the pandemic, a few forces have experienced massive slowdowns in terms of their fulfilment. The police force with the slowest response time in Q4 was Greater Manchester Police, with a median response time of 84 days.

A further police force which continues to report significant delays is South Wales Police, who advise turnaround times of four months at present.

An improvement of note from our Q3 report is the Metropolitan Police, who now have a median response time of 19 days. These are by far the police force we apply for information from the most.

Many forces have seen a slight rise in their average response time since our last report, which may be expected due to staff shortages and time off for the festive season.

Of all outstanding requests across each police force, 30.1% have been outstanding for over 3 months and continue to be chased on a regular basis.

We have experienced several cases recently where we have been instructed to obtain a collision report within days of a Road Traffic Collision – on one occasion, a matter of hours after – which will obviously impact how long we may have to wait for a report, so as always there are outliers that skew statistical reporting. However, as the volume of reports we request increases the statistics should become more and reliable, and we aim to improve tracking information over time as we build the service.

If you are interested in the specific turnaround times of each police force, please download our full Q4 statistics sheet below. You can also review our Q3 data report HERE.