MORE staff and extra investmentment are helping North Yorkshire Police answer their phones more quickly.

But senior police officers say people must play their part by not dialling 999 unnecessarily and making non-urgent calls at appropriate times.

Recent spurious calls included a flurry of calls about the new number for directory inquiries and residents asking what the time was after the clocks went back for winter.

Police officers have also pledged to look further at bringing in a memorable county-wide non-emergency number to make day-to-day contact more straightforward.

The force has come under fire during the past two years over claims that 999 and non-urgent calls were not being answered and many callers were giving up after being kept waiting for long periods.

New figures reveal that the force has been almost reaching its targets for answering calls over the past few months, but police watchdogs said they want to see "consistent" improvement.

Deputy Chief Constable Roger Baker said 75 per cent of 999 calls were answered within five seconds since the beginning of September. The force has a target of 90 per cent.

Earlier this year only half of non-urgent calls were being answered within the target of 20 seconds, despite a target of 90 per cent. Mr Baker said 78 per cent of them have been picked up within that time since September.

Mr Baker said the figures were "quickly moving in the right direction", and that he hoped to see consistent improvement over the next few months.

Chief Constable Della Cannings said the number of complaints about call handling she receives has reduced "remarkably" and that fewer people are complaining personally to her on the issue at public meetings.

But she said better police systems and more staff would not solve past problems alone. She said there was a "public responsibility" to use the service effectively and only when necessary.

North Yorkshire Police has recruited 40 more operators, bringing the total number of call handling staff at centres in York and Northallerton to more than 200.

The force aims to answer 90 per cent of emergency calls in five seconds, despite the national standard being set at ten seconds.

Some of the more unusual 999 requests:

A woman called to say she left her husband five years ago and asked if an officer could go and pick up a porcelain dog she left behind

A late-night caller inquired what time a newsagent would close. He said: "It's right next to the police station"

A TV viewer rang to say she wanted to vote for Winston Churchill in the BBC's Great Britons programme

An overly-conscientious resident dialled the emergency number to say she had found a glove in the street

Updated: 08:44 Wednesday, November 05, 2003