A POLICE force failed to meet its target for answering 999 calls on time last year, new figures show.

North Yorkshire Police pledged to answer 92 per cent of emergency calls within ten seconds.

But a report to North Yorkshire Police Authority's performance monitoring board revealed that, between April 1, 2006, and March 31 this year, it answered only 85.1 per cent of 999 calls on time.

The figure has been blamed on the introduction of a new command and control system in March 2006, which led to less than half of all emergency calls being answered on time in that month.

But, since November last year, the force has been above its target level for answering emergency calls, peaking at 96 per cent in January.

The figures also show the force is answering 89.8 per cent of non-emergency calls within its 20 second target time, against a target of 85 per cent.

However, it answered only 78 per cent of non-emergency calls on time in March last year.

The report reads: "North Yorkshire Police has been working on improving the service offered to the people of North Yorkshire and the City of York. An example of this is call handling.

"In March 2006, North Yorkshire Police introduced a new command system as part of the strategic development programme.

"North Yorkshire Police anticipated an impact on performance for the month of March 2006, and implemented a pre-determined intervention plan, which resulted in bringing performance back up the following months.

"Performance initially increased between March 2006 and June 2006. In July, performance decreased and then remained consistent throughout July to September."

Earlier this year, police complained about people calling 999 to ask trivial questions, leaving them with less time to deal with real emergencies.

Members of the public have called North Yorkshire Police with queries such as: "I've lost my neighbour's cat, can you help me?" and "Who should I vote for in the next election?"