On the tweet beat!

A day in life of GMP posted on Twitter

Oldhamers can follow a day in the life of Greater Manchester Police today as the force puts every call it gets on the social networking site Twitter.

From 5am today for 24 hours, police are posting details of every incident to allow the public to see what officers face on a daily basis.

Chief Constable Peter Fahy wants the public to appreciate the complexities of modern policing.

Calls by 7.35am ranged from a rape to repeat calls about horses in the road.

Calls from Oldham people included damage to a car, theft by a family member and a domestic incident just after 7.30am.

The force was also called by a woman asking the police for help because she had nowhere to stay, and a Salford woman called at 7.02am complaining that she had been woken up.

Mr Fahy said his force was facing unprecedented budget cuts and added: “Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up.

“However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with.

“A lot of what we do is dealing with social problems, such as missing children, people with mental-health problems and domestic abuse.

“Often these incidents can be incredibly complex and need a lot of time, resource and expertise.

“I am not saying that we shouldn’t deal with these types of incidents, far from it, but what I am saying is that this work is not recognised in league tables and measurements — yet is a huge part of what we do.

“I think that it’s time to start measuring performance in a different way.

“There needs to be more focus on how the public sector as a whole is working together to tackle society’s issues and problems. We see time and again the same families, the same areas and the same individuals causing the same problems and these people are causing a considerable drain to the public purse.

“Instead of the public-sector organisations having separate pots of money we could spend it more efficiently it were one big pot.

“This could be achieved by working together more effectively, by joining up and sharing the responsibility of the issues that we are all dealing with.”

Readers can follow the information on three Twitter sites at

http://twitter.com/gmp24_1

http://twitter.com/gmp24_2

http://twitter.com/gmp24_3

All the Tweets are also on the force’s website — gmp.police.uk