A HUGE surge in police council tax two years ago has paid off, claims North Yorkshire Police Authority.

Authority member Jean Anderson told a policing plans and budget meeting that three years ago the force was offering a "fairly mediocre" service.

She claimed it was an average performer but was sliding quickly down the league tables, spent very little compared with similar forces, was poor at call handling and had crumbling back-up systems.

Morale among officers was slumping and there were no reserves for rising future liabilities, she added.

Mrs Anderson said that the authority had taken more off the council tax payers - a 74 per cent increase in 2002 - to give the Chief Constable, Della Cannings the cash to modernise the service and to pump money into reserves to cover large, crisis incidents and future police pensions.

She explained: "The results were quite dramatic and we have got improved performance. There's a significant reduction in crime in this area and there's also been a very significant improvement in detection rates."

Mrs Anderson added that the force's call handling was much improved and between April and October 88.4 per cent of all emergency calls were answered within 10 seconds - compared to 73 per cent last year.

For non-emergency calls 89.6 per cent were answered within 20 seconds - compared to 67 per cent in 2003.