Peter Fahy hopes the project will give an insight into the work officers do One of England’s biggest police forces will be “tweeting” every incident it deals with in the next 24 hours.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is using Twitter to give the public an idea of the workload officers face.
Chief Constable Peter Fahy said it would also give politicians an idea of the kind of incidents “not recognised in league tables and measurements”.
Officers are posting updates on three GMP feeds on the social networking site until 0500 BST on Friday.
“Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up,” said Mr Fahy.
“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.”
The event is being held as police forces face budget cuts expected in the government’s Spending Review on 20 October.
Mr Fahy believes police performance needs to be measured in a different way – and has called for rethink on how forces are funded.
“There needs to be more focus on how the public sector as a whole is working together to tackle society’s issues and problems,” he added.
“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.”
GMP, like a number of other forces around the country, has been using Twitter to release information and appeals since last year.
Last month, Assistant Chief Constable Ian Hopkins tweeted updates on arrests and incidents during Manchester United’s Champions League clash against Rangers.
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