Sussex Police have been ordered to make a "leap forward" in the way they respond to calls from the public.

The force's call-handling performance has improved to "fair" in a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, compared to "poor" the previous year when it was in the bottom five of the 43 forces in England and Wales.

The improvement has been welcomed but the force is still in the bottom half of the league table.

In its report, carried out to address the lack of public confidence in the police's response to calls, the inspectorate threw down the gauntlet to all forces to achieve an "excellent" rating next year. Only three were excellent in 2005, hitting targets to answer 90 per cent of calls within ten seconds, all calls within an average of 30 seconds and for fewer than five per cent to be "abandoned". Seventeen forces were rated good, 21 fair and two poor.

HM Inspector Kate Flannery said: "This report calls for improvement in the way that police forces respond to the public.

"The significant reduction in most types of crime in recent years has not been matched by increases in levels of public confidence and satisfaction.

"This partly can be attributed to poor first contact and inadequate follow-up to a call for assistance."

A Home Office spokesman said it hoped to relieve the pressure on the police by introducing one number for non-emergency calls, which made up 70 per cent of 999 calls.

By 2008, it is hoped every household will know the names, phone numbers and email address of their neighbourhood or community police officers.

Assistant Chief Constable Geoff Williams said: "While we accept we still have a long way to go, this is excellent news for the people of Sussex.