Cops in UK's Manchester Tweeting Every Call

Police in Manchester, England, have taken to Twitter to report every emergency call received in 24 hours. The experiment began at 5am today local time. The police force wants to show the British public its workload to stave off proposed budget cuts. The chief constable says the majority of calls are not reports of crime but "social work." One tweet read: "call 1595 Theft of laptop by sister three weeks ago, Manchester." The feed is here. See the full story in the Financial Times or the Telegraph.

"A lot of what we do is dealing with social problems such as missing children, people with mental health problems and domestic abuse," says the chief constable. "Often these incidents can be incredibly complex and need a lot of time, resource and expertise." (More Twitter stories.)