Sussex Police have been rated one of the best-performing forces in England and Wales.

It is a complete turnaround from several years ago when the force suffered damning reports about its performance.

The 2003/4 assessment by Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) of Constabulary rated Sussex in the top half of the middle section of the country's 42 forces.

Chief Constable Ken Jones said: "It is pleasing for the force to receive acknowledgement for the substantial progress being made across Sussex.

"We remain firmly committed to providing local policing rooted in local communities and further developments are already planned.

"The increasing numbers of police and police community support officers (PCSOs), together with longer and later police station opening hours, are now having a real impact and, most importantly, are being recognised and appreciated by the public we serve."

Mark Dunn, chairman of Sussex Police Authority, said: "This is a most encouraging assessment of the current state of Sussex Police and confirms the positive feedback we are receiving from the public and partners.

"HMI has recognised that, under the leadership of Ken Jones, the force has been given a clear strategic direction that it will be focused towards community-based policing.

"This is what the authority and the people of Sussex are asking for and it is evident from the report that good progress is being made in very many areas."

HMI rated Sussex highly in most categories, including its use of PCSOs, reducing bureaucracy, forensic science, science and technology strategy, use of antisocial behaviour orders (Asbos) and reform of police training.

It scored "fair" for fighting overall crime, "good" for tackling hate crime and major incidents, road policing and reassuring the public, and "excellent" for leadership.

But it wasn't all good news.

It was rated "poor" for handling calls from the public. A fifth of calls to the force were abandoned.

Mr Dunn promised action, saying: "We are providing an additional £2.4 million to fund improvements in call handling and crime recording."

Assistant Chief Constable Geoff Williams, who is leading the drive to improve public contact, said: "We have already embarked on a major project looking at how we deal with public contact.

"We aim to achieve substantial improvements in all areas."

The project includes:

Introduction of new dedicated 999 call-takers (the task was previously shared with other roles such as radio operator)

Creation of a new dedicated Crime Recording and Investigation Bureau, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Increased capacity to answer calls made to the Sussex Police non-emergency number (0845 6070999).

Mr Jones said: "We acknowledge we must further improve our public contact processes. This work is already in hand."