And Warwickshire Police was unable to confirm how many of a further 13,692 calls from the public actually resulted in an officer visiting the scene.

Such information, they said, is "not centrally recorded" for non-emergency 'scheduled' incidents, which may simply be handled with a follow-up phone call.

Between them, calls screened out by what the force describes as "fully-trained communications officers" and those which were 'scheduled' make up two-thirds of the 36,903 crimes reported in the district in the 12 months to April.

The figures were obtained by the Courier under the Freedom of Information Act.

Of the 8,416 calls deemed not to merit a response, there were 903 reports of anti-social behaviour, 1,893 threats to 'public safety' and 2,892 crimes.

Warwickshire Police stressed this week that the majority of 'scheduled' incidents had resulted in a visit at a "time agreed with the caller".

A spokeswoman said: "Every incident is treated on its individual merits. We do not have a specific list of incidents we do not attend.

"We send an officer to incidents where their physical presence is required, such as when an incident is ongoing, when there is evidence to be gathered and when statements need to be taken.

"In some cases people do not want officers to attend, or they may prefer to come into a police station to give a statement, or they may be seeking advice which can be given over the telephone.

"There are also a large number of incidents which come through to the police which are now dealt with by other agencies, such as abandoned dogs, abandoned cars or complaints about noise."

Countywide, there were 164,491 incidents reported in the last 12 months - of which 41,630 were deemed not to require a response. Those included 10,981 where crimes had been committed and 4,314 reports of antisocial behaviour. A further 57,586 reports were 'scheduled'.

The force did attend 20,100 '999' calls in Warwickshire; a total of 6,185 of them in Warwick district.