Police commissioner for Banbury considers spending more to reduce response times

PCC Matthew Barber will consider delving into financial reserves to solve worsening response times to 101 calls.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for the Banbury area is considering delving into financial reserves to solve the worsening response times to 101 calls

Waiting times to get through to a call handler for a non-emergency in Thames Valley, the region that covers Oxfordshire, have rocketed since June 2021.

Having hovered either side of the two-minute mark before that, pick-up times reported at the Thames Valley’s Performance and Management meeting were under a minute for four months until July 2021. The waits have now increased, spiking at 9.6 minutes in September 2022.

More than a third of callers had waited 10 minutes or more in September, another figure that has typically increased month by month, having been at zero in June 2021.

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Matthew Barber the PCC for Thames Valley Police, was quizzed on the matter by the Thames Valley Police & Crime Panel.

“The force has internally reviewed the resourcing numbers. In the past there have been incremental increases in resources for contact management but they have taken a more fundamental view of actually looking at the length of call times, the volumes anticipated and some of the business practices in place.

“Using all of that methodology, (what is needed) will clearly be a significant increase in staff. I have said that needs to happen urgently.

“My view is that would form part of the budget process for next year but I think it is of a scale of urgency that if those plans can be brought into place further, we need to look at the use of reserves in the meantime.

"We cannot just wait until I sign off the budget next year. “