We have received a reply from the PCC following concerns raised by Headington residents about the amount of time it takes for 101 callers to get a human response. Here it is.

Dear Councillor Wilkinson,

I will get this looked into. Usually we respond quickly to 101 calls, and we do measure this, so it is not difficult to find what the delay in response is. I am aware that we have had unprecedented demand over the last three weeks. This has been mirrored nationally. I believe that calls are about 20% above the normal, so response times may well have been below what I would expect. I will be talking to the Chief Constable about this, we have already been discussing the high rate of demand.

One of my main problems is the inequality of police funding between police forces. TVP gets £160 per head of population, Manchester and Birmingham nearly £200, and Merseyside £210. With a population of 2.3M that is a deficit in funding of around £100m which would pay for 2000 extra police officers and staff. If I had that I would not have a problem! I am doing my best at a national level to address this anomaly, but the recent terrorist attacks in major cities make it less likely we can get this sorted out,

Yours sincerely

Anthony Stansfeld |Police & Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley

The Farmhouse

Force Headquarters

Oxford Road

Kidlington

Oxford OX5 2NX

Tel: 01865 846104 | Internal: 700 6104