A third of Thames Valley Police's 101 callers wait longer than 10 minutes

On average callers to Thames Valley Police's 101 number had to wait for seven minutes to be answered this year

A third of people who called Thames Valley Police's non-urgent 101 line waited more than 10 minutes to be answered last month.

Its police and crime commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber said it intends to employ more call handlers in what will be a "big increase" of staff.

In 2019, when callers had an average eight-minute wait to get through, he said its performance was "dreadful".

Its year-to-date figure so far is seven minutes.

In August callers waited for an average of 9.6 minutes to speak to an operator, the force said.

Since the start of the year, 26.5% of callers have waited for more than 10 minutes while calling 101 in the Thames Valley.

Mr Barber said he hopes any changes to cut the waiting times will be implemented before the budget for 2023/24 is set early next year.

But he said the force might need to spend from its reserves to fund the work.

"I think it's of a scale of urgency that if those plans [including extra call operators] can be brought into place further, we need to look at the use of reserves in the meantime," Mr Barber told the Thames Valley's Police and Crime Panel on Friday.

"I don't think we can just wait until I sign off the budget off next year... and then someone suddenly starts thinking about implementing the plan. We need to get ahead of that."

101 performance data is not published routinely but the government does publish information on urgent 999 calls.

Last month Thames Valley Police answered 76% of 999 calls in less than 10 seconds, placing it the 15th quickest of England's 38 forces.

Another 19% were answered between 10 and 60 seconds, while 5% took longer than 60 seconds to be answered.