On Monday, Thames Valley Police will be launching a new online portal for victims of crime. As the first police force to be using technology like this, we will be initially launching this with a trial period and wanted to provide a short briefing to you on what this portal will allow should it come up in conversations with victims of crime that you have contact with.

Last year, our force received nearly 1 million contacts from the public. Across the UK, there has been an increase in calls to 999 and 101, so it's vital we find new ways to communicate with our communities.

The new portal uses digital technology to improve our non-emergency contact to ensure we're giving victims the best possible service, and we’re able to prioritise those most in need.

Victims will be able to log in and get updates on their reports and contact the officer in charge of their case more easily, as well as having access to helpful resources depending on the type of crime they have been a victim of, and find useful information and links to other relevant agencies.

Victims have to be invited to the portal so they will receive a text and/or email if they are eligible to log in. As we are in the early stages of using the portal, it will not be available for all crime types and for the trial period will be used for crimes that we deem to be of a lower risk and for which we receive higher volumes of reports, for example theft from motor vehicles. We aim to expand the portal to incorporate further crime types in the future.

During the pilot period, the online portal will be hosted on a separate website, but once it is up and running for all crime types, we hope to link it to the existing Thames Valley police website. For now, only victims who have been invited to use the portal will have the URL to take them to the site.

You can watch a short video explaining what the portal will do at: TVP Portal animation - YouTube

What next?

So that we can effectively assess the success of the portal and where improvements may be needed, an opportunity for feedback will be made available around October time.

Whilst the portal is in a trial period, we will not be sharing proactive external communications for some time, potentially later this year, by which time we hope to have the portal embedded and be in a position to share positive outcomes from its use. We hope that you will be able to support us in sharing that content when the time comes.