THE THAMES VALLEY BULLETIN

Bringing facts to the Thames Valley without the noise of social media

Bulletin 1
We paid Crime Commissioner’s £180k of membership fees?
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Bulletin 2
Industrial fly tipping in Cholsey
REPORT COMING SOON
Bulletin 3
NHS Problem? Victim’s on TVP waiting lists
REPORT COMING SOON
WELCOME TO
THE THAMES
VALLEY BULLETIN
An independent citizen-led initiative designed to empower the community by bringing clarity, transparency and public awareness to how we are being governed, using the Thames Valley as the local example.

Each bulletin highlights real cases, evidence and concerns — presented with the sole purpose of informing residents so we can hold those in power to account.
Bulletin 1

Matthew Barber, Police and Crime Commissioner for the Thames Valley

Transparency and accountability of membership fees
Bulletin 1 Image
The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) has 33 PCCs as members and is registered as a member’s club. A FOI Act request was sent to this organisation, all of whose 33 members are public servants, asking to see a copy of their full accounts. This request was refused. The Information Commissioner’s Office upheld this, stating that under the FOI Act, a member’s club was not required to respond. A FOI request was then sent to Matthew Barber asking how much he had paid over the past 5 years in membership fees to his members club, out of taxpayers’ funds. He responded with the following details:
YearAmount (ÂŁ)
2021/2233,387.54
2022/232,000.00
2023/2441,762.79
2024/2551,500.00
2025/2552,445.00
Considering the substantial nature of these payments, a FOI request was sent to Matthew Barber asking him to supply a copy of the full APCC accounts. As an elected member, he would be issued with them annually to sign off, and he would reasonably wish to know how Thames Valley taxpayers’ money was being spent.

To date, he has refused to answer the request. However, he did attend the National Rural Crime Network’s “Rural Crime Conference” this year. The NRCN is a trading arm of the APCC, and the event was held at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall — no doubt selected as a very rural, inexpensive, and centrally located setting.
Documents and financial information relating to APCC payments and accountability
Conclusion
Matthew Barber should publish a copy of the full accounts of the APCC for the past 5 years, to justify the use of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Thames Valley taxpayers, as well as taxpayers across the rest of the country, can then see how their money is being accounted for.

Otherwise, he should arrange for all membership fees to be returned for the use of the Chief Constable of the Thames Valley, Matthew Hogg, to begin addressing the long crime waiting lists by employing more officers to investigate crime.
Bulletin 2

Environmental Crime in South Oxfordshire

"A quarter-million-pound landfill offence – still unprosecuted"
Illegal dumping site overview
An environmental crime in South Oxfordshire, visible on Google Earth, has not been prosecuted by either the Environment Agency or Oxford County Council. This is a case of fly tipping, which can range from shovelling mud into a stream, throwing rubbish from a car, to much larger illegal dumping operations occasionally reported in the media.

This illegal dumping would have generated approximately ÂŁÂź million in landfill tax, as it infilled the floodplain, where waste can be toxic and taxed at the highest rate. As a result, residents of Cholsey may face a higher risk of flooding this year.
Environmental evidence image 2 Environmental evidence image 3 Environmental evidence image 4
Bulletin 3

Police Waiting Lists

"What the NHS counts daily — the police say they don't track"
Police investigator reviewing case files and evidence
We have all heard of NHS waiting lists. They are a basic performance indicator, and the NHS knows, on a shift-by-shift basis, how many beds will become available and how many patients are waiting.
Unlike the NHS, police investigation backlogs are not routinely tracked or published.
By contrast, Matthew Hogg, Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, claims not to know how many crimes have been reported for which no investigating officers are currently available. Yet, when questioned, frontline officers frequently refer to very long waiting lists of cases awaiting investigation.

A national Freedom of Information (FOI) survey will reveal the true scale of this issue, showing how stretched frontline policing has become. The findings will be summarised as Police Waiting Lists — a backlog that, unlike in the NHS, is not routinely measured or published.