Police station services

Do you know what services are on offer at your local police station?

At our police stations, your queries and questions are dealt with by station duty officers and front counter volunteers. There are tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 police stations – each tier offers a different level of services to you.

Kelly Scully, Thames Valley Police counter services manager, said: “The aim of the tier system is to help us to provide a better service to members of the public who visit our stations or offices.”

The availability and visibility of police officers to attend incidents is not affected by front counter opening times.

Thames Valley Police has been awarded the ISO9001 registration standard for front counter services at tier 1, 2 and 3. This means that we have a system in place to manage the quality of service across all of our front counters and can evaluate it to make sure that the service meets your expectations.

ISO9001 is the international standard for Quality Management Systems (QMS). A QMS is a coherent set of policies and procedures that co-ordinate and guides an organisation's controls and activities for ensuring product and service quality.

Tier 1 – Service enhancement station/offices

These police stations rely entirely upon volunteers to cover the front counter. Front counter volunteers offer the following services at Tier 1 stations:

• Document productions.
• Lost and found property.
• Crime recording (via telephone to Police Enquiry Centre).
• Reports of suspicious activity.
• Reports of bad driving (via telephone to Police Enquiry Centre).
• Applications for firearms and shotguns.

They can also offer advice on:

• Whether or not a traffic collision is reportable (they cannot take traffic collision reports).
• Crime prevention and reduction advice.
• Neighbourhood Policing.
• Making a complaint.

Tier 2 – Neighbourhood stations

These police stations are covered by station duty officers (SDOs). As well as all Tier 1 services, the SDOs offer the following:

• Road traffic collision reporting.
• Crime recording (either in person or via telephone to the Police Enquiry Centre).
• Processing of documents after a vehicle seizure.
• Change of details for immigration and nationality purposes.
• Receipt of property connected with a crime.
• Bail signing.
• Stranded people.
• Complaints.
• Guidance on subject access request procedures.

Tier 2 police stations can also offer additional services to those listed above, based on locally-identified need.

Tier 3 – Main police stations

Tier 3 police stations offer the complete range of front counter services for Thames Valley Police. As well as offering tier 1 and tier 2 services, they also offer the following:

• Registration of immigration and nationality subjects.
• Registration of sex offenders.
• Removal of prohibition.
• Custody enquiries.
• Pedlar applications.
• Football Banning Order registrations.

Tier 3 police stations are open for a minimum of 40 hours a week, with one 24-hour station available in each county within Thames Valley.