THAMES Valley Police have been criticised for spending tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on redesigning another website.

Earlier this year, the Oxford Mail revealed that TVP used £100,000 of public money to create a new force website.

Now the Thames Valley Police Authority, which oversees the force’s work, has admitted paying another £30,000 to update its online service.

The TaxPayers Alliance has criticised the two website facelifts as a waste of public money. Chief executive Matthew Elliott said: “Police authorities are nebulous bodies and, at a time when money is tight, many taxpayers would rather have seen this cash go into frontline policing.”

The authority fixes the force’s budget and acts as a watchdog across the region.

A spokesman for the authority said an external design company had been commissioned to create the new website.

The bill included training the authority’s staff to manage the website and to set up an online e-citizen panel, polls, surveys, consultation and updates and provide news on the work of its members.

Responses to the current on-line poll – Rate Our Website – show 22 per cent rated it ‘not so good’ and 22 per cent as ‘okay’, while 37 per cent of people rated it ‘very good’ and 20 per cent ‘good’.

Police Authority treasurer Robert Atkins said: “We wanted to make it easier for local people to find out about the authority and to tell us about policing issues that affect them.

“The old website was cluttered, difficult to navigate and complicated to maintain.

“We needed to replace it with a more user-friendly site that could easily be updated by non-technical staff and independently managed by the authority.”

But Mr Elliott said: “While it’s important for taxpayers to be consulted on their police force’s performance, this is a large amount of money on top of what Thames Valley Police spent on its website just a few short months ago.

“It’s hard to see why this service couldn’t have been rolled into that very expensive upgrade.”

The £100,000 bill for the force’s new website included a fee of £72,903.76 plus the wages of four IT workers over four months.

mwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk To view the police authority website go to tvpa.police.uk