BORIS JOHNSON says every Surrey crime victim will have access to a named police officer, as police struggle to meet its target answering 101 calls.

The prime minister was at the force’s Mount Browne headquarters in Guildford to launch his ‘Beating Crime Plan’ aiming to give people more confidence in their safety.

This includes bringing in league tables for 101 and 999 call-answering times, which he reckons will make the police up their performance.

“I think the idea of competition from a 101 league table is a good thing,” said Mr Johnson.

Aware that 27 per cent of callers failed to get through to an operator between April and August last year, outgoing police and crime commissioner David Munro this year increased the police portion of council tax by 5.5 per cent to hire more call centre staff.

The average wait time reduced from 3min 52 sec in August 2020 to 3min 5sec in May 2021, when the force was still meeting its three-minute target in only 55.8 per cent of calls.

Asked if it was right that Surrey council taxpayers had to shoulder the burden of financing improvement, Mr Johnson said: “We’re investing in the police massively.”

He said this year’s police funding settlement was £15.8bn, a £600m increase on last year.

But Surrey Police relies more on council tax than the grant and gets only 41 per cent of its funding from government – the lowest proportion of all forces, according to the Institute for Government.

The prime minister added: “I do think it’s a good thing that local people should have an idea about how effective their force is in answering 101 or 999 calls.

“Irrespective of the funding, it’s right people should have that sense of the performance of their local force.

“This is a very safe part of the world to live but people need to know they’re going to have their crime taken seriously.

“Our policy is every crime matters – your crime matters to us – so that’s why we’re making sure every victim of crime in Surrey or across the country has a named police officer they can go to.”

Questioned whether they would have the time to answer the phone, he said: “I think they will, if it becomes clear they’re falling behind.”