Non-emergency police phone number pledge has been 'quietly abandoned' say Tories

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The Tories hit out as it emerged that the Home Office had cut administrative support for the 101 project - despite no formal decision having been taken on the scheme's future.

Ministers promised at the last general election that the single non-emergency number (SNEN) would be in place across England and Wales by 2008 to take pressure off 999 operators.

But the roll-out was delayed last October following heavy criticism of the way the plans were working in five "wave one" areas - Hampshire, Leicestershire, Northumbria, Sheffield and Cardiff.

The Home Office insisted that the plans had not been ditched, despite claims that costs were higher than expected, 999 volumes were not falling and callers had been asking for train times and smoke alarm tests.

A formal decision on whether to take the programme forward is now due this Autumn.

However, officials on the 101 project said that they were no longer issuing bi-monthly updates to "stakeholders".

The briefing magazines had already been downgraded from monthly, but nothing has been distributed since February.

An official said: "We are putting one together at the moment. Hopefully it will be out this month."

She insisted that 101 staff were still "pulling submissions together for ministers" concerning the fate of the project.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "Coming after the abandonment of the pledge to deliver 24,000 PCSOs by next year, we now see another manifesto pledge has been quietly dropped.

"This was a proposal that had real merit and, were it not for the Government's incompetence, could have played a vital role in ensuring scarce resources were not wasted on dealing with inappropriate calls."

The latest figures from the Home Office show 101 call volumes dipped across the pilot areas last month, from a total of 60,189 in April to 51,588 in May.

The bill for setting up the first wave of non-emergency numbers was £7.47 million, while annual running costs are estimated at £14.5 million.