March 2004 performance report

Report: 9
Date: 29 April 2004
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report gives a summary of MPS end of year performance against policing plan objectives for 2003-4 and informs the Authority of discussion in the MPS Performance Review Committee.

A. Recommendation

That the Authority notes the report.

B. Supporting information

Performance against policing plan targets

All crime

1. The MPS recorded 1.06 million offences in 2003/4, which is 1.8% lower than last year. This represents 20k fewer offences, although no policing plan reduction target was set for total crime in 2003/4.

Burglary

2. The 4% reduction target was comfortably exceeded by 3.1%, meaning that overall, burglary offences were down by 7.1%, or 8k fewer offences compared with last year. Reductions were seen in both residential (-5.9%) and non-residential burglary (-9.3%). The overall burglary total now stands at its lowest level since 1976.

Autocrime

3. Autocrime offences were reduced by 7.1%, just exceeding the target of 7%. There were 17.2k fewer offences year on year.

Street crime

4. It is disappointing to note that the 10% street crime reduction target was not met, despite sustained effort over the performance year. There was a 4.2% reduction (2.5k fewer offences). The MPS fell 3.4k offences short of the target.

Homicide

5. The homicide clear-up rate for the year stands at 97%, exceeding the target (83%) and last year’s performance (81%). This is based on 205 homicides being cleared up against a total of 211 homicides.

Recruitment & diversity issues

6. 15.3% of all recruits in 2003/4 were from visible ethnic minorities (VEM), against a target of 15%. The 2002/3 figure was 10.7%.

7. 6.5% of police strength now comprise VEM officers. This is just below the target (6.6%), but a one percentage point improvement on last year.

8. The VEM PCSO recruitment target was significantly exceeded – 34.6% against a target of 25%. The overall percentage of VEM PCSOs has increased to 34.8% of PCSO strength. The target was also 25%.

9. In an attempt to raise the number of VEM police staff a 21% target was set. The MPS has achieved 19.7% this year, half a percentage point increase on last year.

10. 29.3% of new appointments to the police strength were female, a nine percentage point increase on last year and four percentage points above this year’s target. 18.2% of the police strength is now made up of female officers, improving on last year’s performance and exceeding the target for this year.

11. The MPS exceeded both the recruitment target and strength target for female PCSOs.

Sickness levels

12. Targets for the number of working days lost to sickness have been met for police officers and traffic wardens, but not met for police staff and PCSOs.

Recruitment

13. The target for police officer recruitment was exceeded by 122 officers. 3,362 officers have been recruited this year and the current strength stands at 30,265 officers, 409 more than the target. This year has also seen a reduction in the officers voluntarily leaving within five years and a reduction in police staff turnover.

Summary

14. From data currently available, twenty-five targets in the 2003/4 Policing and Performance Plan have been met. Six targets have not been met, but there has been an improvement in performance compared with last year, and a further seven targets have not been met and there has been no improvement in performance. In addition, there have been six areas where there has been an improvement in performance but no target has been set and five areas where there has been a decrease in performance but where no target was set.

15. Appendix 1 is the MPS monthly performance report for March 2004 and contains end of year data for most Policing and Performance Plan measures, although there are some areas that are yet to be updated because the data is unavailable. These are predominantly survey based data, which is updated on a quarterly basis – the next update is anticipated to be available by mid May 2004.

C. Race and equality impact

Implications of performance against individual targets are considered in in-depth performance reports throughout the year. This report notes exceptions in strategic disproportional indicators (such as stop-search) where applicable.

D. Financial implications

None.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Graeme Keeling, Corporate Performance Analysis Unit, MPS.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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