Commissioner's report

Report: 5
Date: 26 February 2009
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report, prepared for the Authority meeting, summarises the progress of the Metropolitan Police Service against the objectives featured in the 2008 – 2011 Policing Plan for London.

The report covers the period December 2008 and January 2009 with data for individual measures reflecting the 12-month period ending December 2008 unless stated otherwise. It is intended to highlight progress against corporate targets and identifies key operational activities that deliver a safer city for all London’s communities.

Report headlines can be summarised as follows:

• Serious acquisitive crime rate (robbery, residential burglary and motor vehicle crime) is down 25% (approximately 70,000 fewer offences) over 5 years.
• Knife crime during April to December 2008 shows a 12.6% reduction (1,348 fewer offences) compared with the corresponding period in 2007/08.
• During April to December 2008 there were 1,612 fewer youth (under 20 years old) victims of crime than in the corresponding period in 2007. The number of youth homicide victims (aged 10-19) decreased from 18 to 17 during the same period.
• Gun Crime is down by 26.0% over the last 12 months (778 fewer offences).

A. Recommendation

The report be received.

B. Supporting information

1. This report updates progress against the corporate objectives featured in the Policing Plan for London. For each objective we summarise progress to date and report on key initiatives. For ease of reference a summary table giving an overview of performance is attached at Appendix 1 with a green (G), amber (A), red (R) assessment against the Critical Performance Areas (CPAs) under each objective.

2. Following the last MPA Full Authority meeting Sir Paul Stephenson has been appointed Commissioner. The selection process to appoint the next Deputy Commissioner is underway and Tim Godwin will remain as Acting Deputy Commissioner until an appointment is made.

Our delivery: performance and activity

Objective: Make our services more accessible and improve people’s experience of their contact with us, especially victims and witnesses.

How we monitor our performance

3. Progress is monitored against this objective via two Critical Performance Areas (CPA) measures (see below). Both measures are statutory performance indicators (SPI) derived from a comprehensive survey of service users conducted by an independent market research company. The survey takes place on a continuous basis and captures recent experiences of victims of burglary, violent crime, vehicle crime, road traffic collisions and racist incidents.

Progress summary

• The latest results show that victim satisfaction with our overall service has improved by 1% point to 77.8% for the year to December 2008. However victim satisfaction has remained broadly steady over the past two years.
•  The satisfaction gap between white and minority ethnic victims at 4.8 points is close to the national average and the focus of ongoing research by the Home Office, NPIA and MPS to gain a greater understanding of the key drivers of satisfaction amongst different user groups.

4. A performance framework is now being established to assess our overall progress against the levels of service set out in the Policing Pledge – Our Promise to Citizens launched in January. A series of meetings has taken place with Borough OCUs to baseline existing processes across London so that examples of good practice can be shared and early areas for improvement identified. A high level ‘Gold Group’ chaired by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner will co-ordinate activity and report on progress on a monthly basis to the MPS Performance Board.

Recent initiatives

5. On 23 January Specialist Crime Directorate with the help of Young Enterprise London welcomed 40 students from Southwark and Lambeth schools to New Scotland Yard. The event aimed to break down preconceptions about the police and educate students about the various career opportunities open to them. Students took part in several activities throughout the day, ranging from interviewing police officers and staff, to solving a mock crime using new skills they learned during the day.

Objective: Make our neighbourhoods safer through local and city-wide problem solving and partnership working to reduce crime, anti-social behaviour and road casualties

How we monitor our performance

6. The primary measure for this objective is public confidence through a statutory performance indicator measured independently via the Home Office’s British Crime Survey (BCS) (glossary of terms is attached at Appendix 2). The BCS is a long established continuous survey of UK residents conducted face-to-face in people’s homes. The limitations are that respondents are aged 17 and above and it does not capture business crime.

7. In addition to public confidence, progress is monitored using Home Office SPIs focused on the underlying serious acquisitive crime rate and our associated investigation performance – namely the number of offenders brought to justice. Additionally, to assess the safety of our roads network across the capital, the MPS use a very specific SPI - a count of the number of people killed or seriously injured in road traffic collisions relative to the number of vehicle kilometres travelled. This measure enables the Home Office to compare and contrast performance across forces with different traffic densities.

Progress summary

• The latest results show confidence in local policing now stands at 54.2% (year to Sept 2008) below the year-end target of 56.2%. The MPS leads its Home Office Most Similar Group of forces (MSG) and is 15th out of the 42 police force areas in England and Wales. Considerable effort is being applied to improve this performance and a detailed update was provided to the Strategic and Operational Policing Committee on 5 February.
• The serious acquisitive crime rate is on a long-term improving trend, down 25% over the last five years and we are currently on-track to deliver against our year-end target of a 4 percent year-on-year reduction.
•  For the rolling year to December the sanction detection rate for serious acquisitive crime was 11.1% below our 2008/9 target of 11.8%. Meeting this target represents a significant challenge in the final quarter to the end of March.

Recent initiatives

Operation Spotlight

8. Residential burglary is currently at a reduction of 1.8% compared with the corresponding period in 2007/08, equating to 870 fewer allegations. Since the start of Operation Spotlight in November there have been 1,595 arrests with 691 charges for residential burglary.

9. The MPS Burglary Enforcement Campaign commenced on 2 February with a key objective for each borough to reduce offences and to arrest and charge a minimum of ten offenders for burglary. Territorial Policing will be deploying additional resources to assist six of the most challenged high volume boroughs.

10. The second phase of Operation Spotlight is due to finish at the end of March. The gradual decrease in offences after the festive period has been maintained since the start of this phase but will be subject to continued focus to ensure that the overall reduction in burglary is sustained.

Operation Tyrol

11. The first six additional Enhanced Safer Transport Teams were launched in January working within tight transport hubs. On 2 February the seventh team launched at Lewisham Bus Station, however the publicity was temporarily postponed due to the extreme weather conditions. Two further teams launch on Southwark Borough on 26 February at the Elephant and Castle and Peckham High Street. By the end of February there will be twelve teams in operation.

12. A further nineteen teams will be launched between March and June 2009 including the newly agreed team at Clapham Junction on Wandsworth Borough. Agreement is still to be reached on one final team.

Crime mapping

13. Five crime categories were initially displayed on the crime mapping website (Robbery Personal, Robbery Commercial, Burglary Residential, Theft of Motor Vehicle and Theft from Motor Vehicle). In December 2008, Total Notifiable Offences (TNOs) were added as an aggregate figure.

14. Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) reported to police will also be included as an aggregate figure from 31 March 2009. Anti Social Behaviour incidents are recorded on the Computer Aided Despatch (CAD) system and not via crime reports and so the method of plotting the incidents on the system is being carefully planned to avoid confusion.

15. Two thousand victims of crime, within the five categories displayed, were sent postal surveys about their views on crime mapping. Approximately ten percent responded. The vast majority were very positive and did not mind their crime being mapped. Some concerns were raised about insurance costs and house prices and also about criminals targeting vulnerable areas.

Objective: Reduce serious violence and protect young people

How we monitor our performance

16. Performance is monitored against this objective using a combination of Home Office SPIs and internal MPS metrics. The SPIs also feature within the new national Assessment of Policing and Community Safety framework (APACS) introduced in April 2008.

Progress summary

17. The MPS are making steady progress against all the serious crime reduction measures:

•  Most Serious Violence and Assault With Injury reduced by 3.2% (2,398 offences) over the rolling year to December 2008.
•  Against the new Home Office gun crime definition, we have seen a year-on-year reduction of 26.0% (778 offences) as at the end of December 2008. This reduction has been achieved through a series of proactive initiatives including intelligence-led interventions at identified hot spots.
•  The combined sanction detection rate for most serious violence and serious sexual offences is 31.5% for the rolling year to December 2008.
•  The domestic violence offences resulting in arrest for the rolling year to December 2008 is 69.2%, on track for our target this year of 67%.
•  For the period April to December 2008, the number of under 20 year olds becoming victims of violence decreased by 9.4% (1,612 victims) compared to the corresponding period in 2007. (Rolling year comparisons are not possible due to a change of measure definition by the Home Office). This reduction is ahead of the year-end target of a 6% reduction.

Recent initiatives

Operation Blunt 2

18. Knife crime shows a 12.6% reduction between April and December compared with the same period last year, 1,348 fewer violent crimes involving knives. Operational deployments are delivered through Borough command structures with close engagement with communities and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs).

19. Blunt 2 is deploying an additional 242 officers in the period between 3pm and 6pm each weekday at schools, colleges and transport hubs where large numbers of young people gather on the streets. These officers are drawn from Boroughs together with two task teams from the Transport OCU. The operation is controlled from the Specialist Operations Room at Lambeth and is scheduled to continue until 3 April. These protective deployments deliver a guaranteed, visible and familiar police presence to prevent and detect violence impacting young people.

Operation Caiman

20. Operation Caiman tackles the sharing of extreme images of child abuse via the internet. Clubs and Vice are leading the way amongst UK law enforcement in tackling the use of ‘peer precision’ software. This software works by suspects unknowingly offering to share abusive images of children with the police. Their I.P. addresses are identified and geo-locating software is used to narrow the field down to suspects in London who are then arrested and their computers seized. Recent arrests have included a registered sex offender with previous convictions for indecent assault on his daughter and the arrest of someone with 500,000 indecent images, the largest collection found by Clubs and Vice to date.

Objective: Disrupt more criminal networks and reduce the harm caused by drugs

How we monitor our performance

21. In the absence of nationally defined SPIs, we monitor our performance using a combination of internal measures.

Progress summary

•  Good progress is being made in disrupting criminal networks – achieving over 30 disruptions each month through the deployment of proactive teams acting on intelligence.
•  The MPS are above target for the number of cases where assets are seized. The value of assets identified by court order for seizure for the first nine months of the year (Apr - Dec 08) is £33.6m.
•  The number of sanction detections for trafficking shows a small increase on the corresponding period last year. In 2007/08 the MPS achieved 2,525 sanction detections for Class A drug trafficking, the corresponding figure for the year to December 2008 stands at 2,617.
•  The data shows that there has been an improvement in sanction detections for Class A drugs and cocaine and heroin individually compared to the corresponding period ending December 2007 (monthly averages of 218, 144 and 58 respectively).

Recent initiatives

22. EDIT is the Evidential Drug Identification Testing making use of Home Office approved drug testing kits that will enable a case disposal decision to be made in drug possession cases without the need to bail the person to return pending forensic analysis. This allows cost savings to be made in police time and forensic analysis and simplifies and significantly speeds up the summary justice process. The process is currently is in use in three boroughs and is scheduled to go live in all 32 boroughs by the end of May.

23. The Clubs and Vice Payback Team were nominated in December 2008 for a national award for Excellence in Financial Investigation. This nomination was based upon the work of the team between 2004-2008 for asset recovery in excess of £5 million and the disruption of criminal networks (35 persons convicted on money laundering) and essential liaison and asset sharing work overseas.

Objective: Enhance our counter terrorism capability and capacity

How we monitor our performance

24. The MPS continues to report its performance in relation to counter-terrorism to the MPA/MPS Counter Terrorism Protective Services Sub- committee (previously CT Oversight Committee), chaired by Lord Toby Harris. The next meeting of this group is on 26 March 2009. Internally reports are also regularly provided to MPS Performance Board.

Progress summary

25. Terrorism remains a significant threat to the United Kingdom. The current threat level is assessed as Severe (as of 4 July 2007). To address this threat significant capacity has been developed within the MPS to deliver the Government counter terrorism strategy (CONTEST). The MPS has developed a counter-terrorism and domestic extremism strategy, entitled ‘Enhancing Our Counter-Terrorist Capability and Capacity’.

Other recent initiatives include:

26. Four MPS BOCUs have been piloted as locations for the Prevent strand of the MPS strategy, which aims to stop people becoming or supporting terrorists or violent extremists. The experience of these pilot sites is currently being reviewed and the learning passed out among the 32 BOCUs in the MPS. This process will be completed by 31 March 2009 and will help shape future activity.

27. Work is in progress to develop a process of information sharing with our local authority partners. Success in Prevent depends on effective sharing of information with partners and with communities, so that they both understand the extent of the problem presented by terrorism / violent extremism and recognise how their involvement can contribute to achieving it.

28. The conflict in Gaza in January 2009 led to considerable protest and community tensions in London, including significant community fears of terrorism and domestic extremism. The MPS undertook intensive community engagement with both Jewish and Muslim communities, and co-ordinated this with enhanced high-visibility policing in areas of high vulnerability. Protests, recorded incidents, and tensions are now reported to be declining as of early February 2009.

Objective: Plan for, and effectively police, major events in London and prepare for the 2012 Olympics

How we monitor our performance

29. There are no SPIs for this corporate objective, which in itself is linked to the wider milestones for delivering the national Olympic Security Programme that goes beyond policing and are the responsibility of the Home Secretary. The Olympic Security Directorate reports on progress for this planning to the Director of Olympic Safety and Security in the Home Office. The MPA maintain oversight of the MPS involvement.

Progress summary

30. There are four critical performance areas against which progress against the delivery programme is being measured.

• ‘Meeting the Demand’ strategic options for delivering the gap. A paper of costed options of how the identified gap between supply and demand will be met was incorporated within the Costed Security Plan draft delivered in October 2008.
•  Beijing Security learning. Olympic Security Directorate has delivered a final debrief report with lessons learned. The official LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) official security debrief was due to be completed on 31 January.
• OGC Gateway 0 Programme Strategic Assessment. OGC (Office of Government Commerce) review of the programme in October 2008 moved the programme to Red/Amber from a rating of Red.
•  Costed Security Strategy (CSS) delivery. The CSS is to be viewed by Ministers in February. It was initially delivered to Ministers in October 2008, ahead of schedule, however Ministers have pushed the review date back.

Recent key events

31. On 29 January, following a complex enquiry Wang Yam was convicted of the murder of Allan Chapellow in 2006. Mr Chapellow’s body was found concealed within his derelict mansion. Enquiries to locate him had started when his bank had reported suspicious financial transactions on his accounts. This quickly identified an unknown Chinese male attempting to fraudulently use Chapellow’s credit card. Wang Yam was extradited from Switzerland and charged in November 2006. He was sentenced to life imprisonment to serve at least 20 years.

Our organisation: managing the business

Our People

32. As of January we now have more female officers (7,084) and officers from a minority background (2,778) than ever before, helping the MPS to be more representative of the communities it serves. In fact, we have the largest minority representation of any force in England and Wales. This represents in excess of 45% of all minority officers in England and Wales.

33. Responses from our internal staff survey ‘Your Views Count’ for the period July – September 2008 indicate a general improvement in staff experiences. Job satisfaction at 62% is now in line with the public sector standard (up from 58% in the previous quarter). Some 80% of staff agree that they make good use of their skills and abilities and 84% of respondents stated that they took pride in delivering quality policing.

Our other resources

34. Following MPA support to the acquisition of the Freehold interest in October 2008, the purchase of NSY was completed on 18 December 2008. The transaction took 12 weeks to complete (from start to finish), including obtaining necessary approvals from the MPA and borrowing approval from the GLA. The transaction provides greater security to the MPS in terms of day to day running of the property; more flexibility in the strategic planning for the property, and is more cost effective.

35. As part of the developing resources Management Programme, a comprehensive and consolidated database of contracts has been produced. This captures 97% (by value) of MPS contracts, which have now been loaded onto SAP (the Service’s financial system). This provides the MPS with the most transparent view it has ever achieved in relation to the contract landscape and importantly provides an ideal platform to consolidate corporate contracts to drive greater efficiencies within a compliant framework.

 C. Race and equality impact

1. There are no specific race and equality implications arising directly from this report. However, there are key areas of specific activity in relation to equalities that demonstrate our commitment to diversity and are essential to the success of the MPS. These include improving the quality of service provided to victims of hate crime, ensuring that a consistent and effective service is provided to London’s diverse communities; improving performance against domestic violence, ensuring a consistent level of service across all communities and minimising disproportionality issues; increasing community trust and confidence in the police use of stop and search ensuring it is used fairly and proportionately; continuing to develop a workforce that reflects the diversity of London and improving the progression of women within the police service.

D. Financial implications

There are no financial implications arising directly from this report.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Director of Business Strategy, Michael Debens, MPS

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 2

Glossary of terms

APACS

Assessment of Policing and Community Safety – performance management framework which will provide the Home Office and its partners with the capability to monitor and assess performance in policing and community safety

BCS

British Crime Survey – a long established Home Office managed survey designed to capture levels of crime and public attitudes to crime as well as other criminal justice issues. The results play an important role in informing Government policy. The survey captures the views of approximately 48,000 citizens across England & Wales annually – approximately 3,000 within London. Survey results are published quarterly and relate to a rolling 12-month period.

CPA

Critical Performance Areas - the suite of MPS corporate measures used to track progress against the delivery of corporate objectives

Criminal network

a network of individuals involved in ongoing criminal activity for some form of personal gain (usually profit, but can also be for social standing).

Disruption

a disruption has been achieved when a network is unable to operate at its normal level of activity for a significant amount of time.

Harm

where the consequence of pursuing an activity is seen to have an adverse effect on the social, physical or economic well being of individuals or a community.

OGC

Office of Government Commerce

SD

Sanction detection - police generated detections of a crime. SDs include charges, cautions, fixed penalty notices [FPN], taken into considerations [TIC], summons and cannabis warnings

Serious acquisitive

Includes residential robbery, burglary and motor vehicle crime

SPI

Statutory Performance Indicator

TIC

Taken into consideration – the clear up of multiple crimes attributable committed by one criminal e.g. multiple burglaries

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