Headline Performance report - full year 2008/09

Report: 7
Date: 7 May 2009
By: Acting Deputy Commissioner

Summary

This report provides an overview of MPS performance for 2008/09. The report comprises three elements: crime performance for selected crime categories; performance against the MPS Critical Performance Areas; and performance against other policing plan indicators.

A. Recommendation

That members note full year performance against the Policing Plan.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

1. This report contains:

• A summary of crime figures for selected crime categories for the 2008/09 performance year (Appendix 1)
• A summary of performance against the 'Critical Performance Areas' (CPAs) - the top-level measures featured in the Policing Plan - for the 2008/9 performance year (Appendix 2)
• A report on all of the measures featured in the Policing Plan and the Statutory Performance Indicators (SPIs) set by the Home Office for the 2008/09 performance year (Appendix 3)

Background to Performance Information

2. Unless stated otherwise, all figures presented in this report relate to the 2008/09 performance year. Crime figures presented at Appendix 1 compare 2008/09 performance against 2007/08 - green signifying year-on-year improvement, red signifying year-on-year deterioration. Critical Performance Areas and Policing Plan measures presented at Appendices 2 & 3 highlight performance against target using a red / amber / green traffic light status.

3. Where relevant Critical Performance Area and Policing Plan measures include Home Office iQuanta rankings (1 = best, 4 = worst). The MPS is compared against its Most Similar Forces (MSF) - Greater Manchester, West Midlands and West Yorkshire. (Merseyside featured within the MSF pre 2008/09).

4. BCS refers to the Home Office’s British Crime Survey – a rolling survey of 50,000 UK residents per annum [3,000 across London]. The survey addresses a number of crime related topics, such as confidence in local policing and the prevalence of anti-social behaviour.

2008/09 crime performance

5. Appendix 1 features published 2008/09 year-end crime figures for selected crime categories.

6. Crime in London has continued to fall with over 18,600 fewer crimes in 2008/9 compared to last year, a 2.2% reduction to the lowest level in ten financial years. Positive achievements include reducing assault, gun crime, knife crime, robbery and burglary. Challenges include rises in business crime, recorded rape and hate crime.

7. We have also continued to improve our overall sanction detection rate to 26.2%, doubling our performance in the last 5 years. Positive achievements include improving our sanction detection rates for homicide, gun crime, knife crime and hate crime. Our sanction detection rates decreased for residential burglary and business crime.

8. Most serious violence and assault with injury has fallen by 1,761 or 2.4% offences compared to 2007/08. Homicide is down by 7 offences compared to 2007/8. Youth violence has fallen by 2,209 offences [9.8%] compared to 2007/08 exceeding our 6% reduction target. Knife crime has also fallen by 1,882 offences [13.3%] compared to 2007/8.

• Our results analysis shows that a significant factor in reducing youth violence and knife crime victims and offenders is likely to have been Operation Blunt 2, which commenced on 19 May 2008 in response to public concern at the level of serious violence involving knives, particularly by young people. Blunt 2 focussed on combating knife crime in general and serious youth violence in particular. The initiative involved all MPS business groups and borough commands. Boroughs made deployments with close and ongoing engagement with communities and CDRPs – a key element in ensuring community support for controlled tactics based on good intelligence.

9. Gun crime has fallen by 25.8% (753 offences) surpassing our target of a 3% reduction. The reduction has been achieved through a series of proactive initiatives including intelligence-led interventions at identified hot spots.

10. Serious acquisitive crime, which includes burglary, robbery and motor vehicle crime, is down by 7.7%, a reduction of 16,654 offences, exceeding our targeted 4% reduction. Residential burglary has dropped by 1.1% or 686 offences. This represents a historical low and may prove challenging to sustain in the longer term. Robberies have dropped by 4,521 offences [12.2%] and are at their lowest level in the last 10 financial years.

11. Our sanction detection rate for Serious Acquisitive Crime fell marginally to 10.4% missing our targeted improvement to 11.8%. The MPS signalled to previous meetings of this committee that the improvement target had become challenging. The MPS has applied significant resources to tackling violence-related offences rather than to improving sanction detection rates for serious acquisitive crime.

• Operation Spotlight started on 17 November 2008, aimed at tackling residential burglary. Since the start of the operation there have been over 2,500 arrests for residential burglary. 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. TP will be deploying additional resources to assist six of the most challenged high volume boroughs.
• TP has also set out to improve arrest rates for suspects who are wanted on warrant. Officers from central TP units will be helping boroughs to ensure that they have put in place the right processes, and that these are being followed to good effect.
• Following research to identify learning from other Forces proposals are now being considered regarding the introduction of:
  • ‘Dedicated Detections Teams’ on all boroughs, based on best practice from West Yorkshire and boroughs of Camden and Barnet.
  • Good practice identified in West Yorkshire to address cross border issues and ensure the opportunities presented by corporate prisoners are maximised.
  • An Offender Management Programme on each borough as per the West Yorkshire model, building on the PPO scheme and with appropriate consideration of links to the Diamond Districts.

12. Business crime is up by 10.9% or 11,653 offences. The category of business crime that increased the most has been shoplifting. Retail industry contacts have told us anecdotally there has been an increase in shop thefts that may be associated with the recession. They say the number of opportunistic thefts is increasing, as well as employee theft, and major retailers tell us they are increasingly having to security tag everyday products. The MPS tackles this issue in a number of ways:

• Shop Watch, a dedicated scheme run for the last five years, gives retail employees the chance to train as special constables and has seen very positive results in reduced theft from the major retailers on board.
• In addition, from this month every borough has identified a priority town centre where we will be putting in an additional four patrols, seven days a week, to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour including shop theft.

13. Rape has increased by 276 offences (14.5%) compared to last year, but it is important to note that excluding 2007/8 this is the lowest level since 1998/9. The sanction detection rate for rape has increased marginally to 33.6%.

• The Home Office have announced additional funding to support sexual assault referral centres (SARCS) across the country. The Met works closely with the SARCS in London, known as the Havens, which make a great difference to both victims and investigators.
• As previously announced, Sapphire, the Met's unit for rape and serious sexual violence, is to move into a new operational command based within Specialist Crime, with the aim of ensuring that more cases reach court and get a conviction. However, under-reporting remains a serious issue and we continue to urge victims to continue to come forward to police or Havens.

14. Reported hate crimes are also up, but sanction detection rates in this area have risen compared to last year. Domestic violence was up by 4.4% or 2,220 offences, racist crime was up by 9.6% or 838 offences and homophobic crime was up by 13.4% or 132 offences. However we improved our sanction detection rates by 2% points for domestic violence, 4.6% points for racist crime and 3.6% points for homophobic crime. Rises in hate crime may represent more victims coming forward in an area where under-reporting is an issue, so increases in reported crime and the rise in sanction detections in this area could be viewed positively.

Critical Performance Areas

15. Appendix 2 highlights performance against target for the Critical Performance Area (CPA) featured in the 2008/09 Policing Plan.

16. Performance Summary: The MPS is broadly on target for all except two of the CPAs, (satisfaction gap between white and minority ethnic victims, sanction detection rate for serious acquisitive crime). Performance is notably above target in relation to reducing serious acquisitive crime, reducing the number of road users killed or seriously injured, reducing gun crime, increasing the arrest rate for domestic violence offences and disrupting criminal networks. Performance summaries for measures not already featured above are included below.

17. Victim Satisfaction [Amber]: At 77.7% performance is up marginally on 2007/08 [76.9%] but below the year-end target of 78.9%. The significant amount of work underway to improve user satisfaction was reported to the Strategic & Operational Policing Committees in January, March & April.

18. Satisfaction Gap white and BME victims [Red]: At 4.7 points, the satisfaction gap is similar to 2007/08 [4.8 points] and close to the national average. A report was presented at the April MPA Strategic and Operational Policing Committee meeting and referenced the activities of our Victims and Witness Satisfaction Working Group.

19. Confidence in Local Policing [Amber – only partial result at this stage]: Results for this measure are derived from the HO BCS. Latest results for the year ending December 2008 show confidence at 54.8%, up 0.6% on the year to September 2008 but below the year-end target. The MPS is ranked 1st in its MSF group and 15th out of 42 police forces in England & Wales. The MPA should note that the key overall indicator for confidence changes in 2009/10 [1]. The Home Office has set the MPS a challenging goal to achieve a confidence level of 55.4% by March 2011 and 59.4% by March 2012 against current performance of 48.2% [year to end December 2008].

20. Road Traffic Casualties [Green]: Provisional full-year results show a significant 18.5% year-on-year reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured. Road fatalities have reduced by 20.5% (48 fatalities) compared to 2007/08.

21. Criminal networks [Green]: Year-end targets were met for both the number of criminal networks disrupted [30.4 monthly average vs target of 29.2] and the number of cases where assets were restrained or assets seized [240 monthly average vs target 208].

22. Sanction Detections for Class A trafficking [1 x Amber, 2 x Green]: The sanction detection target for all Class A drug trafficking offences was narrowly missed – an annual total of 2,516 sanction detections against a target of greater than 2,525. However, individual targets in relation to cocaine/crack and heroin were both met.

Other Policing Plan measures

23. Appendix 3 provides performance information on other measures featured in the 2008/09 Policing Plan including commentary on exceptions. All of the additional policing plan measures are on target except the percentage of staff trained and refresher trained to Level 2. Commentary for this exception is included in Appendix 3.

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 disproportionality indicators where applicable.

D. Financial implications

The content of this report raises no additional financial implications beyond forecasts and estimates previously presented to the authority.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: MPS Strategy and Improvement Department

For information contact:

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

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