Headline Performance report for 2010/11

Report: 6
Date: 17 March 2011
By: Deputy Commissioner on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This paper describes performance in the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and other corporate measures compared to their 2010/11 targets in the Policing London Business Plan 2010–13 for the ten months to 31 January 2011.

A. Recommendation

That

1. Members note the 2010/11 performance in the indicators shown in the Policing Plan against their targets and the MPS’s activity underway to improve outcomes.

B. Supporting information

1. This report provides an overview of how the MPS is performing in the financial year 2010/11 to 31 January 2011 against the targets set for 2010/11 in the MPA/MPS Policing London Business Plan 2010 -13. The Plan’s primary goals are to reduce crime and increase public confidence in the MPS. The comparisons in the report are for the period from April 2010 to January 2011 (“the period”) compared to the same period in 2009/10 unless otherwise stated.

2. There will be a separate report to this meeting on the performance of boroughs this financial year and so this report concentrates on looking at performance from a MPS-wide perspective. That report will be submitted to this committee every two months.

Report Structure

3. The body of the report focuses on how the KPIs are performing against targets and against the same period last year. It has 3 appendices:

• KPIs - the corporate ‘key’ measures highlighted in the Policing Plan (Appendix 1).
• Other Corporate Policing Plan Indicators – all non-KPI corporate measures (CMs) featured in the Policing Plan (Appendix 2).
• Graphs of crime trends over the last 10 years - data is in calendar years as it is about trends rather than targets, so figures are not the same as in the body of this report(Appendix 3)
• Monthly breakdown of Aid by boroughs from September 2010 to January. (Appendix 4)

The indicators are graded red, amber or green in Appendix 1 as follows:

Red - performance off target and worse than at the same time last year

Amber - performance off target but better than at the same time last year

Green - performance is on or better than target.

Current performance focus

Summary

4. The trend in public confidence in the MPS as measured in the Government’s British Crime Survey, has reached its highest level since 2008 when the question was introduced. The MPS has the fourth highest level of public confidence of the 43 forces in England & Wales.

5. The crime trends over the last few months continue to show a good fall in violence but with continuing problems with property crime particularly personal robbery.

6. Violence with injury (VWI) has reduced with almost 3,500 fewer victims of violent assaults this year. Moreover the number of the more serious crimes where a gun has been discharged have dropped by 8.3%. The trend for the most serious knife crimes is similar with 103 fewer offences where a knife/sharp object has been used to injure. This is encouraging given the efforts the MPS centrally and at borough level has devoted to reducing violence.

7. The MPS has also concentrated a lot of attention on robbery and in fact many of the actions against violence overlap with those against robbery. Although robbery has increased this year by 7.8% because of the increase in personal robbery, it is currently over 4,000 (13%) offences below the average for the last ten years. The MPS has worked hard to improve its ability to bring robbers to justice and as a result more than 500 people have been charged with that crime compared to last year.

8. There have been 136 fewer business robberies a fall of 5%.

9. This improvement in apprehending offenders is reflected in the fact that almost all the sanction detection rate (SD) KPIs are showing an improvement over last year. Motor vehicle crime is the exception to that trend. The hate crime SD rates are not only better than last year but also meeting their targets.

10. However it is important to look at crime trends over the long as well as the short term and for that purpose we have added Appendix 3 to this report. It was part of the report that was circulated to Members for last month’s meeting and consists of graphs of calendar year data for the six crime types for which we have reduction KPIs and for which we have figures for at least the last five years.

11. Crime levels this year are substantially lower for the six crime types compared to earlier in the ten year period (or five year period in the case of violence with injury). Robbery in 2010 has its third lowest total in the last ten years and is almost 25% lower than it was 5 years ago in 2006. Theft of motor vehicles has steadily declined since 2000 as has theft from motor vehicles albeit not as steeply. Homicides are also much lower than a few years ago with 44% fewer victims this year than in 2003.

12. In March Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) is expected to publish on its website the next version of the Police Report Card. It will be a much simpler version of the document than last year’s with only eight high level items. They are - cost, size of workforce, officer availability, serious crime, level of crime, change in level of crime, level of anti-social behaviour and user satisfaction - expressed per capita where appropriate.

13. Some of the details about individual items are still being finalised and a firm publication date has not been given. The Report Card, which will be mainly using 2009/10 data, will not use most similar force comparisons but will instead rank forces 1 to 43. Due to the crime and security issues that disproportionately affect large metropolitan areas some of these comparisons may show the MPS in a not very favourable light.

14. The Mayor gave a budget statement to the London Assembly on Thursday 10 February 2011. In it, he outlined an investment, of £42m, that will allow the MPS to begin some police officer recruitment, enabling us, as far as possible, to retain significant police numbers to meet the continued counter terrorist threat and ongoing requirements of public order policing commitments.

15. There were over 200 PCSOs who had successfully completed police officer selection prior to the freeze on recruitment. The additional money for officer recruitment will be used initially to allow these PCSOs to train to become police officers. After this initial recruitment intake the MPS aims to include Specials and other PCSOs in future processes.

16. The final MPS budget still needs sign off from the Metropolitan Police Authority. The additional £42m is a very welcome addition to next year's budget however it doesn't take away from the challenging financial picture ahead. All of this is set against substantial savings of £163m that the MPS will have to deliver next year with a focus on ensuring efficient and effective support services at the lowest possible cost and reducing our inanimate costs (vehicles, buildings, etc.) as quickly as possible.

17. Members asked for information on Aid provided by boroughs recently. Appendix 4 gives a breakdown of that AID over the last 5 months. The table shows at the bottom, the proportion of aid in the other months compared to December when the demands for Aid because of the student demonstrations were at their peak. Aid in November was only two thirds that of December and the other three months were around half or less of that month.

18. Central Operations strives to allocate aid requirements fairly and equitably across MPS. To do so it takes the following factors into account;

• Location of event to minimise travelling distances.
• Personnel Allocation Formula (PAF) - A record of all aid supplied over a rolling 13 month period (Past 12 months and current month). The formula ensures all boroughs supply aid in proportion to their size over the course of a year and is adjusted to exclude Safer Neighbourhood Teams
• Other events on the same day.
  
• Other factors - Such as competing events/demands e.g. a borough has its own event or operation.

Thus aid demands may not be proportionate for a borough in a particular month/months but they will eventually be over the course of a year.

Confidence in local policing - people agreeing police & local council are dealing with local crime & anti-social behaviour (ASB) issues

19. 56.7% of the British Crime Survey (BCS) respondents in London agreed that the police and local council are dealing with ASB and crime issues that matter in their area. The period covered in this Government survey was for the twelve months to September 2010.

20. The figure for London exceeds the KPI target of 55.4%. It was the fourth best result for police forces in England & Wales and the best in the MPS’s Home Office Group of most similar forces (MSF) and 4.5% points above the average for England and Wales. That is a statistically significant difference meaning that the difference is too big to be due to the sampling methodology. Moreover it is 5.5%pts above the 51.2% for the 12 months to September 2009 as well as being 0.7% pts above the 12 months to June 2010 showing that Londoners’ confidence in the MPS to provide the service they expect to be safe is steadily getting better.

21. Another encouraging result from that survey was that 58.6% of Londoners agreed that the police deal with local concerns. That was the 16th best % in E & W and the best in the MSF as well as being 2%pts over the 56.7% for the police and local councils. It is almost 2%pts above the E & W average and almost 4% pts above the rate as for the MPS for the year to September 2009 and so again demonstrating ongoing improvement.

22. As Members may recall the Government cancelled the targets for this KPI (police and local councils deal with local crime and ASB) for forces in June 2010. It is noteworthy that the Police Report Card mentioned above does not include a public confidence item suggesting that it will not have as high as profile as it did in the past.

User Satisfaction & Satisfaction of white & BME users with the overall service provided. Data is provided quarterly so there will be no new figures until the April meeting.

Policing Pledge Promises

23. This paper is now scheduled to go to the April meeting of this Committee.

Serious Acquisitive Crime (SAC)

24. There have been 2.5% / 4,047 (1,385 (1.0%)) more serious acquisitive crimes (robbery, MV crime and residential burglary) vs. the 3.2% reduction target. Personal robbery, theft from and theft of motor vehicles are above last year’s levels and residential burglary has been rising since November 2010. A possible factor in this rise could be the fact that the street price of heroin has doubled in the last few months as a result of infestations affecting the harvest last year of opium in Afghanistan. Nevertheless over the last decade only last year had fewer SAC offences.

25. The SAC SD rate of 9.5% is not dissimilar to last year’s performance of 9.7% (9.8%). However the ambitious target of 12.2% is not being achieved.

26. Although the 4% reduction target for residential burglaries is not being achieved, there have been 723 / -1.4% fewer of those burglaries this year. It is worth noting that both December 2009 and January 2010 had easily the lowest levels of residential burglaries for their respective months and this is a factor why the rate of decrease has reduced. That said, in historical terms residential burglary is 7% below the level 5 years ago and 19% below 2001/02 the highest year in the last decade.

27. As mentioned above the rise in the price of heroin may also be a driver for the trend not being as positive over the last couple of months as it was earlier in the year.

28. Another driver for more residential burglaries may be the rise in the price of gold. While most of the items, including cash, that are most likely to be stolen, have fallen since last year, rings necklaces/pendants have increased albeit in the region of 5%. That suggests that houses where people are thought to have jewellery are being targeted. The other item that has increased is laptop computers (but not game consoles) probably because they are becoming smaller and thus more portable and more common.

29. The MPS has launched Operation Focus to reduce residential burglary. It began on 27th January and current plans are for it to run until the end March 2011 but it may be extended further if necessary.

30. The operation will concentrate additional support and intervention upon the highest risk victims, the most prolific offenders and the highest risk locations/venues. It will also review existing crime reduction plans and resource allocations to identify where further support can offer the best return. Finally it will capture tactical learning from all contributions to burglary reduction and deploy them rapidly across London. Two key elements of the operation will be looking at cross border residential burglary and being flexible through weekly reviews to see if attention needs to be redirected because of changing trends.

31. That said, in historical terms residential burglary is 7% below the level 5 years ago and 19% below 2001/02 the highest year in the last decade.

32. The SD rate at 12.8% is an improvement on the 11.9% at this time last year but it is not achieving the target of 16%. The fact that there have 466 (19%) more people charged this year with residential burglary is evidence of the successful efforts boroughs are exerting to catch burglars.

33. Robberies for the period in 2010/11 is at its third lowest level for the last ten yen years even though it is 7.8% (2,118) above last year and so missing the reduction target. To put that into perspective the number of robberies in the period is over 4,000 (13%) lower than the average for the last ten years.

34. In spite of the rise in robbery the SD rate has increased from 15.7% to 16.3%. While below the 19% SD rate target it is remains better than any previous year in the last decade except 2009/10.

35. However the situation with personal robbery continues to be a cause for concern due to a rise over last year of 2,254 / 9.2% in those offences and is the reason overall robbery has gone up. Nevertheless the number of these robberies are almost 5,000 below the ten year average.

36. Looking at the use of weapons in personal robbery around three quarters do not involve a knife or a gun. Those robberies are 9% above last year’s level while those involving a gun have declined by 23% but they only account for 3% of personal robberies. Our focus is on knife personal robberies which have increased by 16% because of the potential for harm as they account for over a fifth of these robberies.

37. However personal robberies where a knife has been used to injure is practically the same as last year suggesting that the more serious robberies have not increased significantly. That hypothesis is supported by the fact that the rise appears to be driven by thefts of mobile phones which have increased numerically by far (1,904) more than the next closest item - necklace/pendent which rose by 267.

38. Mobile phones are also the item most stolen followed by cash which has declined (-5%) and cash/credit cards that have increased by 2%. Necklace/pendants increased by 31% in personal robbery indicating that they are being targeted by robbers more now because of the rise in the price of gold as mentioned previously.

39. Previous reports have set out the various central actions to tackle robbery and knife crime such as Operation Blunt 2, Autumn Nights, which now will run until March 2011, and Safer Transport Crime Squads to boroughs encountering particular problems with robbery as well as last months media campaign to alert the public to how they can avoid being a robbery victim. A separate report on borough performance is being submitted to this meeting. It will furnish examples of the initiatives boroughs are taking to reduce the harm caused by robbery in their localities.

40. The activities at borough and MPS-wide levels have resulted in the SD rate for personal robbery being at its second best level for the last ten years and has improved from 14.6% last year to 15.7% this year. That is due in the main to 569 more people being charged with personal robbery this year. That demonstrates that the MPS has considerably improved its effectiveness in bringing these offenders to justice as a result of the effort it has devoted to and the focus it has brought to bear in, this area.

41. Business robberies have declined by 136 / 5.1% this year. As with personal robbery, business robberies with knives rose (7%) but those with guns have fallen (25%). Business robberies where a knife was used to injure declined by 3 from 38 to 35.

42. About a quarter of motor vehicle crime consists of the theft of vehicles. It is 6.3% (1,335) above last year’s level as opposed to the 2% reduction target. Nevertheless as with other property crime this year’s figures are not so bad when looked at over the last ten years. It is the second lowest total for that time span and is more than 12,000 below the average for those years.

43. As mentioned previously these thefts are a particular problem in the North East Area but they affect other areas as well though not to the same extent.

44. The other component of motor vehicle crime, thefts from a motor vehicle have increased but by less than theft of a motor vehicle. Again when looked at over the longer term, 2010/11 is also the second lowest year since 2001/02 and is 15,000 plus offences below the ten year average. While registration plates and satellite navigation devices are the items most taken, currency and power hand tools have had bigger numerical and percentage increases this year over last. Interestingly thefts of audio/radio/CD players have declined by 13% perhaps reflecting better security for those items.

Homicide

45. 2010/11 has the second lowest number of homicides over the past ten years. Although there have been 10 more homicide victims than last year, there have been 35 fewer victims in 2010/11 than the average for the last decade.

46. The trend in the age profile of the victims is similar to previous reports with 12 more young people (1-19), 3 less older people (20+) and one more infant (under 1) becoming fatalities as a result of a homicide this year. The 24 fatalities aged 1-19 this year are in line with the figures for previous years - 2009/10 had the fewest in the last eight years with 9 less than the next lowest year.

47. The MPS is particularly concerned about young victims and the corner stone of its strategy against knife crime is to prevent homicides particularly of young people. This year there have 10 young people who have died as a result of wounds from knives/sharp instruments vs. 8 last year. The unpredictable nature of homicide offences makes effective preventative deployment of resources difficult.

48. The detection rate for homicide is 92.7% which meets the 85% target set for this year. Better forensic services such as; enhanced DNA examination, increasing sophistication of fingerprint retrieval and introduction of NABIS (ballistic comparator for all firearms across the UK) are improving performance in this area.

Other Serious Violence

49. There have been almost 3,500 (3,457) fewer VWI offences this year than last. That means that the 4% reduction target set for most serious violence is being achieved by the 5.8% fall in these offences this year. Comparable information is only available for the last five years. 2010/11 last the fewest violent assaults in that time with almost 4,700 fewer offences than the average for those years. Both gun and knife VWI are below last year’s levels with drops of 76/12% and 191/5% respectively.

50. The MPS’s activities against violence continue to be a balanced and coordinated mixture of borough action and central activities such as operations Verano, Blunt 2, and Protect, educational visits on the dangers of serious violence and anti-weapons campaigns. They are likely to have been instrumental in the decline in VWI offences as well as the achievement of the 32.9% SD rate. The SD rate is the best in the 5 year period and although slightly higher than 09/10’s 32.5% significantly improved on the 25.2% of 2006/07.

51. A further contributor to the decline in VWI over the last few years may have been the decline in alcohol consumption probably as a result of the downturn in the economy.

Knife & gun crime

52. The focus of the MPS’s efforts against weapon facilitated crime has been to concentrate attention and monitoring on the offences that have the potential to cause the most harm. In the case of knife crime that means offences where a knife (or sharp object) has been used to injure. There have been 103 fewer of these offences, a fall of 2.9%. With gun crime we are especially concerned about offences where a firearm has been discharged of which there have been 52 or 8.3% fewer.

53. Gun crime as a whole has declined by 514 offences or almost 18%. Knife crime as a whole has risen by almost 6% (615 offences) because of the increase mentioned above in knife robberies. The SD rate for all knife crime is about the same as last year at 24.3% but the rate for gun crime has gone up by 2.5% points to 28.0%. That indicates the increasing success of the MPS in apprehending those using guns for illegal purposes.

54. Much of the action against robbery and violence mentioned above covers knife crime.

55. There are various initiatives by the MPS to tackle gun crime many of which have been set out in previous reports. The efforts are focussed on hot-spots within boroughs and targeting offenders known to be linked to gun criminality. Partnership working is also very important and includes activities such as joint operational activity with key partners e.g. Post Office to combat the supply of firearms through the postal system.

56. SCD3 continues to utilise mediation/intervention to enhance performance – intelligence highlights that such work has prevented several murders and numerous shootings. SCD3 are also undertaking partnership development for the MPS Anti-Violence Strategy ensuring that gun crime is considered alongside all anti-violence initiatives. SCD3 have also released 'Gang & Group Offender' Practitioners Handbook providing 'ideas and interventions' for BOCU/SCD units.

Rape Victims Survey

This survey is conducted quarterly and there is no new information for this report

57. While not directly relevant to the survey, the Home Office’s publication Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2009/10 gave figures derived from the BCS for 2009/10 that of the respondents who were victims of a serious sexual assault less than 10% reported the assault to the police.

Reported Hate crimes

58. Recorded domestic violence, racist and religious crime and homophobic crime are all still showing falls of 5.2%, 4.9% and 2.1% respectively for 2010/11 compared to last year. That translates into more than 2,000 fewer domestic violence offences and almost 1,000 fewer racist and religious crimes and 25 fewer homophobic offences - they occur much less frequently than the other two types of hate crime. All three sanction detection rates are on target at 48.6%, 48.5% and 52.1% compared to their targets of 47%, 45% & 45%. The drops in recorded offences together with the SD rate targets being met indicates that the MPS is becoming increasingly effective in dealing with hate crime.

59. The arrest rate for DV offences of 81.6% is above the 80% target. The arrests of DV perpetrators is seen as a deterrent and an indication that the MPS is taking these offences seriously.

People killed or seriously injured (KSI) in road traffic collisions

60. In the ten months to January the number of people who have died in road traffic collisions has fallen by 36 from 149 for the period last year to 113 this year.

61. The MPS traffic units carried out 11 proactive operations aimed at reducing KSIs in January. Because they feature disproportionately in road traffic collisions where people are serious hurt, 6 of those operations were targeted at cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers of LGVs.

62. This year more than 3,200 people have been disqualified from driving through December. That means that the number of disqualifications is running at 5% above the monthly average for all 2009/10 even with December being a normally low month because of fewer court dates due to the holidays. Nearly all disqualifications are due to some degree of bad driving or having a dangerous vehicle.

63. Other examples of the action the MPS has taken other action to reduce traffic casualties are additional traffic enforcement measures such as issuing fixed penalty notices for the less serious traffic offences, identifying dangerous traffic ‘hot spots’ in conjunction with TfL and London boroughs for possible improvements, and education campaigns on road safety issues. The above activities have been instrumental in the encouraging trend of 169 fewer KSI victims in the 12 months to October 2010 compared to the 12 months to October 2009. That means that KSIs are 11.5% below the target of having fewer than 277 people killed or seriously injured a month.

Police officer recruits from minority ethnic groups

There is no new data because recruitment had been suspended. However it is hoped that 200 more new officers will be recruited in 2010/11 from the PCSOs who had successfully completed police officer selection prior to the freeze on recruitment.

Counter Terrorism

64. The situation presented in the pervious report remains the current position.

Olympic and Paralympic Risk Exception Report

65. The report covers the month ending on the 10th February. Two new risks have been added to the register Risk 21 - inability of the private sector to meet security needs for fencing and Risk 23 - failure to correctly sequence the release of safety and security information to communities and businesses. Work is ongoing to meet the challenges these risks pose as it is with the other risks on the other priority risks already identified.

66. Last month’s report referred to the Olympic risk in The Corporate Risk Register and the development of the Olympic Business Group Risk Log for risks that are within the control of the MPS. The major challenge is the risk: “Failure to maintain an appropriate level of business as usual immediately before, during and immediately following the Games period”. Considerable work is already in hand to meet that challenge by mitigating the following subsidiary risks:

1. Inability to meet resource demands placed on the MPS as a result of non-Olympic events e.g. Notting Hill Carnival, Queen's Jubilee
2. Unplanned diversion of resources onto Olympic activities either for tactical reasons or major incident coverage immediately before, during and following the Games period
3. Unexpected reductions in police staff

67. Those efforts are aimed at focussing the actions and expertise of the various units in the MPS on managing those issues in an effective, comprehensive and ‘joined-up’ manner. In that way the policing of the Olympics and the ‘normal’ policing of London and the transition between the two will fit seamlessly together.

68. In a separate development, the MPS has set up Operation Podium to deal with serious and organised criminal networks that may target the Olympics economy. The team will work in partnership with industry and key delivery organisations to create as hostile an environment as possible for the networks to operate in. The operation consists of a dedicated team funded by the Home Office. They currently have a number of ongoing investigations and court cases ranging from fraudulent event tickets to construction fraud.

Cashable savings delivered

69. This figure is prepared quarterly and so there is no new information for this report.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Race and Equality Impact

1. The regular review of the statistics provided enables the MPS to highlight areas for diversity and equality consideration and address them accordingly.

Consideration of MET Forward

2. The KPIs and other corporate measures covered in this report reflect performance against the key outcomes of Met Forward: fighting crime and reducing criminality, increasing confidence in policing, and providing better value for money.

Financial Implications

1. Previous meetings have been told about the Government’s ‘in year’ reduction in policing grant and the resulting cuts of £28m in general expenditure and £5m in counter terrorism funding. We are endeavouring to deal with this reduced funding which is on top of the £124m reductions that were part of the 2010/11 budget.

2. The Mayor's draft budget proposals were presented to the London Assembly on 10th February. A balanced budget position now exists in 2011/12 for the MPS/MPA with budget gaps of £92.8m (2012/13) and £174.3m (2013/14). A report was considered by a joint meeting of the MPA Strategic and Operational Policing Committee and the MPA Finance and Resources Committee on 17th February that provided an analysis of the changes in the budget and business plan from the Full Authority meeting on 27 January.

3. The revenue monitoring position for 2010/11 at Period 9 (to the end of December) is a forecast overspend of £0.9m (0% of budget). However, Management Board have agreed the need to manage down expenditure to deliver an underspend of £11m to support the 2011-14 budget position.

4. The Capital Programme as at Period 9 (to the end of December) shows year to date total expenditure of £124.1m. This total represents 44.9% of the revised annual budget of £276.3m. The forecast for the year of £224.7m represents an underspend of £51.6m (18.7% of the revised annual budget).

Legal Implications

5. There are no direct legal implications arising, as this is a performance monitoring report.

6. The MPA has a duty to secure the maintenance of an efficient and effective police force for its area and a duty to hold the chief officer of police of the force to account for the exercise of his functions and those persons under his direction and control, under s6 of the Police Act 1996.

7. The MPA also have a specific duty to monitor the MPS’s performance against the Policing Plan under s6ZA of the Police Act 1996, as inserted by paragraph 8, Schedule 2 of the Police & Justice Act 2006 and the Police Authorities (Particular Functions & Transitional Provisions) Order 2008.

8. The Strategic Operational Committee is the relevant committee to receive the report as its terms of reference set out it is responsible for considering and maintaining police performance against the Policing Plan targets and any performance indicators set locally or by external organisations.

Environmental Implications

9. This report contains no direct environmental implications. The MPS has included an indicator relating to the percentage change in total tonnes of CO2 emissions (from buildings, vehicles, operational air travel) which is reported annually within Appendix 2.

Risk Implications

10. Risks and opportunities identified in related to performance against the KPIs are reflected in the content of this report.

D. Background papers

None

D. Contact details

Report author: Worth Houghton, Strategy and Improvement Department, MPS

For information contact:

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

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