Headline performance report for 2010/11

Report: 7
Date: 7 April 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 eleven months to 28 February 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 28 February 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 February 2011 (“the period”) compared to the same period in 2009/10 unless otherwise stated.

2. There is a separate report every two months on borough performance with the next one scheduled for May, and so this report concentrates on looking at performance from a MPS-wide perspective.

Report Structure

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).

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. As has been the case recently violent crime including recorded hate crime is occurring at lower levels than last year with the exception of homicide. Although some types of property crime are rising vs last year they are not high when viewed over the longer term. Moreover for most of the property crime types we are charging more offenders this year.

5. The number of violent assaults where the victim was injured (VWI) has fallen by more than 3,700.

6. Offences where a firearm has been discharged and those where a knife has been used to injure have also declined with 56 and 63 fewer crimes respectively.

7. Homicide is at its second lowest level this year for the last decade but there have been 20 more homicides this year than in 2009/10.

8. Looked at over the longer term, robbery (and personal robbery) are at their third lowest levels for the last ten years. However robbery this year is 8.2% above last year as a result of the increase in personal robberies. The MPS’s work against personal robbery supported by Victim Offender Location and Time (VOLT) analysis has resulted in 634 more people being charged this year with that offence -an increase of 17%.

9. Business robbery has reduced by 5.8% or 174 offences.

10. Thefts of motor vehicles and thefts from motor vehicles are both at their second lowest levels for the last ten years but are 6.5% and 1.8% respectively above last year’s figures for those offences.

11. There have been over 400 fewer residential burglaries this year and over 400 more burglars have been taken to court. The MPS has launched Operation Focus which is running for the last quarter of 2010/11 to tackle residential burglary using VOLT principles.

12. The sanction detection rates for recorded domestic violence, racist and religious hate crime, and homophobic crime are all at five year highs as well as being on target

13. 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.

14. On 30 March Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) is expected to publish on its website the next version of the Police Report Card. As mentioned in the previous report there will only be eight high level items - 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. Most of the information will relate to 2009/10.

15. The Report Card will rank forces 1 to 43 so the MPS will be compared against all the forces in England & Wales. The special demands of policing a large expensive urban area, will have a detrimental impact on the MPS’s ranks.

16. On 10 February 2011 the Mayor gave a budget statement to the London Assembly in which he outlined an additional investment of £42m. That money has enabled the MPS to begin again police officer recruitment. As a result 193 officer recruits were selected in March.

Confidence in local policing - people agreeing police & local council are dealing with local crime & anti-social behaviour (ASB) issues - This information is produced quarterly and there is no new data for this report.

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 May meeting.

Serious Acquisitive Crime (SAC)

17. SAC (robbery, MV crime and residential burglary) has gone up by 2.7% / 4,731 in the period compared to last year and so is missing the reduction target. Because of the link between drug addiction and property crime, this rise may in part be due to the doubling of the street price of heroin in the last few months as a result of a poor opium harvest last year in Afghanistan. This year continues to have the second lowest number of these offences in the last ten years.

18. The SAC SD rate of 9.6% is the same as it was in 2009/10 at this time. Consequently the very challenging target of 12.2% will not be met.

19. Residential burglary is still below last year’s level by -0.8% meaning over 400 fewer residential burglaries this year than last, but missing the target to reduce by 4%. It is 6% below the average number of these offences for the last ten years and December 2009 and January 2010 had particularly low levels of residential burglary.

20. The MPS launched Operation Focus at the end of January and it is scheduled to continue until at least the end March 2011. It is aimed at residential burglary and uses the VOLT (Victim, Offender Location & Time) approach to furnish boroughs with help and intervention to concentrate on the victims most likely to get burgled, the most active burglars and the locations/venues that pose the biggest risks. The Operation will also collect and spread good practice across London as well as regularly monitor the situation to insure that resources are where they are most needed.

21. The SD rate of 12.7% is better than last years’ 12.1% but below the 16% target for this year. The success of the efforts by the MPS to tackle domestic burglaries is evidenced by the fact that the number of people charged with domestic burglary this year is over 400 (15%) above last year and more than 650 above the level of 2008/09.

22. Although robberies are 8.2% above last year’s level and missing the reduction target, they continue to be at their third lowest level for the last decade. The rise in personal robbery is the reason overall robbery has increased. Business robbery is 5.8% below the level of 2009/10.

23. The MPS has been keeping pace with the rise in robberies by solving these crimes at a higher rate than last year. Although missing the 19% target, the SD rate has increased from 15.7% in 2009/10 to 16.4% in 2010/11.

24. Personal robbery remains an area of particular focus for the MPS because it is 9.7% (2,627) above last year. When one takes a longer term perspective, 2010/11 has had the third fewest of these robberies in the last decade. This year’s total is more than 4,000 under the average for the last decade.

25. Due to the harm that can result, we are especially concerned about robberies where a gun or knife/sharp object is used. It is important to bear in mind that around three quarters of robberies do not involve those weapons. Both personal and business robberies where a gun is involved have dropped by more than 20% between this year and last. This is particularly important for business robbery where these offences account for 17% of the total whereas they are only 3% of personal robberies. Knife personal robberies account for a little over a fifth of both types of robberies and are at a higher level this year than last for both offence types.

26. Previous reports have detailed the initiatives that the MPS has launched to deal with knife robbery and violence including Operation Blunt 2, Autumn Nights and Safer Transport Crime Squads to boroughs encountering particular problems with robbery. In addition Area Commanders are taking particular responsibility for dealing with robbery in their areas. The overarching principle is an intelligence lead focus on “hotspots” where this crime is most prevalent, the times when the offences are most likely to occur and on the people who are most likely to commit these crimes.

27. As a result of the work at borough and centrally 634 more people have been charged with personal robbery - a rise of 17%. That is the major reason why the SD rate for personal robbery has improved from 14.6% last year to 15.7% this year.

28. The more serious personal robberies do not seem to be increasing as much as personal robbery as a whole. Those where a knife was used to injure or a firearm was discharged this year (637) are very close to the number last year (631). In contrast those where neither a gun or a knife was involved increased by 10%. Moreover the item taken that has increased the most is mobile phones as mentioned in the previous report.

29. Thefts from a motor vehicle are at their second lowest level in the last ten years. They are 1.8% above the figure last year and so not meeting the 3% reduction target. On the other hand there are nearly 17,000 fewer thefts from motor vehicles than the average for the last ten years. As mentioned previously satellite navigation devices and vehicle registration plates are the items most stolen but they have only changed by 0% and +3% respectively. In contrast thefts of cash & credit cards etc. have increased by 13% and power tools by 25% although the latter equate to only a third of the satellite navigation devices.

30. The other component of motor vehicle crime, theft of a vehicle is also at its second lowest level in the last ten years. While it has risen by 6.5% (1506) and is not on course to meet the 2% reduction goal, it is almost 36% / 14,000 below the ten year average number of vehicles stolen. The principal driver seems to be the rise in the price of scrap metal. The theft of vehicles ten or more years old has risen this year while they fell last year while at the same time newer vehicle thefts have continued to fall this year.

31. The motor vehicle SD rate of 5.4% is below last year’s rate of 6.1% and the 7.5% target. However that is primarily because the number of offences taken into consideration (at court) and cautions have fallen. The number of people actually charged with motor vehicle offences has increased by over 200 or 9% meaning that the MPS is bringing more people to court for these crimes.

Homicide

32. The number of homicide victims is the second fewest since 2001/02. While 20 more people have died as a result of violence this year than last, the number of victims this year is 27 below the nine year average.

33. 2010/11 has fewer young victims (aged 1 -19) than three out of the last four years but 12 more than last year. Homicides due to knives/sharp objects are at their second lowest level since 2002/03 but there have been 9 more of these deaths than last year. The number of shooting deaths at 25 is 3 above the average for the nine years since 2002/03 and 11 above the number last year. It is important to bear in mind that homicide numbers are thankfully relatively small and so can fluctuate quite a bit leading to changes that are small in numbers but big proportionately between years.

34. The 92% detection rate for homicide exceeds the 85% target.

Other Serious Violence

35. VWI has been declining for the last four years with 2010/11 17% below the level in 2006/07 when comparable information became available. Furthermore there have been almost 3,700 fewer offences this year than last giving a reduction of 5.7%. That reduction achieves the 4% reduction target set for most serious violence.

36. The decline in VWI applies to both gun VWI of which there have been 77 fewer offences or -11%, and to knife VWI where the number of offences is 174 below last year’s total at this time in the year or -4%.

37. The above reductions must be in part attributable to the focus of the boroughs on reducing VWI. Other factors are likely to be the actions detailed elsewhere in this paper aimed at robbery and weapons crime which also impact on VWI. 80% of the activities of the various units of the MPS’s Territorial Support Group are aimed at violence. Operation Verano provides a pan-London focus for addressing the most serious violence proactively where possible and in a coordinated and holistic manner. It may also be the case that a decline in people going to pubs has had a positive impact on VWI.

38. The SD rate is 32.9% which is very slightly above the rates for the two previous years and 7 percentage points above the rate 4 years ago in 2007/08.

Knife & gun crime

39. The MPS is not meeting the 4% reduction for knife crime because of the rise in knife robbery. Nevertheless as stated in previous reports, the MPS’s primary concern is the most serious weapon offences because of the harm they do both physically and to public reassurance. Offences where a knife (or a sharp object) has been used to injure have fallen by 63 offences or -1.6%. The MPS has achieved a 1 percentage point improvement in the sanction detection rate which stands at 32.3% this year compared to 31.3% last year. The activities mentioned above regarding robbery and VWI apply to the most serious knife offences as well.

40. Overall gun crime is down by 19% so the target of a decrease of 5% is being met. As with knife crime the MPS is concentrating on the most serious crimes which are gun crime where a firearm is discharged. These have declined by 56 or 8.4% and also exceeds the reduction target for all gun crime of 5%. Previous reports have listed the many actions the MPS is taking to reduce these offences. Examples are joint action plans between specialist central units and boroughs around key events and plans, work with key partners such as the Post Office to disrupt gun supplies, increased armed support to boroughs, better use of forensics and mediation/intervention. Intelligence suggests that the latter has prevented several murders and numerous shootings.

41. The SD rate for gun crime where a firearm has been discharged is 18.5% a little lower than the rate of 20.3% last year. The rate for overall gun crime is 28.5% almost 3 percentage points up against the rate last year when it was 25.6%.

Rape Victims Survey -

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

Reported Hate crimes

42. There have been over 2,500 fewer domestic violence offences and more than 1,100 fewer racist and religious crimes which equate to reductions of 5% and 12%. Homophobic crime fell by 33 offences / 3% over last year.

43. The SD rates for all three hate crimes are at their highest levels for the last 5 years when comparable data is available. They are all also above their targets - domestic violence SD rate at 48.7% vs a 47% target, racist offences SD rate of 49% vs a 45% target and homophobic crime SD rate at 52.9% vs a 45% target. The improvements in the number of recorded crimes combined with those in the SD rates are a result of the MPS in general and the boroughs in particular applying more and better attention on confronting hate crime.

44. The arrest rate for DV offences is also at an all time high with of 81.7% of offences resulting in an arrest. While only 1 percentage point above the rate last year it is more than 25% above the rate five years ago.

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

45. There have been 39 fewer people dying in road collisions this financial year to February compared to the same period last year when there were 160 fatalities.

46. In February there were 14 proactive operations by the MPS’s traffic units to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured. Half of those were aimed at cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers of LGVs as they are the road user groups that pose the biggest risks.

47. The Commercial Vehicle Unit carried out a number of operations last month. One, supported by ACPO, took place at City Airport where commercial vehicles and drivers were checked for road worthiness, compliance with the tax, licensing, insurance and drivers hours regulations as well as for involvement in criminal activity. There was a proactive check on commercial vehicles entering and leaving the Olympic site. Another operation at Victoria Coach Station was aimed at criminality and illegal coaches/drivers on the international coach network entering the UK.

48. A key part of the MPS’s campaign to reduce KSIs is taking dangerous drivers off the road. In the eleven months to February more than 4,000 people have been disqualified from driving. That is 9% above the monthly average for 2009/10. Nearly all disqualifications are due to some degree of bad driving or having a dangerous vehicle.

49. There are a wide range of other regular enforcement, research, liaison and education actions that the MPS takes often with partners to make the roads safer. All of these measures contribute to the 309 fewer KSIs (-10%) in the twelve months to November compared to the previous 12 months. That means that there was a monthly average of 37 fewer KSIs than the target for 2010/11.

Police officer recruits from minority ethnic groups

50. Recruitment of police officers has resumed in March after it was paused last August for budgetary reasons. 18% of the 342 police officer recruits in 2010/11 were from a BME background. That is just shy of the 20% target.

51. This is the first intake to begin training since the pause in recruitment has been lifted. The student officers will undertake a bespoke training course, as they have already served as community support officers.

Counter Terrorism

52. The situation presented in the previous report remains the current position.

Olympic and Paralympic Risk Exception Report

53. The report covers the month ending on the 10th March. The priority risks for the Olympic Security Directorate are unchanged from last month.

54. There are no new risks for the Olympic Business Group Risk Log which has the risks that are within the control of the MPS. Work to monitor and deal with these risks and those in the previous paragraph is ongoing.

55. This May will mark the formal beginning of moving projects from the planning stage to operational delivery though some have already moved unofficially. This will result in a change to the reporting regime so that the emphasis will be more on KPIs and less on highlighted exception reports. The Olympics Command of the MPS and the Home Office’s Olympic Security Directorate are looking at each project to devise reporting frameworks for when the projects are operational, building on existing practices and processes where possible.

56. The previous report referred to the launch of Operation Podium to deal with serious and organised criminal networks that may target the Olympics economy. On 8 March detectives from the Podium Team made five arrests as part of their crackdown against organised criminal networks involved in ticketing crime.

Cashable savings delivered

57. 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

3. 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.

4. The Mayor's draft budget proposals were presented to and approved by the London Assembly on 23rd 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 the MPA Full Authority on 24th February that provided an analysis of the changes in the budget and business plan from the Full Authority meeting on 27 January. The final 2011-14 Policing London Business Plan was considered by a joint meeting of the Strategic and Operational Policing and Finance and Resources Committees on 17 March and Full Authority on 31 March 2011.

5. The revenue monitoring position for 2010/11 at Period 10 (to the end of January) is a forecast under-spend of £3.5m (0.1% of budget). However, Management Board have agreed the need to manage down expenditure to deliver an under-spend of £11m to support the 2011-14 budget position.

6. The Capital Programme as at Period 10 (to the end of January) shows year to date total expenditure of £137.2m. This total represents 49.7% of the revised annual budget of £276.3m. The forecast for the year of £206.5m represents an under-spend of £69.8m (25.3% of the revised annual budget).

Legal Implications

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

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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

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

Acronym List

ACPO

Association of Chief Police Officers

AWI

Assault With Injury

ASB

Anti-social behaviour

BCS

British Crime Survey

BME

Black and Minority Ethnic

CSR

Comprehensive Spending Review

DCFD

Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate

DV

Domestic Violence

ESPS

Equality Standard for the Police Service

FYTD

Financial Year to Date (period since 1 April covered in this report)

KPIs

Key Performance Indicators

KSI

Killed or Seriously Injured

MPA

Metropolitan Police Authority

MPS

Metropolitan Police Service

MSV

Most Serious Violence

MV

Motor Vehicle

NCA

National Crime Agency

OPC

Olympic Policing Coordination team

OSD

Olympic Security Directorate

SAC

Serious Acquisitive Crime

SCD

Specialist Crime Directorate

SCD 2

The unit of SCD that deals with serious sexual offences

SD

Sanction Detections

SOP

Strategic and Operational Policing

TIC

Taken Into Consideration

TfL

Transport for London

TPHQ

Territorial Police Head Quarters

VWI

Violence With Injury

D. Background papers

None

D. Contact details

Report author: Worth Houghton, MPS Strategy and Improvement Department

For information contact:

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

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