Headline performance report for 2011/12

Report: 6
Date: 13 October 2011
By: Deputy Commissioner on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This paper describes current performance in the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and in other corporate measures.

A. Recommendation

That Members note the performance in the indicators compared with their targets and the MPS’s activity underway to improve outcomes further.

B. Supporting information

1. This document reports on MPS performance against the 2011/12 KPIs and their targets as set out in the MPA/MPS Policing London Business Plan 2011-14. The Plan sets targets not only for 2011/12 but also for the coming three years to encourage planning over the long term as well as the short term in the current difficult financial environment.

Report Structure

2. The portfolios only include crimes where there is a victim as opposed to state based crimes that are discovered as a result of police action to enforce the law or prevent disorder - for example drug and public order offences.

3. The body of the report focuses on how the KPIs are performing against targets, the current trend and other relevant factors. Appendix 1 lists the KPIs, their targets and current and past performance.

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.

5. Percentage figures are rounded to the nearest ‘whole’ number if over 20% i.e. 25% not 24.7% or 25.2%, unless a decimal place is necessary to support the point being made.

6. Unless otherwise stated comparisons over time below are between the first six months of the financial year 2011/12 (April to September 2011) and the equivalent period in 2010. Financial year to date covers those six months.

Serious disorder in August

7. As outlined in previous reports, the MPS is currently undertaking a strategic review of Operation Kirkin, overseen by AC Lynne Owens. Early learning and initial findings have already been identified and include the following:

• The changing nature and sheer scale of events between Saturday 6 and Tuesday 9 August made it very different from anything we had seen in the capital before; resulting in an unprecedented challenge for the MPS.
• Officer numbers were increased each day based on the information and intelligence received however with hindsight the MPS did not have enough officers available on the first night, despite the service mobilisation plan being activated and fully implemented; the additional officers did not arrive quickly enough.
• Inter-operability between MPS officers and those on aid from other forces worked with the radio system Airwave functioning successfully.
• At this stage the review has found no evidence of senior commanders requiring local commanders to not make arrests if offences were taking place; indeed 450 arrests were made over the three nights of disorder.
• The review will cost the options of making water cannon available to the MPS, although it should be noted it does have limitations on what it can be used successfully for.
• The criminal justice response was a successful one, including extending court hours.
• The volume and speed of information on social media was unprecedented and therefore challenging to manage for intelligence purposes.

8. We are responding to these through:

• Changing the way officers are mobilised to enable more (Level 2) public order trained officers to be made available more quickly. Furthermore, reviewing mobilisation across other functions such as investigation, intelligence, logistical support and use of Specials.
• Reviewing options to increase the number of public order trained officers, their vehicles and equipment. Alongside the consideration of new technologies to see if they could provide additional tactical options.
• Embedding of successful criminal justice system practices from the disorder into business as usual, including specific investigator training.
• Training and improving facilities to enable the quicker capture of evidence from large scale events, including a review of our imagery strategy to ensure we are making best use of technology to support timely justice outcomes.
• We are also reviewing the MPS systems for co-ordinating, assessing and prioritising social media content for intelligence purposes.

9. These initial findings will be built upon to deliver an interim report in mid November and a final report by late December 2011, both of which will be shared with the Authority. During the review the MPS is working closely with other organisations and reviews to ensure learning is maximised and the public benefit from an improved police service and criminal justice system.

10. Whilst the review continues, so does the pursuit of those that committed offences during the disorder, under Operation Withern. As at 20th October 2,914 people had been arrested and 1,774 charged. The charges include 9 for arson, 804 for burglary and 312 offences involving violence such as violent disorder and affray. There are a further 100,000 hours of CCTV footage to be reviewed to identify possible offenders.

HMIC Crime Comparator & VfM Profiles

11. HMIC is scheduled to publish comparisons for the forces in England and Wales on its website at the end of October 2011. The “Crime and Policing Comparator” will let the public choose what data and which forces they want to look at and to make comparisons over time. The public can make their comparisons either through bar charts or through examining the actual statistics. The Comparator will provide crime, cost, workforce and quality of service data including user satisfaction rates. It will not contain public confidence information such as KPI 6 below - % of public who think police are doing a good job.

12. It will be accessible through a link from the Home Office’s Police.Uk website. The overview page of Police.Uk will have a box showing force-level crime data over time as well as its normal neighbourhood level figures.

13. HMIC will also be issuing the “VfM (Value for Money) profiles” which will not be public facing. The Profiles contain force level graphs and statistics that compare all forces and most similar force groups over the data sets in the Comparator as well as over other more technical information. We will report to the next meeting on the comparisons in the Profiles.

Summary of Current Performance

14. The main points are:

• Violence Portfolio - there were 7.734 (-9.9%) fewer offences which includes:
  • 3,478 (-9.7%) fewer offences where violent assaults (VWI) took place.
  • 61 homicides this year - 2 fewer than for the first 6 months of last year.
• Property portfolio - the portfolio is 1.7% /4,497offences above the level last year and that covers.
  • 2,879 (+16.8%) more robberies
  • 2,741 offences (+6.3%) more burglaries,
  • 205 (-0.4%) fewer vehicle crimes
• The decline in the use of firearms and knives continued with 92 (-22.5%) fewer crimes where a firearm was discharged and 33 (-1.5%) fewer crimes where a knife was used to injure.
• As was the case last month the three types of hate crime were at lower levels than last year with decreases of 5.3% for domestic violence and 20% for both racist and religious crime and homophobic crime.

Violence Portfolio

15. There were 7,734 (-9.9%) fewer crimes in the financial year to September than in the same period last year. The sanction detection (SD) rate for the portfolio is 27.5% which is a little below the rate for the first six months of last year of 28.2%.

16. There were 61 homicide victims - two fewer than for the same months in 2010. There were 8 young people (aged 1-19) who were homicide victims while the figure for last year was 12. Five of this year’s young victims died as a result of knives/sharp objects

17. Violent assaults where a person suffers a physical injury (VWI) fell by 3,478 or 9.7%. The SD rate for VWI is 31.2%, 1.4% points below the rate for the same period last year.

Reported Hate Crime

18. Total reported hate crime offences have also continued to be below last year’s figures. Domestic violence has fallen by 1,349 (-5.3%) offences. Racist and religious crime has declined by about a fifth (-20%) or 1,029 crimes with a similar percentage drop in homophobic crime of 20% / 164 offences.

Weapon Crime

19. The number of offences where a firearm was discharged and where a knife/sharp object was used to injure fell by 92 (-22.5%) and 33 ( 1.5%) crimes respectively. All gun crime is 14.9% (225 crimes) below last year’s level but knife crime is 15.1% or 959 offences above last year’s figure. This is because of the rise in knife personal robbery (1,078 / 32%) as has been the case for a number of months.

20. 12 people were victims of shooting homicides - 4 fewer than this time last year. There were 28 deaths where a knife/sharp object was used which is one fewer than in 2010 for the period.

The Number of Sanction Detections (SDs) for Rape

21. There have been 60 (-18.8%) fewer rape SDs this financial year to date (FYTD) with a total of 259. At the same time the number of recorded rapes has increased by 151 (+9.5%) so that the total for the FYTD is 1,742.

22. There will be a separate report on this topic to this meeting.

Operation Reclaim

23. The Commissioner has launched a major new sustained campaign to crack down on uninsured drivers called Operation Reclaim. He has asked for officers across the Met to spend a dedicated day on a regular basis targeting uninsured drivers and those believed to be connected to crime.

24. The first of those days was 19 October when a total of 558 vehicles were seized, 76 arrests made and drugs, cash and stolen property recovered under Operation Reclaim. The vehicles, the most seized by the MPS in one day, were taken off the capital's roads in a coordinated series of operations involving a thousand police officers with the aim of targeting uninsured drivers, improving the safety of London's roads and disrupting criminal activity.

25. Uninsured drivers are five times more likely to be involved in collisions and less likely to have vehicles in a road-worthy condition. The offence of driving without insurance enables and facilitates many different kinds of criminal activity, therefore the operation will lead to benefits for all business groups in the MPS.

The Change In The Number Of People Killed Or Seriously Injured (KSIs) In Road Traffic Collisions

26. The monthly average number of people who died or were seriously injured on the roads in the 12 months to June 2011 decreased to 211 compared to 251 during the same period last year. That equates to a fall of 16% and is 5% below the monthly target of 222.

27. In the first six months of 2011/12, 81 people were killed in road traffic collisions compared to 62 last year and 93 in 2009/10.

28. During September there were 39 traffic proactive operations aimed at improving safety and reducing KSIs. They include 7 ‘Exchanging Places’ days for cyclists, 22 rider skill days for motorcyclists attended by 146 riders, an operation on the M25 targeting hazardous goods vehicles. Operations Shavor (criminality and illegal coaches/drivers on the international coach network terminating at Victoria Coach), Stammtisch (truckers surgery for drivers to speak to police in confidence), and the pro-active checks on commercial vehicles at the Olympic site are continuing.

29. During the period 2,042 drivers have been disqualified. That is 51 ( 2.4%) fewer than for the first six months of 2010/11.

30. Safety camera enforcement activities which are concentrated at vehicle collision ‘hot spots’, are an important element of the MPS’ campaign to reduce KSIs. The target for 2011/12 is for a monthly average of 8,333 Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIPs) to be issued with at least a 65% positive outturn rate (depending on the severity of the offence - either attendance at a safety awareness course, payment of the fixed penalty or issue of a summons). In the first six months of 20011/12 the monthly average was 8,405. The positive outcome rate is 64%. The drop since last month (67%) is due to a reduction in summonses because of problems securing court dates for early 2012. This problem has now been resolved.

Property Portfolio

31. The property portfolio covers most property crime including criminal damage, but excludes fraud and forgery because of national recording issues. During the period there have been 4,497 more offences, a rise of 1.7% vs. the 1% 2011/12 reduction target. This is an improvement on the situation at the end of August when the rise for the financial year to date was 3.4% / 7,533 offences. The trend against last year was better for all the major portfolio offence types in September. That may have been influenced by the larger than usual number of officers on the streets in the beginning of September and the large numbers of offenders being sent to prison for crimes connected with the disorders in early August.

32. The property portfolio sanction detection rate has declined from 11.4% to 10.9%. This is principally because of a 15% drop in cautions and a 16% fall in fixed penalty notices. However 415 more people have been charged with a property portfolio offence - a rise of 2%.

33. Criminal damage offences with a victim have dropped by 4,415 offences or 10.1%. There were 624 (1.7%) fewer thefts from motor vehicles 1,778 (8.3%) fewer thefts from shops and 997 (7.1%) fewer bicycles were stolen compared to the same period last year.

34. Residential burglary is up by 2,097 (7.8%) offences compared to July when it was up by 11.8% for the FYTD. The numbers of burglaries for August and September have been much closer to their corresponding month in 2010 with September the first month that was lower than the corresponding month last year.

35. Theft from person is up by 2,945 offences (17.8%). There have been 419 (3.0%) more motor vehicles stolen this year. The number of other thefts are 3,352 offences (5.8%) above last year’s level at this time. Nevertheless those increases are all lower than then last month (FYTD) when the rates were 20%, 4.6% and 8.4% respectively.

36. Personal robberies have risen by 18.1% / 2,861 offences. September was only 3% above last September continuing the trend from last month when August was only 7.5% above the previous August if the disorder offences are not included. The 4 previous months had all been 16% or more above their corresponding month last year. Operation Target remains the main initiative to tackle personal robbery. The MPS has charged 240 (10%) more people with personal robbery this year.

37. To supplement the day to day crime fighting activities of the boroughs and Operation Target, the MPS launched Operation Autumn Nights which commenced on 17 October 2011. It is scheduled to run until 6 November 2011. The Operation is timed to address a number of issues that have the potential to increase violent crime, acquisitive crime and anti-social behaviour. The period of operational activity covers the school half-term break, associated youth events, the end of British Summer Time and celebrations covering Diwali, Halloween, Bonfire Night and the Jewish High Holy Days. The period has historically been accompanied by a growth in personal robbery, notably associated with Halloween, and a growth in residential burglary that extends across the winter months.

38. Deployments under Operation Autumn Nights cover a range of tactics and are intended to increase police presence at times and in places where more people than usual are on the streets during the late afternoon and evening. All Safer Neighbourhood Teams will be on duty and deployed to evening shifts between 28 and 31 October 2011. Additional mobile reserves of officers are being made available to support borough operations during this period. Specific plans are in place for the policing of numerous events, including youth-focused ones in late licensed premises and a range of firework displays that attract large numbers of people. The operational deployments include support from the Safer Transport Command and are co-ordinated with deployments by the British Transport Police and the City of London Police. Specific emphasis is being placed upon tactics to address the threat of knife crime including the use of hand-held wands, screening arches and ground searches to remove hidden weaponry.

39. Deployments will continue to provide a strong presence in the 15:00-18:00 period around schools/colleges, transport routes and hubs, and within town centres each weekday during term time. The operational deployments are supported by corporate marketing campaigns promoting efforts to secure possessions in public space and take precautions to minimise the risk of residential burglary. The latter campaign will commence on 31 October 2011.

40. Other operations will undertake enforcement and monitoring checks at scrap yards in order to disrupt and deter a range of crime being fuelled by the high price of metals.

Anti-social Behaviour (ASB) Incidents

41. The new national definition of ASB was implemented in the MPS at the beginning of September. As mentioned previously, this year is a baseline one as we do not have prior comparable data.

42. There are three ASB classifications under the national definition -

• Personal - incidents that are either deliberately targeted at an individual or group or have an impact on an individual or group rather than the community at large.
• Nuisance - incidents which cause trouble, annoyance, inconvenience, offence or suffering to the local community in general rather than to individual victims. It includes incidents where the behaviour interferes with public interests including health, safety and quality of life.
• Environmental - covers incidents where individuals and groups have an impact on their surroundings including natural, built and social environments.

43. There were 26,530 ASB incidents of which 8,534 were personal, 15,596 were nuisance and 2,400 were environmental in September 2011.

User Satisfaction & Satisfaction Of White & BME Users With The Overall Service

44. The overall user satisfaction rate for the rolling 12 months to September 2011 is 75.3% which is below the target of 78% and the rate of 77.0% for the same period last year. The decline in the rate is probably due to a change in the survey company at quarter 4 of 2010/11 (Jan. - March). The average for the 3 quarters (Q4 2010/11 and Qs 1 &2 2011/12) is 74.5% while the average for the previous 3 quarters was 77%.

45. The new company has made more effort to contact hard-to-reach groups with significantly more foreign language interviews. Consequently current results are felt to be more representative of user satisfaction.

46. The overall satisfaction rate for the discrete Quarter 2 2011/12 (Q2 = July - September) is 73.8%. This is about 1% point below the two previous quarters whose discrete rates were 74.9% (Q1) and 74.8% (Q4 2010/11).

47. The rate of user satisfaction for white victims for the 12 months to September 2011 is 78.9% vs. a rate of 71.4% for BME victims. The MPS‘s goal is to increase the satisfaction of all users and previous reports have discussed the demographic factors that contribute to the different levels of satisfaction. The average gap in the rates of satisfaction for white and BME users of the service has narrowed for the last 3 quarters to 6% (ex. traffic collision victims) - it was 10.4% points for the previous 3 quarters.

People Who Think The Local Police Are Doing A Good Job

48. The % of the public who think their local police were doing a good job for the rolling year to September 2011 was 66% according to the MPS’s Public Attitude Survey. That is slightly below the 2011/12 target of 67% but slightly above the 65% recorded for the previous 12 months to September 2010.

49. The results for 2011/12 Q2 cover the period of the disorder in August 2011 and now require additional in-depth research and analysis. Initial findings for the discrete Q2 show that 63% of the public thought that their local police were doing a good job. That is 3% points below the discrete 2011/12 Q1 rate of 66% and the lowest result for 7 quarters. The percentage of the public who thought the MPS were doing a good job policing London as a whole fell from 64% in quarter 1 2011/12 to 60% in quarter 2 2011/12 - the lowest level since 2008/09.

50. Community Engagement is a key workstream under the Strategic Review of Op Kirkin and clearly the link to community confidence is very important. Fully understanding the PAS results will be key to shaping community engagement in the future. We will report to a future meeting on the completed analysis of the relationship between the disorder and public confidence. This analysis will inform the review work going forward.

London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games - Olympic Safety & Security Programme

51. This KPI looks at the status of the five Olympic Safety and Security Strategy Programmes and the three London venue areas against their objectives in the Strategy. The grades are red, red/amber, amber, amber/green, or green. The target for the KPI as a whole is amber/green. For October the situation is the same as it was in September with four pan-Olympic programmes amber/green, the other one amber/red and the London venue programmes amber.

Deliver A Balanced Budget For 2011/12 As Per The Policing Plan 2011/14

Current Position: As at August 2011 +£2.1m (Red)

52. The MPS is committed to delivering excellent policing from tackling ASB and other crime in neighbourhoods through to dealing with terrorist and the most serious criminals often ‘behind the scenes’. However it is doing that within a financial climate of an expected reduction in its spending (compared to 2010/11 budget) of some £600m by 2014/15.

53. To do that the MPS is:

• Reducing its inanimate costs
• Delivering an effective business and operational model including:
  • Undertaking process improvement activity
  • Sharing services with and across the MPS
  • Exploring a range of outsourcing and joint ventures
• Only then reducing operational officers and PCSOs.

54. The scale of the challenge is:

55. Action underway to achieve savings:

• Major change programmes now well established and being progressed with appropriate corporate infrastructure in place to track progress and identify and manage interdependencies and risk.
• Early departure schemes developed and in operation using earmarked reserves established for this purpose.
• Star chambers established to monitor and control staff vacancies and officer deployment.
• Financial monitoring being amended to manage and control capital and revenue budgets more effectively with increased focus on major change programmes.
• Development of the 2012-2015 Policing London Business Plan underway

56. The general risks to achieving the necessary savings;

• Non-delivery of major change programmes and/or double counting of savings. Budget includes some resilience to cover such costs;
• Additional pressures placed on the service both operationally and financially e.g. recent disorder, Riot Damages Act, Royal Wedding, State Visits, increased public order/protest events, withdrawal of partnership funding;
• Enactment of the Police and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which will result in additional in year costs for which there is no specific provision in MPS, although MPA have created a £2m reserve;
• Less resources than anticipated (£5.4m) being available to support 2011/12 and 2012/13 budget spend from 2010/11 due to grant clawback by the Home Office.

57. The specific issues identified at Period 5 (August 2011) are:

• The forecast total additional annual costs arising from the policing response to recent public disorder within London (Operation Kirkin), and the ongoing police investigation (Operation Withern), are estimated to be £71m. In addition there may be liabilities arising from the Riot Damages Act of anywhere between £200m to £300m which relates to the value of claims paid to insured businesses by insurers. These costs along with claims from uninsured and under-insured businesses and individuals are the subject of negotiations with the Home Office for additional specific funding. The current planning assumption is that these costs will be recovered in full.
• Business Groups are forecasting a year-end Police Officer strength of 31,800 with 430 MSC and PCSOs in training to be attested as police officers in the first quarter of 2012/13.
• A continuing over-strength position within Territorial Policing core funded posts and under-strength in specific funded posts.
• A pressure on the police officer deployment plan at sergeant level where the Training Service Improvement Plan has already delivered a reduction of 50 posts together with the 150 sergeants removed from the Safer Neighbourhoods model. This pressure will be reduced by the planned inspector promotion process which will draw from this pool later this year.
• Later than planned finalisation of match-funding agreements and other cost-sharing posts resulting in reduced income.
• In-year budget pressures on the delivery of a number of major change programmes.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equality and Diversity 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. The costs associated with the monitoring and reporting of the data set out in this report are all covered by existing budgets as set out in the current approved Business Plan.

Legal Implications

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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

8. This report contains no direct environmental implications.

Risk Implications

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

D. Background papers

None

E. Contact details

Report author: Worth Houghton, Strategy and Performance Unit, Deputy Commissioner’s Portfolio, MPS

For information contact:

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

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