Performance report: April to July 2004

Report: 6
Date: 09 September 2004
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report gives a summary of MPS performance against policing plan objectives for 2004-5. The data provided runs from April to July 2004 and where comparisons are drawn, these are with the corresponding period a year earlier, i.e. April to July 2003. A full summary of the performance can be seen in Appendix 2.

A. Recommendations

That the report be noted.

B. Supporting information.

Performance against policing plan targets

All Crime

1. The MPS is building on the progress of 2003/04 in seeing further reductions of total notifiable offences for the current performance year to date. Comparisons of April-July 2004 with the same period last year shows a 2.5% reduction in crime levels to just over 351k offences.

2. The detection rate has seen a rise with recent trends showing improvements. Performance has remained above the 2003/4 average detection rate for ten months with the month of July 2004 meeting target with 20.5% (sanctioned detection rate: 13.5%, non-sanctioned detection rate: 6.9%), the highest monthly detection rate since January 1999. The detection rate for financial year to July stands at 18.3% (SD rate: 12.3%, Non-SD rate: 6.0%)

Residential Burglary

3. Monthly performance has been exceptional throughout 2004/5 so far, with crime levels being significantly lower than the monthly average for 2003/4. Performance year to date comparison shows a reduction of 11.3% comfortably attaining the PSA target of a 7% reduction.

4. The detection rate has seen marked improvement for the month of July 2004 and this is reflected further in looking at sanctioned detection rate (14.1%) and has pushed the financial year to date performance for total detections to 13.2% (SD rate: 11.7%, Non-SD rate: 1.5%).

Motor Vehicle Crime

5. Motor vehicle offences have reduced by 14.9% for the period April to July 2004 against the same period last year. This performance is better than the target set for 2004/5 of an 8% reduction and is further reflected by the fact that the most recent three months have been the lowest monthly levels recorded since April 2000.

Robbery

6. The MPS has achieved the target of an 11% reduction on robbery crime levels, with a year to date performance of a fall of 11.7%, equating to 5 robberies per 1000 population.

7. Detection rates have remained steady over recent months but with a FYTD total detection rate of 16% (SD rate: 13.4%, Non-SD rate: 2.6%), the MPS is currently meeting the target of 15%.

Gun Enabled Crime

8. The level of gun enabled crime offences has remained within expected limits. FYTD performance is currently 3.1% lower than last year and just below the target of a 4% reduction.

9. Detection rates for gun enabled crime have also remained relatively constant with the exception of July 2004, where the detection rate rose to 41% (SD rate: 34.6%, Non-SD rate: 6.4%), double the MPS performance for 2003/4 and the highest monthly rate since January 1999. The detection rate for FYTD is 24.9% (SD rate: 21.7%, Non-SD rate:3.1%).

Violent Crime

10. The level of violent crime has risen to 35 crimes per 1000 population against 34 for the same period last year. Recent trends show a small rise in violent crime over the last eight months with July 2004 being at a significantly higher level than throughout 2003/4.

11. The most recent rises in violent crime have arisen as a result of section 5 public order act offences, which are the result of a more robust repsonse to anti-social behaviour. This has led to the MPS now issuing more penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) to tacke such offences and as such the offence should be recorded as crime as stated in Home Office Counting Rules 2004.

12. The second issue around violence is the increase actual bodily harm but this has been more than compensated for with a drop in common assault. The net effect has been a rise in less serious violence with injury, whilst less serious violence without injury has stayed relatively the same.

13. Further analysis has shown the link to alcohol related violence and in June 2004 the MPS launched Operation Optic as a response, which targeted those parts of the Capital where a rise in the number of late night opening pubs and clubs has seen an increase in levels of drunken violence and anti-social behaviour.

14. Detection rates have seen a rise to 31.7% (SD rate: 18.3%, Non-SD rate: 13.3%) for April-July 2004 against 20.8% for the same time last year. This rise is also reflected in the performance of the sanctioned detection rate which has risen from 16.0% to 18.3% for the respective periods.

Resources

15. 34.4% of new appointments to the police strength were female for the year to date, and therefore the MPS is currently achieving the target of 30%. 18.6% of the police strength is now made up of female officers, representing an improvement on last year.

Sickness Levels

16. Targets for the number of working days lost to sickness are currently being met for police officers, police staff and PCSOs, but not met for traffic wardens, throughout the period of April-July 2004.

Requests from the Commissioning Brief

17. The commissioning brief asks for clarity around the figures reported for the two objectives of vulnerable victims and gun crime in the paper presented to PPRC in July 2004. Members are asked to note that the figures reported at that meeting were based just on data from April to May 2004 and as such equate to a small sample size, which may have given an impression of erratic performance. For the purposes of statistical analysis, data drawn from small samples tend to be more unreliable in that small numerical changes can yield large percentage changes. The picture detailed in the current performance report is a more accurate picture of performance as it is based on four months of data and is less likely to contain variations.

18. It should also be remembered that the agreed measures for vulnerable victims are based on overall detections (not just Sanction Detections, which are used to measure other objectives and priorities).

19. Finally with both gun enabled crime and vulnerable victims data, there is likely to be wider fluctuation from month to month because of the relatively lower numbers when compared with other priority crimes.

20. Also to be found in the appendices, at the request of the MPA are:

• detailed descriptions to enable greater understanding of the performance figures - Appendix 3
• impact of changes in definitions – Appendix 1
• a summary of measures that are comparable with PPAF definitions – 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 disproportional indicators where applicable.

D. Financial implications

None.

E. Background papers

Narrowing the Justice Gap, London, August 2004, Home Office

Guidance on Statutory Performance Indicators for Policing 2004/05 v1.8, London, July 2004, Home Office, Policing Standards Unit

F. Contact details

Report authors: Andrea Bennett, Vinay Bhardwaj and Graeme Keeling, MPS Corporate Performance Analysis Unit

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1 - Changes to Definitions

The commissioning brief asks for explanation around the counting of crime in relation to offences and offenders. Below is a summary taken from “Narrowing the Justice Gap”; a Home Office update on criminal justice performance.

The total number of Offences Brought to Justice (OBTJ) is compiled by summing cautions, convictions and offences taken into consideration (TICs) to get a measure that covers the whole Criminal Justice System.

The cautions and convictions data is counted on an offences basis as shown in the following examples.

A burglary takes place with two offenders who are both convicted. The offenders are each charged with three offences for this crime and get convicted of them at court. We would count six OBTJs. (for recorded crime purposes, this would count as one recorded crime and one police detection).

If one burglar commits five burglaries and then gets convicted at one occasion for all these crimes. Provided that each crime leads to one charge, which in turn leads to one conviction in court, the number of OBTJs in total that we would count are five.

The TICs data however only works on a recorded crime basis, i.e. counts the number of crimes detected. We only count previously recorded TICs.

If a number of offenders were involved in a burglary but the crime was TIC, we would count the TIC as one OBTJ.

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