A review of the National Crime Recording Standard

Report: 11
Date: 12 May 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

The purpose of this report is to describe activity that falls under the umbrella of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) Action Plan and progress against the targets contained within it. There are a number of critical issues which impact directly on crime recording and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) performance. These issues and the audit proposals for 2005/6 are also discussed.

A. Recommendations

That the report be noted.

B. Supporting information

Progress against NCRS action plan

1. Investigation 1: The first of the objective tests (test 1) is an examination of incident records (Computer Aided Dispatch, CAD) to establish if they had been correctly completed as a crime. A decision to ‘not crime’ an incident has to be justified in accordance with the national standard. The Audit Commission assessment was based on a sample of 40 CAD incidents for each borough across seven categories of crime, a total of 8960 incidents. The compliance threshold for this test was red < 80%, amber 80-90%, green>90%.

2. Those officers responding to incidents deal, in the vast majority of cases, appropriately and professionally in spite of a list of outstanding incidents awaiting their attention. Public satisfaction with the level of service has not decreased. The issue is rather how the MPS records the result of that response or intervention. This manifests itself as either (1) the responding officer converting a great deal of detail into ‘shorthand’ and abbreviations to allow the CAD operator to result the message quickly and move onto another call, or (2) the CAD operator converting the detail given by the responding officer, for the same reason. The issue does not appear to be one of deteriorating service to the public, but one of inefficient recording practices.

3. A number of ‘templates’ now appear as a default on the ‘results’ screen on the CAD incident record. The operator needs only to customise the chosen template with the necessary detail to ensure compliance. The Home Office Policing Standards Unit (PSU) have agreed these templates. All MPS CAD User Support Units, CAD supervisors and Patrol Sergeants have now been briefed on the need to complete incident records with the required level of detail.

4. A protocol has been designed to test the closure of CAD incidents against the standard laid down in the Home Office PSU Manual. This test is completed for 20 incidents on every Borough Operational Command Unit (BOCU) every month. In January the overall compliance rate for the MPS increased from 69% (Audit Commission Report) to 82%. In March this had fallen, albeit marginally to 81%. In April compliance has risen to an all time high of 86% (part sample only - approximately 75% of MPS BOCU’s sampled).

5. The target for overall ‘Amber’ compliance for the MPS in respect of Investigation 1 is the end of April 2005. In order to validate that achievement, the Inspectorate will undertake a more intrusive review of Investigation 1 that exactly mirrors the sampling laid down in the PSU Manual. This will take place in May 2005.

6. Investigation 5, Test 5 is an examination to check if a crime record classified as a notifiable offence but subsequently changed to a ‘no crime’ complies with strict decision making criteria. A crime can only be legitimately cancelled (‘no-crimed’) if it has been entered in error, has occurred outside the MPD, is a duplicate record or can be no longer regarded as a crime on the basis of ‘additional, verifiable information’.

7. In the MPS the decision to ‘No-Crime’ was being made by approximately 2,000 individuals employed within BOCU Crime Management Units or other specialist units. Clearly this was inefficient. A minimum model for Crime Management Units (CMU’s) has now been agreed. This describes their remit and gives CMU staff specific responsibility for a number of decisions within the crime recording decision-making process, including the decision to ‘No-Crime’. This effectively reduces the number of people making ‘No-Crime’ decisions from approximately 2,000 to approximately 600.

8. A protocol has been developed to complete a monthly sample of ‘No-Crimes’ from every BOCU. This began in January and measures BOCU compliance against the standards laid down in the PSU Manual. In addition there is a comprehensive programme of training, which begins in June 2005 in respect of CMU staff. To date, performance in respect of Investigation 5 has varied from 70% (Audit Commission Report) to 66% in January 2005, 73% in February 2005, 74% in March 2005, and 74% in April 2005(part-sample only).

Management arrangements

9. It is acknowledged that a primary reliance upon audit as a means of achieving compliance cannot be sustained in the long-term. The influence and locus of the Force Crime Registrar (FCR) and Crime Integrity Team (CIT) are currently being reviewed in order to ensure they are best placed to drive improvement with NCRS.

10. Whilst the rollout of C3i/Metcall will bring certain benefits, these will not be felt for some time and so any positive impact upon crime recording will not be realised in the near future. The inclusion of qualitative performance indicators in the performance management framework will provide a more rounded and more accurate picture of true performance. This is currently being developed under the auspices of ‘Team-Stat’.

Intervention

11. An intervention strategy has been developed by the CIT that identifies underperformance at BOCU level. This strategy requires the production of bespoke BOCU action plans and the sharing of best practice. Following negotiation Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Territorial Policing) Brian Paddick is now driving this.

IT enhancements

12. Clearly the rollout of C3i will herald one of the most significant changes to call/incident handling in the history of the MPS. However, other interim steps are being taken to make best use of existing technology. Changes include drop-down menus on CRIS to encourage staff to adopt a more uniform approach to the detail they should include in reports.

Communication

13. Unambiguous guidance with realistic examples have been drafted by the FCR and CIT, and published on their Intranet site. CIT have also successfully linked into the psyche of both officers and staff with an inventive poster campaign extolling the virtues and benefits of NCRS and data quality. This has already received positive comments from visiting employees of the Audit Commission.

14. A number of briefings have been provided for the benefit of BOCU Commanders and Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to ensure NCRS issues are considered as policy is formulated, rather than as an afterthought. The Home Office Counting Rules have been identified as disjointed and not ‘user-friendly’. A system of dynamic links has been developed to assist in navigating this document.

15. To ensure that the MPS fully considers the quality of service it continues to offer to the public, the inclusion of several NCRS related questions in customer satisfaction surveys has been negotiated. These questions strike at the heart of ‘customer focus’ and seek to identify any barriers to crime reporting and recording. The results of these surveys will be analysed and remedial action taken as appropriate.

Training

16. Schedules for probationer training remain overloaded with no scope to include NCRS at this present moment in time. However, the National Centre for Applied Learning Technologies (NCALT) has been consulted and a computer-based learning system that sits on the internal MPS (aware) computer system is being developed. This system also has the advantage of being available to officers and staff 24/7 and can be remotely interrogated to produce management information in relation to which officers have completed the training and in gauging their initial and subsequent levels of understanding.

Critical issues

Central Crime Recording

17. The potential benefits of having dedicated staff to input data, rather than officers, continues to be debated. There are obvious gains in terms of a reduction in officer abstraction and consistency of the level of detail. Pilot sites have been identified to validate these potential benefits. However, funding must be balanced against other priorities within the Policing Plan.

Deputy Commissioner’s review

18. The Deputy Commissioner is currently reviewing progress in order to ensure the MPS is best prepared for the next audit.

Audit Commission preparation work

19. As a result of the difficulties experienced last year, Audit Commission staff have arranged to discuss their requirements at an early stage. This will allow the complexities of MPS systems to be fully explained and best value obtained from the audit.

Audit proposals for 2005/6

20. Over the course of the next few months, the Home Office Police Support Unit will be expanding the quality assurance programme to cover the following Police Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF) indicators:

• Crime data: PSU is in the process of finalising with ACPO and Association of Police Authorities (APA) a methodology to follow up on the issues identified in the previous two audits in individual forces and so further enhance stakeholder confidence in the robustness of recorded crime data. This includes Investigations 1 and 5. It appears that the Audit Commission will also consider those areas appear of crime recording where the MPS appears to be out of kilter with comparators. It is still unclear as to the specifics of these checks. The intention is for the Audit Commission to re-visit forces between October 2005 and March 2006 in order to report on progress.
• Detections: PSU propose to pilot these check with a number of forces (not including the MPS) in Spring 2005. This will focus on following up on the issues identified in Year 1 as well as introducing data checks for all methods of sanction detections. Results from this phase will be used to deliver a more focused set of data checks for all remaining forces in a second phase from September 2005.
• Domestic violence: PSU proposes to carry out a first phase in Spring 2005 to review the arrangements in place for correctly identifying domestic violence incidents as well as carrying out case checks. Results from this phase will be used to inform the quality assurance specification to be rolled out to all remaining forces in a second phase from September 2005. This piece of work will help forces to establish their strengths and weaknesses in correctly capturing and recording domestic violence data and help to identify examples of good practice. This work will be carried out at the same time as the Year 2 detections review:

NCRS Internal Audit programme

24. In order to prepare for the Crime Data and Detections audits, the following internal audit programme has been agreed. MPS Inspectorate is undertaking the internal audit of Investigation 1 and the CIT are auditing Investigation 5.

25. A copy of the NCRS Action Plan is attached at Appendix 1.

C. Race and equality impact

The MPS recognises the fact of under-reporting by disadvantaged groups and therefore the potential for disproportionality in this area.

D. Financial implications

The proposal for a Central Crime Recording Bureau remains unfunded at this stage. Otherwise there are no significant budgetary implications.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report authors: Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Bryan, Commissioner’s Chief of Staff, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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