Performance report: burglary

Report: 05a
Date: 14 February 2002
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report gives an update of burglary performance against targets and current initiatives.

A. Recommendation

Members are asked to note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. The year to date increase in total offences stands at 3.6%, against the reduction target of 2%. Chart 1 (see Supporting material) displays the number of burglary offences in the past nine months and compares them to the corresponding months last year.

2. From April – June 2001 the MPS was achieving a 2.4% decrease in total burglary offences and meeting the target. After that time period we saw an increase and a month later April – July showed a 1.4% increase in offences. At the same time between June and July residential burglary rose by 10.2%, this can be classed as the main contributor for the target no longer being achieved. Since then total offences have stayed above the 9500 level with only September as an exception. However, the trend seen in the last 3 months has been a reduction in the number of total burglary offences.

3. The year to date judicial disposal rate stands at 9.8%. The 12% target has not been met in any individual month over the year to date. The JD rate in October was however 11.3% - the highest monthly rate in the last year. Chart 2 (see Supporting material) displays MPS total burglary judicial disposals for the last nine months and compares them with the corresponding months last year.

Chart 3 (see Supporting material) shows that the improvement in October came from a better JD rate in non-residential burglary. In fact, October recorded the highest JD rate in the time period under review.

4. Appendix 1 shows year to date performance and planning year 2000/01 performance displayed in Boston Boxes. A comparison of the two charts shows that some changes in the placing of boroughs. For example Sutton moved from box 4 (below average performance and deteriorating) to box 1 (above average performance and improving) when analysing judicial disposals.

5. The judicial disposal Boston Boxes show that Southwark moved from box 2 (above average performance but deteriorating) to box 1 (above average performance and improving). In fact Southwark and Lewisham are recording rates of 16% and 14% respectively in the first nine months of this year. They account for 666 more JDs than the average.

6. Two boroughs, Newham and Havering, have rates significantly lower than the average. As a result Newham achieves 59 less than the average, while Havering achieves 150 less than the average.

7. The TP performance investigation in November attempted to explain the performance gap and differences in burglary JD rates. They looked at a number of issues including resourcing. Lewisham and Southwark were found to have more resources than Havering and Newham, although the more critical factor was the allocation of resources within the borough rather than the overall level of resources. Units within Newham and Havering that were critical to burglary performance were found to be under-resourced and under-skilled, whereas Lewisham and Southwark had prioritised these areas.

8. Aspects of the MPS Policing Model were examined. It was found that Southwark and Lewisham had developed good relationships between the intelligence, forensics and investigation. They work more as a team and have developed better internal processes. Lewisham and Southwark 'fast-track' identifications, and are effective at gaining further admissions through TICs. This effectively means that they arrest more suspects more quickly, and obtain more JDs per charge. There are systems in place to avoid laborious reliance on paper dockets and internal dispatch systems. They see intelligence products as results even if charges are not obtained.

9. Kensington and Chelsea are currently achieving a 16.9% reduction in offences. This borough is focussing on targeting prolific offenders and crack houses, while increasing their effort in crime prevention work particularly around hotel burglary and the two most deprived council wards in the borough.

10. Greenwich has achieved a 10.1% reduction year to date and around 60% over the previous 5 years. They are committing a lot of effort into developing their burglary focus desk. They have a proactive information sharing protocol with neighbouring BCUs and SO11's Keeper Desk. This will see an improvement in the analysis of burglary artifice patterns. They are also running Operation Granite. This initiative attempts to target offenders who commit burglary in order to feed drug habits.

11. The MPS has set a customer satisfaction target for burglary victims of 90%. Our current performance is 83.7%. As well as aiming to obtain vital forensic data from burglary sites the forensic examiners and the attending police officers provide vital victim support giving advice on preventative measures and providing reassurance. The gathering of intelligence, which is provided when attending scenes, is also an important factor. These issues should be considered when looking at the forensic data.

12. It is interesting to note that in the previous Public Attitude Survey of 2000 residents were most likely to mention burglary as the main issue for the police to tackle. Over a quarter (27%) cited burglary as an issue to tackle in 2001 compared to 44% in 2000 (decrease of 17%).

13. The target recruitment from January 2001 as a result of the Scientific Support Strategy was 201 Level 1 Scene Examiners. 81 of these will be funded by the MPS. 120 will be funded over three years as a result of the Home Office DNA Expansion Plan funding.

14. As from 1st January 2001 150 Level 1 Scene Examiners have been trained. 126 have been trained as from 1st April 2001. It is anticipated that the full 201 will be trained by July 2002.

15. Forensic Intelligence Units are due to come into place in March 2002. They are funded by the Home Office over the next 2 years by DNA Expansion Project money to the tune of £748,000.

16. Scientific Support has recently sought to raise primary targets to a 75% examination rate for burglary and four-hour response from time of request to scene attendance. When combining the Scientific Support CRIS returns data for November and December 2001, the percentage of burglary scenes examined was 70.6%. Out of the 13,868 scenes examined there were 5178 submissions (37%).

17. Other advancements in the past year include the following:

• The new level 1 Scene Examiners are multi-skilled and undertake photographic tasks as well as fingerprint and forensic retrieval.
• Borough Forensic Managers are being introduced Met wide to provide OCU Commanders with a focal point for Forensic and Fingerprint Casework Management.
• Two pilots are underway at Enfield and Southwark in relation to the Scene Examiner being the sole response at a burglary scene thus negating the need for a police officer to attend. This pilot is part of the "Borough Forensic Model" that in essence focuses on the operational framework for delivery of services in first instance. Initial assessment shows that they are able to undertake a notable volume of work that would have fallen to response officers, and so far there has been no negative reaction from victims. The initial view is that the quality of the service and response to burglary has improved.
• The Serious Crime Group now have dedicated Crime Scene Managers on 24hr cover to support all major crime.
• The MPS Policing Model pilot sites are testing a number of innovative ways of improving service and performance. Telephone investigation and the development of a one-stop shop response to burglary aims to provide a better service to victims and a more focused use of resources. Changes to the structure of intelligence units aim to provide a better intelligence product and a more effective proactive intervention. Problem solving training is being delivered to improve the interventions with partners in longer-term problems.

C. Financial implications

The Home Office has provided £2.1 m, £3.9m and £4m over the three-year period 2001/4 for the total costs of the 120 Level 1 Scene Examiners.

D. Background papers

DAC TP Performance Report – November 2001 Burglary Judicial Disposals
MPS Policing Model – Intelligence & Targeting – Forensic Intelligence Plan

E. Contact details

Report authors: Craig Cook, Corporate Performance Analysis Unit, MPS.

For information contact:

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

Appendix 1: Development of Boston Box for visualising borough performance

Interpretation of the Boston Box

The vertical axis shows performance during the 2000/2001 planning year (either number of offences per population*, or % judicial disposals). Those boroughs performing better than the MPS average are shown in either section 1. or 2. (ie above the horizontal axis).

The horizontal axis (trend) shows how last year compared with the year before (either % increase/reduction in number of offences in 2000/01 compared with 1999/00, or change in JD rate between 1999/00 and 2000/01). Those boroughs whose performance has improved in the last year are shown in either section 1. or 3. (ie to the right of the vertical axis.)

Family groupings

Boroughs have been grouped by crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP) families in order to show how performance compares between similar boroughs. The families, and key to the colour used to represent each family on the Boston box, is as follows:

CDRP Family

Average performance

The examples use overall MPS performance as the average (this is used to position the horizontal axis). The average borough performance could instead be used (in most cases this will be very similar, however, MPS performance will be affected more by the performance of the largest boroughs. Borough average will place the same emphasis on each borough, large or small).

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