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MPS performance report - August 2000
Report: 8
Date: 10 October 2000
By: Commissioner
Summary
This report gives a commentary on MPS performance for August 2000 against key performance targets, and provides a full list of performance achieved against the Policing Plan and Best Value performance indicators.
A. Supporting information
1. This commentary accompanies the report on Policing Plan and Best Value performance indicators for August 2000, which is attached as Appendix 1. Following discussion at PSPM in August, this report has been reorganised, and is now arranged by subject and without duplication. The sections of the report are:
- C. Crime and Disorder Homicide - Burglary (page 1)
- Street Crime
Autocrime
Violent Crime
Drug Crime
Total Crime
Disorder
Arrests - D. Diversity (page 2)
- Victim Satisfaction
Racial Crime
Recruitment
Stop and Search
Training - R. Response - Response to Emergencies (page 3)
- Police Collisions
Road Traffic Collisions - H. Human Resources
- COM. Complaints (page 4)
- S Customer Satisfaction - Survey Indicators
- Y. Youth Offending (page 5)
- M. Miscellaneous
2. The indicators have been re-numbered. Those that are BVPIs are shown in the first column. Where the target is set in line with external priorities, this is shown in the third column. The flags have been set to show likely year-end position, based on performance year-to-date.
Performance headlines - August 2000
Crime targets
| Target | Achievement August 2000* | Rolling year Sep-99 to Aug-00** |
| To achieve zero growth in street crime | +18.4% | +31.2% |
| To achieve a street crime JD rate of 9% | 8.7% | 7.9% |
| To achieve a 2% reduction in burglary | -12.4% | -0.4% |
| To achieve a burglary JD rate of 10% | 11.3% | 9.9% |
| To achieve an 8% reduction in autocrime | +2.6% | +2.5% |
| To achieve an autocrime JD rate of 8% | 5.2% | 4.4% |
| * compared with Aug 1999 ** compared with Sep 98 to Aug 99 |
||
Street crime - crime reduction
3. Street crime levels stayed below 4000 offences for a second month in August. There were 3878 street crime offences in August 2000, compared with 3276 offences in August 1999, and a monthly average of 3,575 in 1999/00. Five boroughs are showing a year-to-date reduction in street crime.
Street crime - judicial disposal rate
4. August JD rate was 8.7%, against a target of 9%. Although this is a decrease on the rate achieved in the last two months, it remains an improvement over the 1999/2000 rate of 7.7%. Sixteen boroughs are achieving the JD Target of 9% over the period April-August.
Safer Streets and Operation Strongbox
5. Safer Streets plans have been collated from all boroughs, and Operation Strongbox has been implemented on Lambeth and Hackney boroughs. Lessons learned from the operation at Lambeth were applied at Hackney, and are reported to have greatly increased the effectiveness of the operation there. Full evaluations of the two Strongbox operations are being carried out. Strongbox moves to Camden and Islington at the beginning of October.
Burglary - crime reduction
6. Burglary offences remained on course to achieve the 2% reduction, with year to date performance showing a 7.6% reduction in burglary offences. There were 9001 burglary offences in August 2000, compared with 10275 in August 1999. 23 boroughs are achieving the burglary reduction target over the 5 months of the year-to-date.
Burglary - judicial disposal rate
7. JD rates were above target for a 4th successive month. The MPS rate is standing at 9.9% for the five months to year-to-date, and was 11.3% in August. All but 9 of the boroughs are achieving the target for the period April-August. This reflects a clear improvement against the 1999/2000 performance of 9.2%.
Autocrime - crime reduction
8. Autocrime offences continued to follow the pattern of last year, and were again above the level needed to achieve the target. The offences year-to-date have risen by 0.6% in comparison with the period April-August 1999/2000. There were 19416 autocrime offences in August 2000, compared with 18930 in August 1999.
Autocrime - judicial disposal rate
9. JD rates are running at 4.4%. While they show some signs of improving they are not close to the required 8%. Only two boroughs are reaching the target 8% in the year to date.
Drug crime
10. During the first five months of 2000/2001, there were 1191 judicial disposals for supply and PWI. This is 8.5% lower than the performance over the same months in 1998/9. Following the peak attained in February 2000 (as a result of Operation Crack Down), the number of JDs has been gradually dropping. The August level has, however, improved upon July 2000. The number of judicial disposals relating specifically to Class A drugs has increased over the same five months, and is 35.5% higher that the 1998/9 average.
11. Details of the MPS drugs targets and the work being done to deliver them are given in a separate paper for October PSPM.
Customer satisfaction
12. Performance against the BVPIs on public satisfaction (BVPI 23) is showing lower performance than in previous periods. The information which supports these PIs is taken from a series of quarterly surveys.
13. New questionnaires were introduced for the surveys in April 2000. Respondents are now asked their views on a 5-point scale (rather than the 4-point scale previously used). Results are now available for April-June 2000. This issue is discussed further in the accompanying paper for October PSPM.
Diversity
14. The programme of Community Race Relations training continues to roll out. Training is complete at 4 boroughs, and underway at a further five. While the training programme remains on course to deliver training to all those who need training over the original two-year schedule, it is now apparent that training will not be completed at 16 boroughs by March 2001.
15. Customer satisfaction surveys have shown a disparity of 5% between satisfaction of victims of racially motivated crime and all crime victims. Satisfaction with initial police response is at 73% for victims of racially motivated crime, compared with 78% for all crime victims.
Youth justice
16. There are a number of indicators that relate to youth justice and youth offending. The MPS policing plan includes a target to re-enforce existing effective measures and introduce new strategies to reduce offending by young persons. The aims are
- to structure the delivery of reprimands and warnings so that they engage both youth and parents in understanding the effects of offending
- to contribute to reducing the incidence of truancy, which has been linked to youth crime
- to deal speedily with young offenders
While work to introduce the first two of these is in hand, indicators and monitoring systems are yet to be established.
17. The third objective - dealing speedily with young offenders - is subject to a range of indicators that track the speed and quality of the process. Targets for dealing with persistent young offenders (PYOs) are:
| Government target | MPS standard | 12-month performance | |
| Arrest to charge | 2 days | 70% | 53.2% |
| Charge to first court listing | 7 days | 70% | 56.0% |
18. Swift notification of young offender case disposal results to PNC is also a key performance indicator. Results should be notified within 14 days. Last year this was achieved in more than 60% of cases, exceeding the target. This year the target has been raised, so that notification within 14 days should occur in 80% of cases. In the period April-July 2000 this was achieved 71% of the time, an improvement on last year, but not yet sufficient to achieve the target.
19. The quality of case files is monitored through the MPS and CPS Joint Performance Monitoring (JPM). There are some differences in the recording systems for full and expedited files. Full files are judged as either fully satisfactory, sufficient to proceed or insufficient to proceed by the CPS. The percentage of files that are fully satisfactory or sufficient to proceed are based on the returns from the CPS stating file quality. From 1st November 1999 an exception reporting system was introduced for expedited/remand files. The base for quality of file submissions is all expedited/remand files generated, and these are assumed to be fully satisfactory unless the CPS notifies the police otherwise. Timeliness is not measured for expedited/remand files. On the basis of available data, performance for expedited/remand files is improving, being higher in July than the average performance over the period January-July. July performance shows 71% of full files and 99% of expedited/remand files satisfactory or sufficient to proceed. Note that the exception reporting system for expedited/remand files identifies considerably fewer unsatisfactory files than the returns from CPS for full files. This may hide a quality issue for expedited/remand files.
Definitions
20. All the crime detection targets the MPS is monitoring are judicial disposals (JDs), rather than clear-ups. JDs include charge, summons, caution and crimes previously reported which are taken into consideration at court. JDs exclude administrative clear ups.
21. MPS crime figures are recorded using Home Office counting rules. The figures for any one period relate to activity within that period i.e. number of offences recorded, number of persons arrested, number of crimes resolved in the period. This can lead to some apparent anomalies. For example, the MPS could be shown as achieving a clear up rate for homicide of more than 100%. This indicates that the number of crimes resolved during the month was greater than the number recorded. The crimes resolved in the month could have been reported in that month, or in any preceding month.
22. The MPS has elected to monitor total street crime. Other forces use the Best value PIs being requested by the Home Office, which relate only to robbery. The MPS is of the view that total street crime, which includes robbery of personal property and theft (snatch) gives a more accurate picture of the crime issues faced by Londoners.
23. Other forces use the Best Value PI of vehicle crime, which includes theft/unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle, theft from and aggravated taking of a motor vehicle. The MPS measures performance against autocrime, which additionally includes criminal damage to motor vehicles. Again, the MPS considers that the autocrime total is a better representation of the crimes which affect Londoners.
B. Recommendation
- Members are asked to note the report.
C. Financial implications
None.
D. Review arrangements
The September performance report will be presented to PSPM in November. Performance information will be presented to the Full Authority meeting quarterly. The next report to the full authority will be based on the period July to September, and will be presented to the full authority November meeting.
E. Background papers
The following is a statutory list of background papers (under the Local Government Act 1972 S.100 D) which disclose facts or matters on which the report is based and which have been relied on to a material extent in preparing this report. They are available on request to either the contact officer listed above or to the Clerk to the Police Authority at the address indicated on the agenda.
None.
F. Contact details
The author of this report is Cath Kitching, Corporate Performance Analysis Unit, MPS.
For information contact:
MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18
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