Met targets failure represents poor performance, says MPA

72/02
26 June 2002

The Metropolitan Police only managed to achieve just over a third of the targets set for it in last year’s policing plan, the Metropolitan Police Authority will be told tomorrow (Thursday).

Overall, 47 targets were set in the policing plan and the Met provided performance results for 44, of these, only 16 were achieved.

The MPA will consider the implications of the report, which summarises the Met’s performance against the targets set by the Authority for the 2001/2 planning year.

Toby Harris, Chair of the MPA, said:

“Some important areas have improved but too many targets were not achieved and overall the results represent poor performance for the MPS.

“We realise that there were unforeseen issues which the Met were affected by, including the knock-on effect on borough-based policing of the 11th of September, the street crime initiative depleting resources elsewhere and the rising proportion of inexperienced new recruits.

“But targets are established to raise standards and focus minds, and these targets were set following consultation with the Met on what could be achieved. Clearly, there now needs to be a close scrutiny of what has gone wrong and how performance can be improved this year.

"There may have been too many targets, but there still needs to be a robust performance management regime to oversee those targets and objectives that are agreed and set. That seems to have been lacking in many areas last year.”

Among targets not achieved, was that for street crime which saw a 38 per cent rise on the previous year against a two per cent reduction in target. The Authority has received a number of reports on street crime in recent months which, following Safer Streets operations, show that this increase has now been stabilised and there are signs of a reducing trend. The street crime judicial disposal rate for the year, where people have been arrested, charged and dealt with at court, was eight per cent against a ten per cent target.

A 34 per cent increase was recorded in gun related violent crime in 2001/2. compared with the previous year. Carrying and usage of handguns in particular rose. Firearm related robberies and homicides rose by 74 per cent and 59 per cent respectively during the year. Safer Streets has reduced this trend in recent months.

The MPS also aimed to increase the arrest rate from PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) stop and searches for both white and ethnic minority persons and to achieve parity in arrest rates between the two groups. In 2000/1, arrest rates were 15.9% for searches of white persons and 17.3% for ethnic minority persons. For 2001/2 arrest rates were 14.9% and 15.7% for white and ethnic minority persons respectively. So, although the gap in arrest rates between the two groups has reduced slightly, overall arrest rates have fallen so the target has not been achieved. Numbers of stops and searches also increased during the year, particularly relating to priority areas of street crimes and drugs.

Complaints from stop and searches were to be monitored according to the Policing Plan. There were 93 complaints in 2001/2 from white people stopped/searched and 221 from ethnic minority people. This was a reduction on complaints recorded from stop and searches in 2000/1, of 272 from ethnic minority people and 186 from white people.

The targets set for timeliness of processing youths through the system, two days from arrest to charge, was not met but performance improved from 55 to 76 per cent.

Other areas where targets were not met included burglary, vehicle crime and emergency response.

However, the Met did have successes in meeting targets in other areas, such as drug related crime where the MPS aimed to increase judicial disposals for supply and intent to supply Class A drugs by ten per cent. They more than achieved this objective with a 21.3 per cent increase being recorded. There was also a target to refer 3,000 arrestees into drug treatment programmes, which was again achieved with 3,568 offenders being referred.

There were three targets set relating to race crime. The first was to reduce differences in satisfaction expressed by victims of racist crime and that expressed by victims of other crime. This difference was increased slightly to 7.7%. The plan stated that there would be a target developed for numbers of racist incidents and crimes. A target was not developed but recorded racist incidents and crimes fell by 10% in 2001/2. The final target was to achieve a 17% judicial disposal rate, which was achieved.

Similar targets were set for homophobic crime: to have no difference in victim satisfaction with other victims; to monitor levels of homophobic incidents and crimes; and to achieve a 13% judicial disposal rate. Regarding victim satisfaction, the MPS developed a methodology for surveying victims of homophobic crime but this was not agreed by the IAG and no alternative was proposed. Recorded levels of homophobic crimes and incidents were 6% less than in the previous year. The judicial disposal rate was 15.3%, achieving the target.

Under the new MPA committee structure, performance monitoring will be carried out regularly of all Policing Plan indicators for 2002/3. Emerging performance issues will be identified and provided to the appropriate committee. Some areas of poor performance in emergency response and recent increases in burglary will be examined by the Authority in more detail in July.

Notes to editors

Three targets were set for domestic violence. Firstly, there was an aim to increase recorded domestic violence. Domestic violence incidents stayed almost the same as in 2000/1, with 90,974 being recorded, 0.2% less than the previous year, hence this objective was not achieved. Secondly, 15% of domestic violence cases had a judicial disposal in 2001/2, achieving the 14% target. Finally, the percentage of repeat domestic violence incidents was monitored, with 14.9% being repeat incidents in 2001/2, a small drop from 15.9% in 2000/1.

The target for rape offences was a judicial disposal rate of 25%. The performance for the year was 22.5% hence this objective was not achieved. This is, however, an improvement on last year's rate of 18.6%.

The first target around child abuse was a judicial disposal rate for child sex abuse cases of 35%. Performance was 26%, a drop from last year's rate of 29.8%, hence this target was not achieved. In addition, 60% of boroughs were to run child abuse prevention initiatives in partnership with other agencies. During 2001/2 all boroughs ran initiatives, hence achieving this target.

One aim was to reduce road casualties from 0.76 per 1000 population (equating to 5570 per year) to 0.74. The figure for 2001/2 was 0.75 per 1000 population hence this target was not achieved; however this does represent a gradual long-term decline in casualties.

In addition to operational objectives, the 2001/2 Policing Plan set a number of internal developmental objectives. Targets to reduce police and civilian staff sickness were not met, with levels remaining fairly static from 2001/2. Traffic warden sickness was reduced and the target met.

The target to recruit 2475 police officers during the year was met, with actual recruitment being at 2748 officers. However, only 1470 civilian staff were recruited against a 2640 target, partly due to restrictions on civil staff recruitment in order to manage the 2001/2 budget.

7.6% of police officers left voluntarily in the first 5 years of service during 2001/2, failing to meet the 6.5% target. The target for voluntary leavers for 5 to 30 years service was met, at 2.3% compared to a 2.8% target. The civil staff turnover target was also met, with 10.6% leaving compared to a 13% target.

Workforce Diversity

The percentage of visible ethnic minority (VEM) officers increased gradually over the year from 4.17% to 4.86% (from 1055.25 to 1300 officers), due to a large increase in ethnic minority recruits, not quite meeting the 5% target.

There is a difference in average lengths of service for VEM and white officers and a target was set to reduce this by 10%. This was not achieved and the gap widened, attributed to the number of new VEM recruits. Similarly there is a difference in length of service for female and male officers and a target to reduce this by 6.6% was set and this was achieved.

Targets were set to increase VEM representation throughout higher police ranks and civilian grades. Neither of these targets were met, with VEM representation at sergeant and above and at grade 10 and above actually falling during the year.

CRR training

The target for 75% of police and front-line civilian staff to have received Community and Race Relations (CRR) training was achieved with 76% being trained by the end of March 2002.

Professional standards.

No targets were set in this area, but levels of corruption offences and complaints were monitored. Overall, complaints per 1000 officers reduced and the percentage substantiated increased.

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