Met performance going in the right direction - "Excellent results for London's communities"

67/06
24 October 2006

The Metropolitan Police Authority today welcomed the Metropolitan Police Service’s vast improvement in its Police Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF) scores for 2005-06 and improved results for its baseline assessment 2006.

The Met received Excellent, Good and Fair delivery scores for all PPAF areas and the majority show the direction of travel as improving. On top of this the Met’s baseline assessments results for 2006 are improving, with no aspects of performance assessed as ‘poor’.

Len Duvall, chair of the MPA, said of the PPAF results:

“The improvements in performance that the Authority has been monitoring across the Met this year have been duplicated in the PPAF grades received. Significantly this year the Met’s scores were not capped, as happened previously when performance didn’t meet the minimum standards required under National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS), and consequently we now have a more appropriate assessment of performance.

“The good performance recorded for residential burglary has contributed to the overall score for Reducing Crime of ‘Fair and Stable’. The Authority will expect the Met to continue this good work and even improve on this score in 2006-07.

“The Met has performed particularly well in the Local Policing domain which indicates the public’s perception of police performance and satisfaction, receiving an ‘Excellent and Improving’ score. Importantly this corroborates the results of the Met's most recent Public Attitude Survey (2005/06) which indicated Londoners' confidence in policing, both across the capital and at a local level, are increasing.

“The MPA is confident that the Met will continue to improve in this area as a result of the full roll out for the Safer Neighbourhoods programme across the entire capital by December this year, and the continued work around Citizen Focus which will ensure that the whole organisation is orientated to serving London’s communities.”

The baseline assessment results 2006 for the Met are mixed, with three Excellent, twelve Good and eight Fair assessments.

Len Duvall, commenting on baseline assessment results, continued:

“The Authority is pleased to see that the Met results are improving, with no aspects of performance assessed as ‘poor’ as in previous years. Significantly, reducing and investigating volume crime are no longer judged to be poor.

“We are also satisfied that the Met has been judged as improving in 17 out of 21 areas, building on the achievements of 2005, and that no services have been judged as deteriorating.

"It is clear from the results that challenges remain in delivering effective policing to Londoners - in particular, we will be seeking to work with the MPS to improve fairness and equality in service delivery, protecting vulnerable people and customer service and accessibility, but overall these are excellent improvements that testify to a lot of hard work.”

The MPA will continue to monitor MPS performance and to promote continuous improvements to provide a more efficient and effective police service for London’s communities.

Notes to editors

1. PPAF is intended to be an effective and fair way of measuring and comparing strategic performance in policing across the full range of policing responsibilities. A police service’s performance is compared on a ‘most similar’ basis. Each force is placed in a group of its ‘most similar forces’ as determined by demographic, socio-economic and geographical factors strongly correlated with levels of recorded. The MPS is compared with West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and West Yorkshire. It must be remembered that the difference between the MPS and all other forces is such that no other force compares itself with the MPS.

2. Baseline assessment is a more qualitative assessment of service delivery based on a review of key documentation and extensive interviewing of key personnel. The MPA welcomes the use of baseline assessment as a tool to measure the ongoing performance of the Met, although it also recognises that it is not always possible to compare the MPS with other metropolitan forces.

3. The Met's Public Attitude Survey (2005/06) involved more than 7500 detailed interviews with Londoners and examined experiences and perceptions of crime and policing.

4. PPAF and baseline assessment results will be published at 9.45am on Tuesday 24 October 2006 on the Home Office and HMIC websites.

Further media information

For further information, please contact the MPA press office

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