Agenda item

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which presented a report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) entitled Leicestershire Police: Crime Data Integrity re-inspection 2018. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 5’, is filed with these minutes.

In presenting the report the PCC acknowledged that Leicestershire Police were not performing well enough with regards to crime recording and whilst the report stated that improvements had been made since the previous inspection, there was further work that needed to be done. It was hoped that the 2019/20 budget for Leicestershire Police would help address some of the issues that had been raised by HMICFRS.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        The findings of the inspection needed to be viewed in the national context. Of the 26 forces inspected 8 others received the same ‘Inadequate’ grading as Leicestershire Police.  Leicestershire Police had been found to be 84% compliant with regards to crime recording which was just below the national average of 87.7%.

(ii)       There was no suggestion from HMICFRS that Leicestershire Police had been deliberately manipulating the crime figures. HMICFRS had rated Leicestershire Police as ‘Good’ for leadership and they would not have done so had they had any concerns about the ethics of senior officers or a deliberate lack of transparency from the force.

(iii)      At the time of the 2017 inspection Leicestershire Police had 3 dedicated decision makers for crime recording whereas they now employed 12 decision makers. As a result of the previous inspection HMICFRS had recommended that training should be provided to all staff within Leicestershire Police that made crime recording decisions. To date Leicestershire Police had provided training to those staff whose roles were relevant to crime recording such as investigators and many others; over 1000 staff in total. There were some staff who had not received the training and in an organisation with over 4000 staff it would take time however the recommendation from HMICFRS had been complied with.

(iv)      The Police and Crime Panel welcomed the steps that had been taken by Leicestershire Police to improve crime recording but raised concerns that the HMICFRS report would affect the levels of confidence that the public had that crime was being dealt with appropriately. In response the PCC stated that the public had no reason to fear that crime was not being recorded to a satisfactory degree and that in his view the rules in relation to crime recording were unnecessarily rigorous.

(v)       With many of the incidents where a crime had not been recorded by Leicestershire Police and where HMICFRS were of the view that a crime should have been recorded, a separate crime had been recorded by the Force relating to the same victim or offender, but it was the view of HMICFRS that more than one crime should have been recorded for that victim. This issue particularly arose in Domestic Abuse cases where several incidents had occurred over a period of time but Leicestershire Police had only recorded one crime of Domestic Abuse for that victim and offender. Reassurance was given that in most of these cases, despite the recording error, the victim had been referred for support and the offender had been dealt with. It was just the case that each separate incident of abuse had not been recorded as a separate crime. Leicestershire Police would endeavour to record each individual incident of Domestic Abuse as a crime in future. In response to assurances sought by the Panel, the PCC stated that he was content that victims of Domestic Abuse and rape in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland were receiving sufficient support, within the resources that were available.

(vi)      In response to a question regarding the proportion of reported rapes which were historical it was clarified that approximately half of rape reports were made within 7 days of the incident whereas a third of rape reports were made 6 months or more after the incident.

(vii)    It was acknowledged that crime mapping was based on recorded crime therefore it was important to correctly record crime so that the analysis of trends and hot spots would be accurate.

(viii)   A member queried whether it could be ascertained from the data whether crime recording was better in some districts than others however it was confirmed that a judgement on this could not be made from the figures.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.