IT'S OFFICIAL : THE DANGEROUSLY THIN BLUE LINE OF POLICE IS NOW A DOT . . . .

Readers will be aware that HMIC together wiuth the Audit Commission, have issued two reports this week, confirming what front line response officers have know for a long time, that regardless of the increase in police strength over recent years, that the civilian and support staff to frontline officer ratio is completely out of kilter.

The frontline numbers have progressively reduced to a point where it risks the safety of those visible officers and the general public too.

Our latest report, takes the HMIC and Audit Commission reports much further, exploring the officer to population and officer to recorded crime ratios, which have previously been massively understated by the Home Office under the previous administration. 

The consequences are dire to say the least, with officers dealing with ten times the population size and ten times the crime incidents previously disclosed. To see our report click here.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary's report 'Valuing the Police', Policing in an Age of Austerity, published yesterday, shows that only 11% of the police are visibly available to the public. HMIC warns that with looming budget cuts, the availability of the police to the public will be even further reduced, unless there is a total redesign of the police. Also yesterday, the Audit Commission and the Wales Audit Office published a joint report with HMIC - 'Sustaining value for money in the police service'.

In our previous reports on response numbers part 1, part 2 and part 3 we have warned about the low frontline officer numbers. Now that the HMIC & Audit commission reports have confirmed that the actual “Visual” officers available for frontline policing is as low as 10% of the total warranted officer numbers, we have taken the percentages provided by HMIC and applied them to population and crime incidents to arrive at the real picture of police officers available to respond to public calls for assistance.

The findings are alarming.

To see our latest report, taking the HMIC and Audit Commission report further click here.

The report looks at each of the 43 police forces, the population within their area, the policing strngth and latest recorded crime figures.

Previous Home Office publications have suggested that each police officer is reposbile for 376 members of the public (on a national basis) and deals with 30 recorded crimes. Multiply these numbers by ten and you would be closer to the real story revealed in this report. Applying the "visible" officer numbers to the population and recorded crimes reveals the frightening true picture of policing in the UK in July 2010.

HMIC must have had notice of this information well in advance and observers may question the timing of the release shortly after the departure of the out of favour Labour administration, and that its release at this time is intended to curry favour with the Conservative/Liberal Government.

In truth, there is no problem with that providing the new Government do something about protecting the frontline numbers. Provided they do, it will be job done.

We published a report a few months ago after we issued Freedom of Information requests to all forces asking for frontline response numbers. Some of the replies were unbelievable, with one force even categorising their Assistant Chief Constable as a “response reource” because he’d been involved in an arrest during the year! Clearly officers not available for frontline visual response duties as part of their normal tour of duty are not usually available to deal with calls from the public.

The 42% of warranted officers for the frontline number we arrived at initially, matched that released by the HMIC a month or so later. The 42% was overstated though, including posts not normally associated with response duty. We whittled it down, giving forces the benefit in some cases to around 20%. So to see that only 10% of warranted officers are “visible” was a heck of a drop, yet more in line with what frontline officers and police bloggers had been saying all along.

The implications for public and officer safety at these numbers are serious and frightening on a national level.

Having taken the HMIC numbers a stage further the conclusions reflect what a shambles of a legacy the NuLabour and Senior Officer coalition have left to clear up.

The consequences of the low “visible officer” numbers are a perfect example of what front line officers have been saying, that the way the numbers have been presented have misled the public and the media for years.

What this illustrates most clearly, and is alluded to by Sir Denis O’Connor, Chief Inspector of Constabulary is that the quality of senior management must be reviewed with urgency. That Senior Officers, knowing their resources and results, sat back and let it happen is a disgraceful example of how out of touch, oblivious, self serving and reckless they have been, in allowing officer and public safety to be compromised to these frightening levels.

Times are changing thankfully, and regardless of HMIC timing, the can is slowly being prized off the can of worms. Senior Officers clinging on to the threads of hope they believe the pledge contains for them is an example of how they will defend their previous actions and strategies. The lid will well and truly be off once the scandal of SMT bonuses hits the press properly and subject to the coalition Government holding its nerve in exposing the rot.


A few highlights from our previous report about the cuts are increasingly relevant:- 

• Police Force Governance – consolidating ACPO, APA & NPIA SAVE ??? Millions
• Police Force Mergers – saving predicted by HMIC £2.25billion (over 10 years)
• Chief Officer Restructuring – consolidation of ACPO ranks SAVE £11million
• Chief Officer Restructuring – consolidation of SMT ranks SAVE £80million
• Remove Chief Supt & Chief Inspector ranks (alternative to mergers) SAVE £12million
• Increase constable to manager ratio (recruitment cost savings) SAVE £169million
• Increase sergeant to inspector ratio SAVE £178million
• If ratio of 1 frontline staff to every officer of management rank SAVE £1billion
• Police staff levels halved through mergers SAVE £1.3billion
• Police staff overtime halved by mergers or tighter control SAVE £31million
• Return 25% of office based police officers to frontline (recruitment savings) SAVE £670million
• 25% reduction in police staff support numbers SAVE £500million

Any one or combination of these measures are achievable WITHOUT touching front line resources. Any one of them would return hundreds if not thousands of officers to the front line where they are needed most.

Yes there will be pain, but far better that than continue to risk the lives and safety of over stretched officers and members of the public who actually deserve a better quality of service.

The first challenge for the new Home Secretary and her team, is to root out those senior officers who have been singing off their own self serving hymn sheets for far too long.

POLICE RESPONSE OFFICERS - A DANGEROUSLY THIN BLUE LINE? (PART 3)

Following on from our previous post and our report on police response numbers we were pleased to see Her Majesties Inspector of Constabulary launch their new "MYPOLICE" website this week at http://www.hmic.gov.uk/mypolice/pages/home.aspx

We have explored the new HMIC site in some detail over the days since its launch. There is a considerable amount of useful detail presented on the site and we shall be referred to it in future posts. First signs though, are that the HMIC have deliivered an excellent new public information resource on policing in England & Wales.

Trawling the site for information in support of our poolice response article, two reports released this week by the HMIC that are of particular interest are :-

The All Force Police Report Card and the Area Comparison on crime rates.

You can see at a glance how each force is performing overall in key areas of policing in the Police Report Card overview, and see the detailed performance information including forces’ prospects of improvement underlying this in the Police Report Card summary.

The Report card compares police force performance in four key areas:-

1. Local Crime and policing
2. Protecting the public from serious harm
3. Delivering confidence and satisfaction
4. Value for money

 Local crime and policing is subdivided by:-

• Reducing crime
• Solving Crime
• Visible presence in the neighbourhood
• Neighbourhood policing

Protecting the public is subdivided by:-

• Investigating major crime
• Suppressing gun crime
• Suppressing knife crime
• Solving serious sexual offences
• Reducing road death and injury

Confidence and satisfaction is subdivided by:-

• Public confidence : all agencies
• Service delivery
• Satisfactiuon of BME community
• Public confidence : police
• Meeting the Pledge standards
• Perceptions of ASB

Value for money is subdivided by:-

• Number of police officers and PCSO's
• Total cost of policing
• Cost per household
• Proportion of policing cost met from council tax

HMIC aims to provide information that will help answer some of the questions the public want answered about the police such as, How safe am I? What is my risk of being a crime victim? How well are my police performing? Are they likely to improve and am I getting value for money?

It will be an uncomfortable read for some. Their website press release claims that they aim to be fair in their performance assessments, and that when they compare forces, it is against a set of ‘peers’ – similar forces – taking into account budgets, crime profiles, populations and challenges. Performance grades are based on comparing like with like.

The National Overview by Denis O’Connor Her Majesties Chief Iinspector of Constubulary can be read here.

COMPARING THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REPLIES WITH THE HMIC REPORTS

We have taken ur previous findings from the FOI force replies and inserted the relevant HMIC data and measurement gradings alongside each force. The results make for interesting reading.

The diagram below can be clicked to view larger or downloaded directly as a pdf by clicking here

We were particularly pleased to see that the HMIC arrived at similar results to our analysis regarding response numbers.

• HMIC found that 42.5% of the police resource in Eglangland and Wales is committed to "Frontline" activity.
• Our analysis had put the "Response" percentage at a maximimum of 42%.

Our report had stated that we felt the 42% was still grossly overstated, as forces had included many operational functions within their response numbers, that are not tradionally viewed as a response function. This is corroborated by the explanatory note from HMIC, which lists the numerous other non response functions included within their frontline 42% number.

From our report on police response numbers the percentage was in fact nearer to 25-30% of the full time equivalent numbers of each force. The report above is sorted in order of the resource committed to purely response duties, with the worst force first in ascending order. It should be remembered that even those forces apparently committing higher numbers to response are subject to revision as those marked with a black arrow contain what we believe to be an overstated response figure.

It is interesting to compare the HMIC figures with the force FOI return percentages. Again it should be born in mind that the HMIC numbers will be based on numbers collated from forces as at 31/3/2009, whereas our FOI dta was collected between January and March 2010.

Part of the HMIC report card measurement process includes a grading for "Visible Police Presence". Again, we thought this weas a useful indicator to view alongside the response numbers. There are many forces graded as good or fair in this area by the HMIC, when there is clearly a low commitment to response policing.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Our findings from the FOI research, supported by this weeks release of data from the HMIC, confirm the frontline police blogs that have long since expressed concern about the lack of resources allocated to frontline policing as opposed to administrative, operational and organisational support numbers.

See for yourself the disparities between the FOI findings and the HMIC performance results.

The new information source from the HMIC site will prove helpful in compiling future analysis to determine whether forces actually deliver true value for money in this area. Frontline officers suspect that the allocation of resources to non response activity is grossly disproportionate, meaning that the vast majority of the tax payers contribution to policing pays for office based non response officers and police staff.

The conseqence of misaallocated resources is that frontline policing is exposed to a massive extra burden that is largely unseen. Senior officers and Home Office strategies manipulate crime statistics and detection rates to project the illusion of improved performance.The general public are cheated out of the full delivery of a police service that their taxes entitle them to. Instead, all the signs are, that for many years, billions in taxes have been funding teams of administrators and auditors rather than adequate provision for frontline services that would go a long way toward solving many of the problems facing our communities.

We will look more closely at the other sections of the HMIC force reports in future posts and analysis.

No faith in police statistics?

As the Government seek to maintain that crime is falling, its claim is undermined by the disclosure that police forces are routinely failing to record many violent offences. HM Inspector of Constabulary found that vicious street attacks and wife beatings are being wrongly dismissed as "no crimes". The police inspectorate found that one in three decisions to record a violent incident as “no crime” were wrong. If the findings, based on a small sample, are repeated across England and Wales it would mean that an estimated 5,000 violent offences a year are being wrongly dismissed.

While serious assaults are only a small proportion of total crime, can we place any faith in other statistics provided by the police?

The recorded crime figures have become almost impossible to take seriously. The Home Office has changed the methodology so dramatically since 1997 that comparing figures for crime over time has deliberately been made an impossible task. This allows ministers to rely upon the British Crime Survey as their preferred measure of offending, even though it was introduced in the 1980s to complement, not replace, police figures.

But far more important than the manipulation of dodgy figures is the fact that thousands of victims have received no justice; indeed, they have not even had their ordeal taken seriously. Two stories have exemplified the backward approach which prevails: an investigation of an attack on a 17-year-old girl was dropped because of the cost of sending her clothes away for DNA tests; yet a man who returned a £5 takeaway meal he had ordered was arrested by four officers, interrogated for 20 hours and charged with criminal damage.

• A female pensioner said she was pushed to the floor, banged her head and was kicked repeatedly by four offenders while on the ground. The force recorded the crime as inflicting grievous bodily harm without intent. HMIC would classify it as wounding or carrying out an act endangering life, a form of Most Serious Violence.

• A victim of an attack in a pub said he was punched repeatedly in the head, pushed to the floor and continually kicked. The injuries included a swollen eye, cuts and swelling to the head and cheek and bruising to knees, legs and hands. The force recorded the crime as ABH (Assault With Less Serious Injury) while HMIC would classify it as attempted grievous bodily harm with intent (Most Serious Violence).

• A husband allegedly smashed up his wife’s car, threw things at the window and threatened her with a stick. The force classified the offence as an incident while HMIC would classify it as a criminal damage.

Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, said: “It’s a very high error rate on a small sample. For us, as the regulator, it’s a matter of concern.”

Denis O'Connor Chief Inspector of Constabulary

Of the 479 incidents that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) examined, 35.7 per cent of the decisions were found to be wrong. The report’s findings raise concerns that officers are under pressure to dismiss some crimes in order to make their forces appear better and to meet government targets.

Warped priorities such as these result in a corrosive decline in public trust of the police. Mr O'Connor said "perverse targets" set by the Government might be partly to blame. But there must come a time when the authorities take direct responsibility for such inanities.

The HMIC report came on the same day that the quarterly crime statistics were released by the Home Office. They showed that between April and June, compared to the same three-month period last year, more burglaries, robberies and personal thefts were recorded. Domestic burglary rose by 3 per cent, robbery by 1 per cent and personal theft by 5 per cent. The economic downturn is one possible reason for the rise.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: “The increase in burglary rates is worrying since it is the unemployed who are most likely to be the victims – making life even tougher for them at the moment.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: “This is the fourth quarter in a row in which theft and burglary have risen as the recession bites. Senior police officers warn that we have not yet seen the full extent of the credit crunch crime wave.”

Crime Analysis Team

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