A joint report, published today by the Wales Audit Office and the Audit Commission looks at how well the 43 police forces and authorities in England and Wales record crime data and compares their performance over the last three years. Crime Data 2005 found that most forces and authorities meet the crime recording standards and all but two have adequate management arrangements in place to maintain and improve compliance. In Wales, all forces and authorities have shown improvements.

Police forces and authorities were reviewed against the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) and Home Office Counting Rules. The report also examined the way forces and authorities managed the process to ensure compliance with the standards. Each force and authority was given one of four ratings: “poor”, “fair”, “good” or “excellent”.

The report found that police forces and authorities recorded at least 80 per cent of crime data accurately. Thirty five of them met the minimum crime recording requirement of 90 per cent accuracy to achieve a “good” or “excellent” rating. This compares to 24 (56 per cent) in 2004 and 12 (28 per cent) in the first year of reviews.

Improvement in England and Wales has been significant, but there are still areas of concern. Two forces were rated as “poor” for their management arrangements and a small number have deteriorated or failed to improve since the last review. Only one force has been judged as “excellent” for both data quality and management arrangements. In addition, five forces rely on expensive and time consuming data checking techniques rather than getting the crime recorded right first time.

Recording crime properly has a direct impact on people’s lives. Forces taking appropriate action correctly to record crime, such as burglary, violent assault or domestic violence when it is reported, are far more likely to be able to protect the victim from future harm.

In forces with “good” or “excellent” management arrangements, victims and witnesses will find it easy to contact the police and will be updated throughout the process. Satisfaction surveys will give police information about complaint patterns and the experience of victims and witnesses so that forces can identify problem areas and respond.

Weaker forces fail to return calls from the public, provide information or make follow-up visits as promised. In some cases, such as at busy times, victims may struggle to contact the police at all.

There has been overall improvement in the management arrangements to support data quality. Twenty nine forces (67 per cent) were assessed as “good” or “excellent” for management arrangements in 2005 compared with eight (19 per cent) in 2004 and four (nine per cent) in 2003. There are two forces rated as “poor” compared with seven in 2003 and 2004.

Auditor General for Wales, Jeremy Colman, said today:

“Police forces and authorities have significantly improved the quality of their crime recording over the past three years. When we last reported on this area in December 2004, only one force in Wales was compliant with the standard. Now, all Welsh forces have either met or exceeded the minimum standards.”

Notes to Editors:

• This report has been jointly produced by the Wales Audit Office and the Audit Commission.
• Crime recording reviews were carried out in partnership with the Police Crime and Standards Directorate at the Home Office, which is responsible for supporting improvement in police forces.
• The 2005 reviews at police authorities and forces in Wales were carried out by Auditors appointed by the Auditor General for Wales. Reviews carried out in England were carried out by Auditors appointed by the Audit Commission.
• Auditors reviewed crime data in seven categories – disturbance, domestic violence, racial incidents, violent crime, criminal damage, burglary and vehicle crime.
• NCRS was introduced in 2002 by the Association of Chief Police Officers with the support of the Home Office. Home Office Counting Rules provide police forces with a framework for recording crime.
• The grading system for 2005 is different to 2003 and 2004 when forces and authorities were given a traffic light rating of green, amber or red. The four-band rating system was introduced in 2005 to match that used in assessments by other bodies. Poor is equivalent to red and fair to amber. Good and excellent divide the green category.

• The Wales Audit Office mission is to promote improvement, so that people in Wales benefit from accountable, well-managed public services that offer the best possible value for money. It is also committed to identify and spreading good practice across the Welsh public sector.
• The Wales Audit Office was created in April 2005 through the Public Audit (Wales) Act, 2004, which expanded the functions of the Auditor General for Wales and enabled the transfer of staffs from the Audit Commission in Wales and National Audit Office in Wales to his employment.
• The Audit Commission is an independent body responsible for ensuring that public money is spent economically, efficiently and effectively, to achieve high quality local services for the public.
• A Welsh language version of this report will be available shortly on the Wales Audit Office website at www.wao.gov.uk.

Ends

For more information please contact Kirsty Keogh at the Audit Commission on 0207 166 2262 or email k-keogh@audit-commission.gov.uk.

For Wales specific queries contact the Wales Audit Office Communications Team on 029 2026 2673 or email lisa.smyth@wao.gov.uk