Agenda item

Members to receive an update report of the performance exceptions of Leicestershire Police for the period 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2020.

Members will be asked to comment on the recommendations for further analysis based on exceptions and to note the contents of the report.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report providing an update of the performance exceptions of Leicestershire Police for the period 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2020.

Panel members noted that:

·         Violence with Injury offences had seen a reduction throughout Quarter 4 however there had been an increase in the most recent data point (March 2020) and a comparison to the same quarter of the previous year indicated a 25% increase.

·         The increase in these offences was attributed to an adjustment to correctly classify crimes as Common Assault (Violence without Injury) to Actual Bodily Harm offences (ABH, Violence with Injury).

·         Burglary Residential offences were showing a month on month reduction with comparison to the same quarter of the previous year indicating a 21% decrease.

·         Stalking and Harassment offences showed a prolonged increasing trend with an average monthly volume increase by approximately 100 offences and a comparison to the same quarter of the previous year indicating a 18% increase.

The ensuing discussion included the following points:

·         In relation to the increased reporting of incidents and call handling the introduction of new software had enabled call handlers to switch more easily between 999 and 101 calls improving performance throughout the year. Online crime reports remained stable.

·         The purpose of providing comparison data of response times to 2018 was to generate an idea of longer trends, 2018 was a notable year as it was the World Cup and there were other large events taking place across the County. Overall the data showed response times were quite steady and had recovered from a difficult period. It was also hoped that the introduction of the new Target Operating model in March 2020 during the Covid 19 impact would show further improvement on call handling response times.

·         It was suggested that the report could be more consistent in the presentation of data and simplified rather than a statistical manner.

·         Regarding the missing person data and how that related to Looked After Children, there were 2 elements, children from Leicester who were looked after in Leicester and children from outside Leicester/Leicestershire who were placed here. For the latter group it was not always clearly communicated who had been placed where and when. It was recognised this was a challenging area with 62% of those “missing” being repeaters for a variety of reasons.

Action: Chief Constable to provide a breakdown of the missing person data related to Looked After Children to panel members.

1.40pm Alan Walters left the meeting.

·         In terms of harassment and stalking offences it was suggested this was often linked to domestic violence and so some of those offences should be categorised as such. It was clarified that many offences featured in more than one category, but each crime was reported and categorised through Home Office rules. Crimes were being assessed to try and analyse other factors surrounding the crime such as domestic violence.

·         It was noted that there had been a slight increase month on month of hate offences, and it was queried whether this was linked to the challenges of Covid 19. It was acknowledged there had been some increase in this type of crime month on month however this data was only up to the end of March 2020, so before the Covid 19 lockdown began. More often this type of crime was linked to neighbour disputes.

·         In relation to Stop and Search data, each Stop and Search had to be documented and the act of searching must be recorded, if a search was conducted the reasonable grounds for that search were also noted. Police Officers had been told to use their body cams at each stop and search and there was a process for dip sampling and watching recordings of stop and searches by an independent panel.

·         Stop and Search was carried out in areas where there was a focus

on crime e.g. knife crime, and a third of stop and searches turned up a positive result of some sort. An officer could only stop and search if they had reason to suspect a person had certain articles upon them. Stop and search was a legitimate tool and the force tried to use it reasonably, the data in charts within the report showed the 3-5 year trend and indicated the volume of positive outcomes achieved was proportionate to the volume of searches.

·         The use of Prevention Orders had risen by 60%, this was a relatively new piece of legislation that allowed the Superintendent to issue a Prevention Order with conditions around domestic violence incidents and used to provide protection to victims of domestic abuse and control of offenders.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the Chief Constable provide a breakdown of the missing person data related to Looked After Children to panel members.

2.    That the proposals for further analysis of exceptions be supported,

3.    That the contents of the report be noted.