Performance and Measurement

Summary

Greater Manchester is one of Britain’s largest and most heavily populated metropolitan areas, with almost 2.6 million people. The force is divided into 12 policing divisions, which mirror the ten local authority boundaries, with Manchester itself divided into three.

The force vision is to ‘fight crime, protect people’ and to do this by: making Greater Manchester safer; bringing criminals to justice; being visible on the streets; and respecting, reassuring and responding to local communities. The priorities to achieve this are to reduce crime and disorder, investigate and detect crime, build safer communities with partners and provide a well-led and accountable service that is efficient and effective.

The force has made significant reductions in levels of crime. It has emphasised the importance of leadership, introducing a pioneering programme of leadership and development initiatives, and has received Investors in People reaccreditation.
Greater Manchester has also piloted the National Reassurance Policing Programme, although this programme has now been replaced at Oldham by the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative.

The force is seen as an exemplar of best practice in investigating organised crime and counterterrorism and wants to be at the forefront of developing shared support services between forces. Particular challenges for the force for the coming year are the development of call-handling facilities, the hosting of the Labour Party Conference in September 2006, the maintenance of its position as a leader in serious and organised crime investigation and the continuing enhancement of volume crime investigation capabilities.

For further information see the full baseline assessment.