Performance and Measurement

Summary

The county of Derbyshire covers an area of over 1,000 square miles. It has a mixture of urban and rural areas, including former mining communities in the north east, the commercial/industrial city of Derby in the south, and the vast moors and countryside of the Peak District in the north west, which attracts over 22 million day visitors to the county each year. Derbyshire’s population of 987,000 includes 5% from minority ethnic communities, and a number of wards suffer from significant levels of socioeconomic deprivation. During 2007, the chief officer team underwent considerable change, with two new Assistant Chief Constables appointed early in the year and a new Chief Constable taking up post in the autumn.

The Phase 1 inspection in 2007 examined Neighbourhood Policing, Performance Management and the four separate aspects of Protecting Vulnerable People – child abuse, domestic violence, missing persons and public protection. All these activities were graded Fair in 2006, except Neighbourhood Policing, which was graded Good.

Performance Management is now more robust and the inspection found acceptable levels of service delivery for child abuse investigation and the management of sex and violent offenders (public protection). It also identified significant progress in the field of missing persons enquiries. The force has set up a multi-agency forum in Derby to manage enquiries about vulnerable missing persons and, in particular, those relating to young people living in social care accommodation who are repeatedly reported missing to the police. It is envisaged that this approach will not only help to reduce the numbers reported missing but will also protect already vulnerable individuals from the risks of drug misuse or sexual exploitation and abuse.

Neighbourhood Policing builds upon established traditions of community policing and has yet to establish the full range of community engagement and joint problem solving required to implement it effectively across the county. The force’s operational responses to incidents involving vulnerable people, including victims of domestic violence, has been transformed by recent critical incidents and, as the improvements made become well embedded in service delivery, it will better equip officers to manage identified risks. It is acknowledged that this work is in its early stages and the force will need to ensure that the full benefits follow.

Volume crime investigation has remained fairly stable overall; offences brought to justice and sanction detection rates have also shown little change. Volume crime reduction has remained stable, with little change in violent crime, threats to life and gun crime but a slight increase in acquisitive crime. User satisfaction has remained largely unchanged.

Local priorities agreed by the police authority for 2007/08 are to improve the violent crime sanction detection rate to 47.5% and to improve the answering time for non-emergency calls.

The HMIC baseline assessment in 2006 did not grade any frameworks as Poor or Fair/Deteriorated but the force has nevertheless developed an action plan to remedy identified areas for improvement. This plan is updated quarterly for chief officers and the police authority and tracked by HMIC.

Although the plan to create an East Midlands strategic force was discontinued in 2006, work on regional collaboration continues, with Derbyshire staff contributing to the regional collaboration planning team and units. Regional collaboration should bring opportunities for efficiency and performance improvements across many operational policing and related activities in the East Midlands, and it is hoped that the projected savings, when released, will help deliver front-line services.