Performance and Measurement

Summary

In addition to the geographical size of the Force, a number of other aspects make North Yorkshire unique. Catterick Garrison, the largest military establishment in the UK, is planned to undergo a major expansion in the future, which will require the force’s support through its services. There is an increasing requirement to police environmental and political campaigns due to the locality of power stations and army bases, meaning an increasing need to balance community and county requirements. Due to the county’s challenging road network, traffic incidents resulting in serious injury or fatality are an ongoing priority.

In 2008, HMIC inspected Neighbourhood Policing and Citizen Focus, and performance in both is positive. Safer Neighbourhoods are the overall priority. Having had a considerable impact on the communities, the public have had fewer crimes committed against them and local issues are understood and actively tackled. Much of this success has been made possible through active, effective local partnerships. North Yorkshire received a grade of “Not Meeting Standard” in the HMIC Major Crime inspection. Following immediate feedback, the Force invested in additional resources for major investigations, overhauled its responses to the training and resourcing of such investigations and conducted a major review of intelligence structures and processes, resulting in some 350 actions in the process of being implemented, which have already begun to address the issues identified.

Reductions in Domestic Burglaries, Violent crime, and Vehicle crime have been complemented by improvements in sanction detections and offences brought to justice. Performance in relation to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured requires improvement. Customer feedback and perceptions also remain a key priority in 2008/09 under the Citizen Focus agenda. Recorded crime has decreased by over 18% since 2004/05 (over 11,000 fewer crimes). Consulting with a diverse group of people has enabled the force to ensure that local priorities meet community needs. The force has performed well in meeting its local targets except for reducing anti-social behaviour, and reducing violent crimes committed whilst under the influence of alcohol. From 2007, the main area is to further improve Neighbourhood Policing.

Working in partnership, the force has reduced crime by 7.8% (over 4,200 fewer crimes in 2007/08 compared to the previous year). It has also delivered a sanction detection rate of 33.3%, one of the top performing forces in the country.In Eastern Area, the Community Protection Unit has built on the introduction of specialist domestic violence courts last year. The team has trained all magistrates, victim advocates, Crown Prosecution Service, lawyers and partner agencies in handling domestic violence cases.

The Yorkshire and Humberside region in partnership with the Home Office is working on projects including regional fast time tasking, co-ordinating and resourcing arrangements to deal quickly with all types of major incidents such as floods, and strategic roads policing, including an enhanced automatic number plate recognition capability across the region.

The key challenge for the future is providing a sustainable service in line with the current financial climate. To address this, the force will seek to increase the provision of collaborative services with both public and private sector partners, increase understanding in supply and demand over a range of local, regional and national initiatives to support the growing requirements of Protective Services, continue evolving Safer Neighbourhoods as the primary focus through understanding and dealing with local concerns, and use Workforce Modernisation to find the most efficient way of maintaining or improving service delivery.