Performance and Measurement

Summary

The major floods of summer 2007 had a massive impact on police resources in South Yorkshire. Over a 2-week period all districts were significantly affected, numerous residential areas were evacuated and the M1 was closed for 5 days, which saw a significant increase in traffic on other minor roads throughout the county.

In relation to serious and Organised Crime, South Yorkshire was recognised for its strong intelligence structures and comprehensive investment in serious and organised crime resources. Measurement/assessment of harm and risk and playing a lead role regionally in reviewing intelligence arrangements are worthy of note. In major crime, the Force was recognised as meeting the standard. Following the inspection, the Force has established measures aimed at homicide reduction.

The force exceeded all locally selected crime reduction targets. Overall crime decreased by 8.6%, a reduction of almost 14,000 offences compared to 2006/07. The target overall sanction detection rate was exceeded, as were five of the seven locally selected sanction detection targets. Additional force results included theft from vehicles at the lowest level for 21 years, house burglaries the lowest levels for 25 years, other burglaries at the lowest levels for 28 years and theft of vehicles at the lowest levels for 30 years. The force continues to show marginal improvements in user satisfaction. However, this did not improve at the same rate as others within the force peer group.

The force and Police Authority agreed three local priorities for 2007/08. These were: to reduce numbers of criminal damage offences by 10%, with performance of 10.2%; to Improve the criminal damage sanction detection rate to 13% where performance was within 100 detections of exceeding the stretch target, and; increase the percentage of female recruits to 50%, where performance was 36%.

The new force performance monitoring framework ensures a more holistic approach to performance management, and includes local perception results detailing User Satisfaction Analysis.

Regional collaboration gives greater resilience for protective services and efficiency savings through regional procurement and training. Regional initiatives on crime were conducted with the three other forces in the region. The “Maximum Impact” initiative ran for 6 weeks during summer 2007 and led to a 13.5% reduction in British Crime Survey crime, demonstrating the benefits of collaborative working, which has led to the formation of the regional automatic number plate recognition unit. The force exceeded its efficiency savings target for 2007/08, delivering savings of over £30m against a target of £7.2m. The “Your Voice Counts” survey enables the force to micro-analyse the British Crime Survey and better understand the priorities of local communities. Phase two implementation of the Major incident team has resulted in the appointment of more support staff investigators, releasing experienced detectives into roles more aligned to their skills and training. Working with Sheffield University, the development of an investigators course to assist with the future demands for support staff investigators has taken place.

Key challenges for the future are: integration of protective services into daily business (workforce modernisation is progressing in several areas across the Force); continuing to identify and deliver ambitious efficiency gains over the next 3 years without negatively impacting on service delivery; and improving confidence and satisfaction. Although the force continued to improve against locally selected targets, its performance relative to its most similar forces deteriorated, due to other forces improving at a greater rate.