Kent Police has made considerable improvements to crime recording – and the momentum must be sustained
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An interim report published today has found that Kent Police has made considerable improvements to its crime recording process and has responded positively to the findings of a 2013 inspection by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) – the focus must now be on ensuring the progress is sustained.
In June 2013, HMIC published a review of crime recording in Kent which found that appreciably more needed to be done before the people of Kent could be confident that the crime and resolution figures published by the force are as accurate as they should be.
In a revisit in November 2013, HMIC found that Kent Police had taken a number of steps to improve the accuracy of crime recording and had developed a comprehensive action plan, against which good progress has been made.
There have been considerable improvements to crime recording processes made by the force, and inspectors found substantially greater accuracy in crime recording – although HMIC found that more needs to be done on training and raising awareness of the force’s new approach to managing performance.
HMIC believes the focus must now be on ensuring these improvements are sustained, and will inspect Kent Police again in 2014 as part of an all-force inspection on crime data integrity. This is in order to make a definitive judgment on the success of the changes made by the force which are outside of processes, such as culture.
HM Inspector of Constabulary for the Eastern Region, Zoë Billingham, said:
“Kent Police has responded positively to the concerns raised in our inspection last year, and is making progress against the plan they have developed in response.
“Our revisit found that the force has made significant improvements – however, changes to culture take time to implement, and it remains too early to say whether the improvements can be sustained long-term. HMIC will return to the force in 2014 as part of our wider crime data integrity inspection, to assess whether the people of Kent can have lasting confidence in the force’s crime figures.”
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Notes
- In February 2013, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent commissioned HMIC to undertake an inspection “to determine whether the people of Kent can have confidence in Kent Police’s crime figures”. Following this report, the Police and Crime Commissioner invited HMIC to return to the force later in the year to assess if progress had been made. Read the first report, Crime Recording in Kent
- For further information, HMIC’s press office can be contacted during office hours from 8:30am – 5:30pm Monday – Friday on 0203 513 0600. HMIC’s out-of-hours press office line for urgent media enquiries is 07836 217 729.