Crime league tables to be introduced for police stations

THE COUNTRY'S best and worst police stations for catching criminals will be named for the first time next year, it was revealed yesterday.

The police are to be the latest organisation to undergo performance league tables. From January, up to 400 police divisions in England and Wales will have tables published every six months for the number of car crimes, domestic burglaries and violent offences. The number of crimes solved, known as the "clear-up rate" is expected to be added at a later date along with other types of offences.

The Home Office intends that only police divisions with a similar make- up should be compared with each other. They are expected to be grouped according to whether they are based in inner-city, suburban, metropolitan or rural divisions.

Jack Straw, said yesterday that the new Basic Command Unit (BCU) league tables would help drive up performances. But the Superintendents' Assocation claimed it would be at the cost of other more community-based work, such as reducing the fear of crime, that cannot be easily measured.

Mr Straw told the conference: "[The tables] will give people the information they want to know - about what crime levels are like in Norwich, Newcastle and Nuneaton, as well as across Norfolk, Northumbria and Warwickshire." He added: "This is happening in education, the health service and indeed across local and national government - and the police service and local crime reduction partnerships can be no different.

"Figures for the first six months of 1999-2000 will be published next January. This clearly focuses attention on police performance at the level of divisional commanders."

But he insisted: "I am keen ... to make sure that national measures do not hijack the agenda of local priorities or vice versa; that we avoid making misleading comparisons between BCUs of different geographical and demographic areas; that we do not allow a `blame culture' to re-emerge."

The Home Office already publishes data comparing police response times to 999 calls. But because each force calculates its performance in different ways it makes the tables misleading. The new measures will stick to easily recorded crimes, such as breaking into vehicles, house break-ins and violence against the person.

Mr Straw's reassurances, however, did not provide comfort to police officers who believe the league table culture will not result in better law enforcement, but will merely lead to forces neglecting other areas of their work to concentrate on the crimes that are measured.

Superintendent Peter Williams, the national secretary of the Superintendents' Associaion, said: "Jack Straw said it's going to raise the morale of the police. But you are going to compare a BCU at Rochdale with one in Totnes, Devon - one different northern town with one in the south. The problems are different in different parts of the country. It's too symplistic. It's using yardsticks that are out of date. It only looks at issues that can be measured."

He said that important issues such as public disorder, nuisance neighbours, fear of crime and cycling on footpaths will be given a lower priority.