Oral evidence: Crime Statistics, HC 760
Oral evidence, 21 January 2014.
Witnesses
Norman Baker MP, Minister of State for Crime Prevention, and Professor Bernard Silverman, Chief Scientific Adviser, Home Office, gave evidence.
Chair
Can I ask each of you to identify yourselves for the record?
Norman Baker
I am Norman Baker, the Home Office Minister with responsibility for crime prevention.
Professor Silverman
I am Bernard Silverman, the Home Office’s Chief Scientific Adviser.
Chair
Professor Silverman, could you first of all just describe to us what your role is in this matter? As a scientist, we do not think you are a statistician—or maybe you are.
Professor Silverman
I am a statistician. I used to be the President of the Royal Statistical Society before I took up my present post.
Chair
Oh, my goodness.
Professor Silverman
I am the head of Home Office Science, which is a consolidated organisation that includes Home Office Statistics. The Chief Statistician, for example, is managed by me, though he has a line of professional accountability to Jil Matheson. In general, the role of the Chief Scientific Adviser is to be an independent voice in the Department. Having the Chief Statistician under my purview stresses the point that statistics is an independent part of the Home Office’s workings, and so it is not part of one of the policy units or anything like that.
Chair
That is very informative and reassuring; thank you very much. Minister, how surprised were you when you heard that UKSA was going to downgrade police-recorded crime statistics?
Norman Baker
I was slightly surprised—not because there are not questions that have been raised about the validity of the statistics, because there have been. In fact, we have had concerns ourselves, as I will go into shortly if you wish. I was slightly surprised in the sense that we have got the HMIC analysis underway and we are due to have an interim report from them in April. I was surprised that they, in a sense, jumped the gun before that interim report was ready. Nevertheless, there are clearly questions about the validity of the statistics, so, to that extent I understand why they have taken the action they have. I would also stress that they are entirely independent, so it is not for me to make a judgment as to whether they are correct or not, really.
Chair
How much have you learnt about this question since—and I am afraid I have to quote you from BBC Radio 5 Live in December—you said, “I do not believe there is massaging of crime figures. There are strong safeguards in place to ensure that police‑recorded crime is accurate. There is no incentive for police officers to do anything other than record crime accurately. There may have been in the past when there were centrally-driven targets, but there is no incentive to do that now”?
Norman Baker
I still hold to the view that there is not an endemic problem in the sense that there is a deliberate attempt across forces in a coherent way to massage figures. If you want to ask me whether I stick entirely to those views from December, I would say that, having gone into this in more detail, I am slightly more concerned than I was in December when I made those comments.
Chair
That is very refreshingly honest. Thank you very much. Why do you think the Home Office did not really recognise the problem that you recognise now?
Norman Baker
We recognised there was a potential problem, but we could not quantify it. We recognised it because we asked HMIC to undertake this audit last July, and the Home Secretary, in her letter to Tom Winsor in June last year, if I may just quote from that one sentence, said, “It is vital that the public have access to transparent and trustworthy statistics on recorded crime. It is clearly critical a report on this is published within the new inspection period,” so the Home Office was taking action last year on that. The Home Secretary also provided an extra £9.4 million to HMIC to facilitate this exercise, and indeed their other work. Going further back, in 2011 we took action as a Department to transfer responsibility from the Home Office to the ONS deliberately to make sure that independence and transparency were enhanced. The Home Secretary only earlier this month wrote to chief constables to stress the importance of crime recording being as accurate as possible and that “any suspicion that officers are mis-recording crime figures is investigated”. We have had concerns as a Department based, frankly, on anecdotes and we wanted to get to the bottom of this. That is why the Home Secretary commissioned HMIC to undertake this detailed audit of all 43 forces. It is also worth pointing out that we did abolish the national targets when the Government came to power. It was not the only reason for that, but part of the reason was a suspicion—and I put it no higher than that—that national targets were in some sense driving behaviour that was not necessarily very helpful.
Chair
A lot of the actions you refer to have occurred since we started our inquiry and we had the dramatic evidence from the Metropolitan Police whistle‑blower. How much would you credit this Committee for highlighting these concerns, both to UKSA and to the Home Office, and bringing about a change of attitude?
Norman Baker
I welcome the Committee’s inquiry. It is very helpful. We have in the Home Office no interest in crime figures being inaccurate; it does not help us any way to have that. We want to cut crime; we do not necessarily want to cut crime figures if the crime figures are wrong. Insofar as crime figures are wrong, that is unhelpful and inaccurate information on which to base future policy decisions, let alone in terms of chief constables deciding on the priorities.
Chair
What specific actions did the Home Office take to address the requirements of the UKSA 2011 assessment of crime data?
Norman Baker
Do you mean when they concluded that there was a green light?
Chair
They also highlighted some concerns. What action did you take about those concerns?
Norman Baker
I have mentioned some of the actions already that the Home Secretary has taken as a consequence of that. HMIC clearly went away to do further work and revisited 13 forces to dig further into that. There was an understanding that although a green light had been given, further work was necessary. The Home Office was certainly supportive of that further work. But to be fair—and I think you would recognise this—the concerns about the accuracy of recorded-crime figures have not quite mushroomed, but I would certainly say they have grown since that time.
Chair
The UKSA report says: “The Authority is also concerned that its earlier requirements, notably around the need for a rigorous audit of the quality of the data, have not been fully addressed to date”. Why is that?
Norman Baker
You will have to ask them that question, but as I understand it, HMIC undertook further work; the follow-up work was not published, for example, and the conclusion was that it was not as detailed as it might have been. That has now been corrected by the Home Secretary’s request that HMIC do a full audit. It is also worth pointing out that while that was going on, the ONS in October 2013 said in their report—and I have the exact quote here—“the system for recording crime in England and Wales by the police is widely recognised by international standards to be one of the best in the world”. That was just last October, so quite clearly we are all on a learning curve with this.
Chair
What particular lesson have you learnt from this episode?
Norman Baker
It is important to draw conclusions fully when HMIC have undertaken their audit and we are able to look at that dispassionately in the light of day when we have got full evidence. What I have concluded is that if you have targets that are there for no doubt good purposes, they can drive behaviour that is not necessarily in the interests of the police or the public at large.
Chair
I think I have to correct you on one point. I am advised that the Home Secretary commissioned HMIC’s inspection in June 2013 on crime data—
Norman Baker
Yes. Chair—but it had already been announced in HMIC’s programme of work published in May 2013.
Norman Baker
Yes, but the programme of work follows discussions between Ministers, Home Office officials and HMIC. The letter from the Home Secretary I quoted was a formal approval of that.
Chair
We will have to make a judgment as to how accurate that comment is. It may be in your brief, but it may not be accurate. We will move on at that point.
Paul Flynn
Did the Home Secretary write to Boris Johnson in the autumn of 2012 when he declared a target of 20% for reduction in crime?
Norman Baker
I do not know the answer to that. I do not know whether Professor Silverman knows.
Professor Silverman
I do not know either, but we can find that out and let the Committee know.
Paul Flynn
You said the Government is on a learning curve. Should the Government not be convinced in what they are doing, rather than seeing the process of government as an educational opportunity?
Norman Baker
No, to be fair, whenever circumstances change or new information comes forward, it is incumbent upon the Government to welcome that new information, to absorb it, and to use it to decide whether or not existing policy, practices or processes have to change. That is perfectly reasonable. It is also worth pointing out that some of the problems we are dealing with now are a backwash from what happened in earlier times. For example—
Paul Flynn
Not the last lot—blame the last Government.
Norman Baker
I am going to—
Paul Flynn
We can go through the thing. We presume it is all the fault of the last Government, the European Union or civil servants. We take that as read, because this is the answer from Government to almost every question. We will take it that you blame the last Government.
Norman Baker
Mr Flynn, first of all, that is a grotesque description of what I—
Paul Flynn
No, it is an entirely accurate description of what happens here every day.
Chair
Mr Flynn, allow the Minister to answer.
Norman Baker
It is a grotesque description of what I have not actually even said yet.
Paul Flynn
But we know what you are going to say.
Norman Baker
I think if I am allowed say it before you categorise it as that, that might be helpful. It is the case that the Audit Commission used to analyse how crime statistics were recorded by the police. That was abandoned in 2006. That, coupled with national targets—which were introduced, I am sure, for very good reasons and with good intentions—did mean that the police took their eye off the ball in the latter part of the last decade. HMIC, when they started analysing recorded statistics again in 2010, did so in a way that was not as thorough as we think now should occur. That is one of the reasons why they are now carrying out full audits. In a sense, there has been a period when we have not seen the messages from above that having accurate recorded crime data is very important. We are now sending out that message very clearly.
Paul Flynn
Why do the Met Police and 13 other police forces have numerical targets now?
Norman Baker
We have abolished national targets.
Paul Flynn
Yes, but if you can deal with the question, you were talking about things not being endemic, not being complete and so on, yet that is the situation. The Met and 13 others still have targets.
Norman Baker
We have abolished national targets. It is a matter for individual PCCs if they wish to have localised targets. I think they will want to reflect on whether those targets drive better police performance or distort police activity when they see the reports from HMIC, but, for example, some of the targets that our PCCs have adopted relate to anti‑social behaviour. They do not necessarily, depending on what the offence is, show up in the official police-recorded crime statistics in any case, because they are summary offences.
Paul Flynn
So the Government are pulling on the rubber levers and nothing is happening in 14 police forces.
Norman Baker
No. PCCs are entitled to reach their own conclusions as to what their priorities are in their areas. They are doing that. They may wish to incentivise particular behaviour; that is a matter for them. As I say, the PCCs, as well as the Home Office, Members of Parliament and everybody else, will draw their conclusions both from this inquiry, which is very helpful, and from the detailed HMIC audit that is now underway.
Paul Flynn
Lord Stevens, who is greatly experienced in these matters, told the Home Affairs Committee that the police crime figures are fiddled and always have been. Would you agree with that?
Norman Baker
I note that Tom Winsor, for example, when he gave evidence here also used the word “fiddled”, but he also said he did not think there was—I have forgotten what he said exactly—an endemic problem across the 43 forces. There has clearly been some suggestion from a number of sources—including, Chair, evidence to your Committee—of practices that are questionable. They are being looked into by HMIC, as they should be, and any practices that prevent us from having accurate information and accurate recorded figures are unacceptable. The message we want to send from the Home Office is: we want accurate figures from the police, not figures that are convenient either for them or, indeed, for us.
Paul Flynn
On the basis of the evidence that we have, why do you think the police appear to be recording a lower proportion of crimes reported to them than in previous years?
Norman Baker
Do you mean why is there divergence from the Crime Survey for England and Wales? Is that what you are asking?
Paul Flynn
No. I am saying crimes are being reported to police and they have records of them coming in, but a lower proportion are being recorded.
Norman Baker
That is a matter that you have probably raised with previous witnesses.
Paul Flynn
We did.
Norman Baker
My answer, I hope, is the same. There are a number of factors. One of the factors is the one I gave you a moment ago, which is that when the Audit Commission discontinued its activities and they were not replaced by another body with the same rigour, or indeed at all for a number of years, that sent a message that recording crime was not as important as previously it had been suggested it was. Secondly, when you had national targets imposed, that drove behaviour in an unfortunate way. Both those matters have now been corrected. Thirdly, it is human nature that people want to present their activities in the best possible light, and that may have led to skewing of figures. You will not change human nature, but what we can do, perhaps, is put in place processes to discourage that from occurring, by taking away incentives and, secondly, by making sure that the scrutiny of recorded data is of a quality that means that is identified and stopped. We have to identify also the difference between misreporting, which may be entirely innocent, albeit unhelpful, and deliberate under-reporting for particular reasons. If there has been deliberate under‑reporting or there have been individual officers who have undertaken their activities in a way so as to distort the truth deliberately, that is a very serious matter that we expect chief constables to deal with.
Paul Flynn
What effect do you think performance-related pay and promotion has in discouraging officers from presenting a true picture of the levels of crime?
Norman Baker
The chief-officer bonus scheme was suspended in April 2012; it was abolished in April 2013 and replaced by annual performance appraisal for ACCs. I do not think it is helpful to directly link—in a way that perhaps was done to an unhealthy degree—the official crime figures from an individual police force with the pay of an individual officer. It is not helpful to do that.
Paul Flynn
How do you see the future? You have used words like “there are problems, but they are not endemic”, which might mean that a third of the police forces are still fiddling the figures. How do you see the future? If there is a collapse of trust in police figures—and it is pretty well near that now—do you see any reforms that could be taken that would restore belief without encouraging further our policemen from engaging in mathematical gymnastics and manipulating the figures?
Norman Baker
I do not accept that there has been a collapse, to use your word, in confidence in the police figures.
Paul Flynn
Can I quote the Chairman, who said at the last meeting that every policeman he has spoken to recently has said to him, “Of course we fiddle the figures”? I think it is the experience of all of us that there is virtually no faith in the accuracy of police figures now.
Norman Baker
If you will let me finish, I will explain why I think that is not right. I do not believe there has been a collapse; there has been a dent in the confidence with which people view police figures.
Paul Flynn
It is a very big dent.
Norman Baker
But it has to be seen in the context of the comparison between the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which people have not, by and large, queried and which retains its official statistics status, and the police-recorded crime. They have diverged slightly since 2007. I have tried to explain to you why I believe that may have occurred, but essentially they are both pointing in the same direction. They both point to crime being reduced. In the last year, for example, to June 2013, the Crime Survey for England and Wales showed a decrease in crime over the year of 7%. The police-recorded crime was, I think, down 3% or 5%—one of those two. That is different, but it is not significantly different, and they are both going in the same direction. Yes, there are issues about why there has been a divergence; yes, there are issues about particular practices that have been exposed; but that does not mean people should conclude there is a collapse. Having said that, Chairman, that is just my best analysis at the moment. We will see what HMIC says when it comes out with their report. We should not pre-judge that deep analysis that is now underway.
Paul Flynn
We have heard from ONS and UKSA that they are dependent entirely on getting their raw material from the Home Office and the police, both of whom have a vested interest in manipulating those figures. What chance is there of achieving faith?
Norman Baker
I do not accept the Home Office has any interest in manipulating figures.
Paul Flynn
No, you are entirely non‑political. You have no interest in winning the next election or presenting the most favourable case. You are entirely dispassionate about these things.
Norman Baker
You must let me finish my answer, Mr Flynn, if you ask me a question. We have no interest in manipulating the figures. We have an interest in cutting crime, not in cutting crime figures. We have an interest in making sure we have the best possible data on which to base our policy. We have no interest in having figures that do not tell us what we need to know. The reason statistics are collected, ultimately, is to inform both the Home Office and the Government, and the police themselves as to what is happening on the ground and how the police should deploy their resources, what changes in the law we have to make, or whatever it may be. We have no interest in having figures that do not tell us the truth.
Paul Flynn
There is a gap between the aspiration and the reality, in my opinion.
Professor Silverman
Can I come back to what I said at the beginning? The teams that deal with these figures are completely separate from any part of the Home Office that does policy work, and so even if there is no interest in manipulating figures, it is my role to make sure the Home Office has the best possible information to do its work, and my teams do not manipulate the figures.
Paul Flynn
Why do you think the ONS have taken their imprimatur from you and humiliated you by—
Professor Silverman
They have not taken their imprimatur from us.
Paul Flynn
They have. They have taken you off the gold standard.
Professor Silverman
They have come to the view that this statistic has fallen below a line. They have drawn a very high bar, and they have said that this statistic has not quite reached that bar. I was quite encouraged by the tone of their report, because what it does is list a series of actions that can be taken to get back there again. Many of those are around documentation and explanation, not at all around the levels or the quality of the statistics.
Paul Flynn
You clearly both have a remarkable capacity for self‑delusion, I believe. Most departments, if they had been handed that rebuff from the Office for National Statistics, would have felt a little repentant and determined to do better in future.
Professor Silverman
It is not a matter of that. It is a matter of going carefully through the recommendations and making sure that they are all done. Most of the recommendations are on the ONS themselves. There is not, as far as I see, a particular rebuff of the Home Office in it, but we will be looking very closely to see where our systems can contribute to the things that the assessment report requires, and we will be working with ONS to do that. We do not see ONS as opponents; they are our partners in producing these statistics.
Chair
May I just interject at this point? I confess to sensing that a degree of complacency is still persisting in your evidence to this Committee. By saying that there has merely been “dented” confidence in these statistics that is surely underestimating the significance of UKSA’s decision to de-designate. Can I just remind you of what Professor Hough said? He said: “If they were downgraded, the system would collapse…I would be sorry to see them lose their status.” But in the Home Office written evidence, Minister, you were insistent: “We have seen no evidence to call into question the classification of these data as national statistics”. There does seem to be a divergence of views between UKSA and the Home Office about the seriousness of the state of these statistics. Do you accept that?
Norman Baker
I accept there may be a difference of view. I would not put it as strongly as you have just put it. They remain official statistics, even national statistics, if that is the difference between them. It is not one that says, “These have got no validity whatsoever”. For example, the retail price index was de‑designated.
Chair
We will not go into that. That is a different matter. There is an inconsistency. On the one hand, as soon as we held our first evidence session with the whistle-blower, you said, “We have abandoned all targets for policing”, implying, I presume, that targets are a bad thing. Have I understood your view correctly?
Norman Baker
The national targets have indeed been abandoned.
Chair
Why were national targets damaging?
Norman Baker
Because I believe they can lead to police responding by trying to meet the targets irrespective of whether that is the most sensible operational decision of the day.
Chair
Why is it okay for police authorities or police commissioners to set targets locally if they have that effect?
Norman Baker
It may not be okay. They will have to reflect on the conclusions of both your Committee’s work and, indeed, the work that HMIC are doing in looking at individual audits.
Chair
What responsibility do you have to ensure that values, and not targets, are embedded in the culture of our police in this country?
Norman Baker
We do that through our discussions with the PCCs; we do it through the College of Policing, which has a major role in co-ordinating—
Chair
Do you enjoin PCCs not to set targets?
Norman Baker
They need to look at their targets in the light of the evidence that your Committee is collecting and in the light of the HMIC report that will come out, and decide whether or not those targets are helpful in meeting the aspirations of their local populations and cutting crime, or whether they lead to decisions being taken that are not the most sensible operational decisions. They will have to look at that.
Chair
How much have you altered your view as a result of all this exposure of these problems to one that says that, in fact, the Government should take a stronger line to encourage PCCs to adopt at least intelligent aspirations rather than targets that override the values of policing?
Norman Baker
What I do not want to do is to pre-judge what is a very detailed exercise by HMIC, looking at all 43 forces. It is right that they are allowed to carry out that work, and they should do it diligently, competently and thoroughly. By the way, I think they should do it regularly as well, to make sure that these doubts do not arise in future.
Chair
But do you accept that setting targets distorts behaviour and distorts the statistics?
Norman Baker
I certainly accept that the national targets that were set previously may well have had that consequence. Local targets may or may not have that consequence.
Chair
Why are you avoiding the obvious fact that the same kinds of targets set locally are going to have the same effect?
Norman Baker
It depends what targets are set locally. There is a wide variation in the targets that are set.
Chair
What sorts of targets should they be setting and what sorts of targets should they not be setting?
Norman Baker
They may have a target that is general. They may want a target whereby they have—
Chair
What have you got to say to the 13 Police and Crime Commissioners, including the Mayor of London, who are still setting very specific targets?
Norman Baker
If they are setting numeric targets, which are different from general targets, they have to be very careful that those targets are well-founded, that they do not lead to a distortion in operational priorities and that they do not lead to police officers chasing targets rather than cutting crime.
Chair
But you think if you set such targets nationally, you could not avoid that.
Norman Baker
The conclusion we reached was that the national targets were not helpful and had too many dangers in them, apart from the fact that national targets took away responsibility from local areas, where, indeed, the priorities may be different across the country. What is important in Devon and Cornwall may not be the same as what is important in the north-east.
Chair
I appreciate the decentralisation point, but there is a very simple policy question here: how unreasonable would it be for this Committee to recommend that the Government should consider taking a generally tougher line against Police and Crime Commissioners setting numerical targets for police-recorded crime?
Norman Baker
You are right to question the setting of numeric targets, both historically nationally, before this Government took office, and, indeed, locally now by the PCCs. In terms of that particular issue in individual forces, I would want to see what HMIC says.
Chair
Professor Silverman, what would be your objective advice on this question?
Professor Silverman
The important thing is to stress that targets should not distort behaviour.
Chair
Well, they do.
Professor Silverman
The reason you set targets is to direct behaviour. Targets, in any field, are there in order to direct behaviour. As the Minister will say, the objective is to cut crime, not to cut crime figures. If targets are set and if you are looking at behaviour, you need to ask the managers to make quite sure that people are not distorting the reporting and they are genuinely directing their behaviour in the right direction. Good targets are a good idea. One does not want to say as a blanket thing, “You must never have targets”. If there is evidence that targets have distorted police behaviour inappropriately, then that is quite wrong. What I would come to in the end is that HMIC should look specifically at places where targets have been set to see whether those targets have distorted the reporting, and that ought to be part of their reporting process.
Chair
How unfair is it for me to say that that was a tellingly long answer?
Professor Silverman
You would like me to say that the Government should intervene in this way. That, honestly, would be a policy view and not a scientific view. The scientific view I would say is: get the audit people to look closely at the targets and their effects.
Lindsay Roy
Professor Silverman, you rightly said that our expectation is the highest of standards. How far have we fallen below that, and how do you know?
Professor Silverman
The entire crime statistics thing is a system, and it is a system that we are all part of. You are part of it; the Home Office is part of it; ONS, the Statistics Authority and HMIC are part of it, and so on. The system as a whole has its internal regulation. Even this process is part of aspiring towards the highest possible standards. We will never be 100% perfect. The evidence that has been shown demonstrates not just that there may have been some falling away from perfect, but also that there is a real desire to move back towards it.
Lindsay Roy
But how far are we below the threshold of acceptability?
Professor Silverman
We were told in 2013 that we had a police recording system that is the best in the world; now we are told by the same people that we have lost the National Statistics status for police-recorded crime. These two together demonstrate that we are not that far from where we should be, but we are not quite there.
Chair
Twenty-five per cent mis-recording of sexual offences in the Metropolitan Police—
Professor Silverman
No, that is not acceptable.
Chair
That is a bit worse than “not quite there”.
Professor Silverman
That is a bit worse; that is right.
Chair
Do you want to revise what you have just said, Professor?
Professor Silverman
Yes, I will revise it in that sense. The question is: is the system working towards where it should be? What I would say is that with serious offences, no mis‑recording is acceptable. In the end, we need a culture where recording and performance are seen as mutually reinforcing.
Chair
How can you be sure that you are getting accurate data if targets are being set for that data at the same time?
Professor Silverman
If the people responsible for the audit put their hands on their hearts and say the targets have not had a deleterious effect.
Chair
Good practice and, indeed, the values of the people recording that crime have to come above the targets.
Professor Silverman
Yes. Thank you. Very well put—absolutely.
Chair
So, how can you set targets as the measurement of performance of any police service? The values and the procedures are going to most reduce harm.
Professor Silverman
I am moving away again from a technical matter, but if the values and the procedures are right, then the targets will not be a negative thing. In other words, if you set a target when the values and procedures are right, then it is not a problem. That is why I cannot say categorically that targets are the problem. The important thing is exactly as you say: the values and procedures. I took great comfort from what Tom Winsor said when he said that nobody joins the police with the intention of fiddling figures, that HMIC were going to really get on top of all this, and so on. I can see there an example of continuous improvement of values and procedures.
Lindsay Roy
I am surprised you cannot give us a more quantitative response.
Professor Silverman
You wanted me to give a quantitative answer about values?
Lindsay Roy
How far below have we to go to reach an acceptable threshold?
Professor Silverman
That is not a numerical question, and I cannot give a quantitative answer to a question like, “How far do we fall short of what is perfect?”
Lindsay Roy
Qualitatively, what do we have to do?
Professor Silverman
We have to continue along the path we are on. In other words, we have to wait for HMIC to do their work, and we have to pay close attention to what HMIC says. By “we” I do not mean the Home Office; I mean everyone in the system. Attention has to be paid to the assessment report, which is itself part of the process. For example, if we look in the assessment report, there were issues such as the fact that although users were happy, the documentation of their happiness was not quite sufficient. That is not a question for the Home Office, but that is the sort of thing that will be done to get us to a position of better assurance.
Lindsay Roy
So it is monitoring the rigour of objectives and the evaluation.
Professor Silverman
It is all the different parts of the system together.
Lindsay Roy
Can I ask to what extent the status and role of Force Crime Registrars is an issue?
Norman Baker
I spoke to the Force Crime Registrar in Sussex last week—in my own force—just to go through what the Sussex procedure was. It was a very interesting meeting indeed. I was quite surprised that there is no standard job description for Force Crime Registrars across the patch, and I have asked officials to look into whether there should be a common job description. The College of Policing is going some way to having a standardised arrangement for that, but you have Force Incident Registrars who are sometimes different people and sometimes the same person, and that is a bit unhelpfully varied across the piece. Some more standardisation there might be helpful. It is quite clear as well that Force Crime Registrars approach their jobs in different ways. The Sussex registrar I spoke to told me, for example, when you take serious sexual crimes—which I know is a particular issue in terms of recording and in terms of how many are deemed to be “no crime”—the default position, in Sussex, certainly, is that it is a crime unless evidence is provided to the contrary and it is recorded as a crime as soon as the victim says something. It can then be un-recorded if evidence comes forward that no crime has been committed, but the default position is that it is a crime. I think that is the right way to go forward; it is a victim-centred approach, which is what the crime statistics should be. In other forces, I am told by the Sussex registrar that an officer may take 72 hours, or thereabouts, to investigate whether or not there is a crime and then take a view on whether it should be recorded. That is a quite different approach. That may lead to some variations, unnecessarily, between forces. My view is that they should record it to start with and then un-record it if that is the conclusion subsequently, rather than waiting to see whether they should record it.
Chair
Because it creates an audit trail.
Norman Baker
Yes.
Lindsay Roy
Variation seems to be a real issue. Chief Constable Jeff Farrar said, “In some forces, the Force Crime Registrar regularly meets with the Deputy Chief Constable or Chief Constable. In some forces, the Chief Constable or the Deputy Chief Constable might not even know their name” or, if they walk past them in the corridor, recognise them.
Norman Baker
Yes. My view is it is very important that the Force Crime Registrar is independent, is seen to be independent, and should not answer to somebody who may have an interest in an operational day‑to‑day activity in coming out with particular crime figures. Therefore, I think it is appropriate myself that these registrars should report to the Deputy Chief Constable.
Lindsay Roy
Who has the prime responsibility for accuracy and quality of recorded crime statistics?
Norman Baker
It is shared. We have responsibility in the Home Office to collect the data from police forces; police forces have responsibility to record it accurately; the ONS has responsibility, which we have passed on to them, for the collation and dissemination of that; and the UK Statistics Authority has responsibility for ensuring the whole system works.
Lindsay Roy
Let us take the Home Office. How does it ensure the statistical data is accurate and of high quality?
Norman Baker
If there are queries that are spotted by our Home Office statisticians, then they will query those with individual forces. For example, there was a spike in the number of serious sexual offences, and that was queried with individual forces by our statisticians. The conclusion was that the spike was a genuine spike, probably generated by Operation Yewtree and all the coverage that that generated, because there were a lot of historic allegations or suggestions of crime that came in on the back of all the publicity for all these so-called celebrities who have been subjected to extensive newspaper coverage. That was an example of where the Home Office statisticians would become involved with the forces, to just check at that point, before then passing the information on to the ONS.
Lindsay Roy
Would you accept that the Home Office has prime responsibility? If so, what communication do you have with other partners?
Norman Baker
I do not accept we have got prime responsibility. As I explained a moment ago, responsibility for crime statistics is shared. We have been deliberately sharing it and passing over responsibility in some degree to the ONS, because we think it is right that there should be as much independence, transparency and accountability on these statistics as possible. Mr Flynn earlier on was alleging that the Home Office had a reason to manipulate figures, which I reject, but nevertheless, passing some responsibility to an independent body, which is not subject to any pressure at all from the Government, is one way of guaranteeing, I hope, the independence and validity of the figures.
Chair
Can I just press on this point for a moment? Where a responsibility is shared, there is nobody with prime responsibility, unless, Minister, you identify some other party as primarily responsible for the quality of police-recorded crime.
Norman Baker
We are all responsible for different elements of it.
Chair
In a way, you are a bit of a piggy-in-the-middle here. You do not collect the data; you collate the data. You then pass it on to ONS and they publish it, and then somebody else assesses it. Is this divided responsibility not part of why this has happened?
Norman Baker
No. The division of responsibility between different bodies is actually quite helpful.
Chair
It is helpful for avoiding accountability.
Norman Baker
No, that is not the purpose of it.
Chair
In a positive sense, who should we hold accountable for the failure of this data?
Norman Baker
It depends on which part of the chain the faults have arisen in. You could hold a Government accountable—and, with due respect to Mr Flynn, the last Government—for setting national targets, which have driven unhelpful behaviour. You could hold individual police forces accountable, if you wished, for the way in which they have interpreted their duties in terms of recording crime. You could hold HMIC accountable for being a bit slow on the uptake, if you wanted to. You could hold the ONS accountable, if you liked, because they said in 2013 we had one of the best systems in the world and now they appear to have a different view. It depends on which bit of the chain you want to look at at any one time.
Chair
Can we propose a novel concept here: that the Minister responsible for policing should be responsible for the integrity of the data to Parliament, so when we have the Minister in front of the Select Committee, he accepts responsibility? I appreciate that might not be the position at the moment, but if we were to make a recommendation that suggests that the Minister should take responsibility for ensuring that the police-recorded crime statistics are reliable data, how unreasonable would that be?
Norman Baker
It would be reasonable to suggest that the Home Office or the Minister of the Government—whichever way you want to put it—is responsible for creating the framework within which this whole business operates. If the framework is wrong or the Minister or the Government sets targets or does other interventions that produce unhelpful results, then—
Chair
If you are responsible for the framework, why are you not ultimately holding prime responsibility for the quality of the data?
Norman Baker
I do not think I am responsible, or the Government is responsible, for the actions of individual police forces, independent chief constables and independent PCCs. We are in a country where we have got devolution and we have, quite rightly, independent police forces, where the Home Office does not interfere on a day‑to‑day basis, so we should not be held responsible for operational matters. That would be quite wrong.
Chair
I understand that. There is a difference between operational matters and the overall integrity of a body of statistics that has failed the test, has it not?
Norman Baker
We are having the same conversation again, in a way, but there are certainly questions that have been raised and there are certainly doubts that have been generated, quite rightly. It is right that your Committee should look into those. I will want to wait and see what HMIC produce at the end of their rigorous activity, and the Home Office will look very carefully at what the recommendations are and whether those relate to us or to different bodies.
Mr Turner
What improvements do you think can be made to assessments of the validity of crime data?
Norman Baker
Let me ask Professor Silverman if he wants to comment on that.
Professor Silverman
We see the assessment reports, so we have a very good assessment of the system of crime data before us today. It is the job of the UK Statistics Authority to assess national and official statistics, and that is what they have done. Are you asking what improvements we could make to that process?
Mr Turner
Yes.
Professor Silverman
What I would say is that, having looked at this set of administrative data, as you heard in the last evidence session, they will be clearly looking at administrative data sources across Government. It is important to understand that they are shining a bright light not just on the quality of the data but on all the audit processes that go around it. That is very good, and that is part of our excellent system. I would say that our assessment process is world-leading, and I do not see any immediate improvements that are needed in it.
Mr Turner
What will you do differently in the future to ensure good crime statistics?
Norman Baker
That partly depends on what HMIC produce by way of their report. If they identify systemic failures across all forces or a large number of forces as a consequence of particular processes, for example, then those processes will have to be changed, if they are generating those unwelcome results. It really depends on what they come up with. That is why we have been very keen to engage them in this way; that is why we have provided extra money; and that is why we are determined that Tom Winsor and his colleagues should have the freedom and support from us to go through rigorously the 43 forces we have.
Mr Turner
Just walking across from Waterloo today, I saw an advertisement describing what rape is. It was meant to attract one’s attention and prompt one to say, “Gosh, I did not know I committed this crime last night”. If members of the public do not know—
Norman Baker
That is a very important point. It is not always clear whether a crime has been committed, and it is not always clear to the victim that they have been subject to a crime. This does not simply apply to sexual offences. It certainly does apply to that, and some of the work that I do in the Department on child sexual exploitation, for example, involving gangs and others demonstrates that some people do not regard themselves as having been a victim of a crime, when an objective view would suggest that is the case. You could have a situation where somebody has their driveway re‑laid by a gang of people going round exploiting vulnerable people. They may charge an excessive amount for that work to be done but the person whose drive is laid may think that it is good value and they may think the drive is all right. Is that a crime or is it not a crime? It is not always entirely clear whether a crime has been committed. It is also not clear that we always know about crimes. For example, fraud may occur that nobody identifies has occurred. Theft from a shop may occur and the shopkeeper may not be aware that something has been stolen. There are crimes that we are simply not aware of. To that extent, we will never, ever have 100% accurate crime figures, because we cannot record everything that is in those sorts of categories.
Mr Turner
In the case of the rape, who is responsible for making sure youngsters in particular know what is and is not legal?
Norman Baker
I do not know if the Home Office is responsible, but we take it upon ourselves to try to engage with young people. We are giving a lot of time to child sex exploitation at the moment, not least through the Modern Slavery Bill that is coming forward in terms of trafficking. I have been engaging with our work on gangs to make sure that we find a way of getting to young people. Presently, we have a “This is Abuse” campaign running, which is using Hollyoaks actors and MTV and other means of communication, which are probably more accessible to young people, dare I say, Chairman, than your Committee or me, in order to get those messages across. We do take it upon ourselves to have a public‑education role, to try to help young people in particular. There is an issue about sexual crime which makes it particularly difficult to record. We have a situation where sometimes someone who has been subject to an attack—a criminal act—does not want to report that, and sometimes when they do report it, they then want to withdraw their statement and say that no crime has occurred. The police then have to take a view on whether a crime has occurred, notwithstanding the withdrawing of the statement by the person who originally advanced it. My view is that the police should not assume, as has happened sometimes—this is what happened in Kent; we saw some of this in the Kent HMIC report—that if somebody withdraws a statement that means no crime has been committed. That is a factor they should take into account in their analysis, but it may well be the case that they should conclude a crime has been committed and pursue it as they would otherwise do.
Mr Turner
When do you expect to reach not 25% but, say, 5% unreported crimes?
Norman Baker
I do not know if I want to trade percentages or dates. What I have as a general objective is to make sure that crime reporting is as accurate as possible, and I particularly want to make sure that when serious crimes occur, they are pursued by the police with due rigour. I am not convinced that is always the case with sexual crime.
Mr Turner
How can the integrity of crime statistics be more thoroughly investigated without over-burdening forces?
Norman Baker
As I suspect your previous witnesses said, this is a matter of proportionality. You can have a system that is so busy analysing everything that nothing ever gets done. That would not be a sensible outcome. The purpose of statistics, in my view, is to inform the individual police forces as to what is happening in their areas and the PCCs as to how they should approach their operational priorities; to inform the Government, so that we can decide whether there is a particular social problem that needs further intervention—not necessarily in police terms, but perhaps through other departments, such as Education or Health—and also to give a rudimentary check on how police forces are performing. That is why the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which has not been de-designated, is so valuable: because that gives us a picture from the victim’s point of view as to what is happening. It is important to say, Chairman, that that also has gaps. It is a victim-led survey; it does not, for example, pick up possession of drugs, where there is, in a sense, no victim, and it will not pick up homicides, because clearly the person who has been murdered is not in a position to report to the Crime Survey that they have been murdered.
Chair
But more importantly, as I pointed out in the earlier session, if you are homeless, you do not get an interview, and a lot of homeless people are victims of crimes. I gather there is some progress addressing under‑16‑year‑olds. A lot of domestic violence and violence against women is not picked up. The whole catastrophe of female genital mutilation is completely invisible to the Crime Survey.
Norman Baker
You are right to say it is not complete, but you cannot get to a complete picture. We have a picture that is better than most countries have, and having two parallel statistical methods that roughly go in the same direction should give us confidence that we are not far off. That is why I rejected the word “catastrophe”, or whatever word was used earlier on about the police figures. We are now seeing 10 to 15‑year‑olds interviewed for the Crime Survey. We are doing more to pick up female genital mutilation, which is a high priority for the Government. I am working closely with my colleagues Jane Ellison at the Department of Health and Lynne Featherstone at DFID on a strategy for that. We are determined to get prosecutions for that. She is independent, of course, but Alison Saunders, the DPP, is very keen to get prosecutions on that front. Yes, there are categories of people, including the homeless, who are not picked up in the Crime Survey; that is terribly true.
Chair
We must draw to a close, Minister. The last point I want to raise is about what occasioned this inquiry, which, by coincidence, was a constituent of mine, PC James Patrick, coming to my surgery and alarming me sufficiently for me to put it to this Committee we should do an inquiry into crime statistics. His evidence was extremely compelling and seems to have changed the course of political discourse around this issue. What discussions have you had in the Home Office about how the Metropolitan Police have treated this whistle-blower?
Norman Baker
I understand that PC Patrick is subject to a disciplinary hearing. That is a matter for the Met. Insofar as PC Patrick made allegations or suggestions about how crime figures were not accurate, Tom Winsor has said that he has taken on board those comments and will factor them into his work with the 43 forces, which is quite right.
Chair
When the chief of the Metropolitan Police first responded to the evidence session at which PC Patrick gave us his evidence, he said he wanted to meet and talk to PC James Patrick. When he came before us last week, he said he had not done so because of the disciplinary hearing. That is understandable, but how happy is the Home Office that this thoroughly credible whistle-blower, in our view, still is not being heard openly and dispassionately at the top of the Metropolitan Police Service?
Norman Baker
His comments have been heard, not least of all because of your intervention, Chairman, and your invitation to him to give evidence. As I say, Tom Winsor, as I understand it, is certainly factoring into his work PC Patrick’s comments, and it is entirely right that that should occur. As you recognise, there is a disciplinary hearing under way; it is not for me to get involved in that, as you will appreciate.
Chair
Indeed, I am refraining from commenting in any way that might prejudice that matter, because we should treat it as sub judice, but one of his complaints to us is that when he was unable to pursue his concern about the quality of police-recorded crime in the Metropolitan Police, he was unable to persuade his line management to make a complaint on his behalf to the IPCC. Have you given this matter any thought?
Norman Baker
Yes. I welcome that question; it gives me a chance to make this comment. All police officers are required to challenge and report any conduct that falls below the standards of professional behaviour. I expect police officers to do that, and I expect others, when they hear those complaints, to act upon them and take them seriously. All of the forces have professional standards departments, to which officers can raise concerns. The Independent Police Complaints Commission also runs a confidential hotline for police officers to contact them with concerns. I welcome the fact that if police officers have concerns about this—or any other matter, for that matter—they do exercise their duty and report any conduct they believe to be inappropriate.
Chair
But my understanding is that a police officer cannot make a complaint to the IPCC about his own force.
Norman Baker
Apart from anything else, the IPCC can take anonymous complaints.
Chair
So you are saying that it is now the policy of the Government to allow police officers to make a direct complaint to the IPCC.
Norman Baker
If a serving officer makes a complaint anonymously, then he or she makes a complaint anonymously.
Chair
Why should they have to make it anonymously?
Norman Baker
I am not saying they do; I am just saying that it is one of the answers to your question that they can do so.
Chair
To what extent is this a change of Government policy?
Norman Baker
I am not sure it is a change of Government policy. I want police officers who believe something inappropriate is occurring to report that. They are required to challenge and report any conduct that falls below standards, and I hope they will do so. There are at least two ways of doing so. One is through their own forces and one is through the IPCC. In my view, if an officer honestly and sincerely believes something has occurred that is inappropriate and reports that, they should be respected for that.
Chair
Am I incorrect in saying that a named police officer cannot complain to the IPCC about his own force?
Norman Baker
I am not aware that there is a problem in that regard. If there is, and I am subsequently advised by officials that that is the case—
Chair
How concerned are you that PC Patrick believes that he was prevented from making such a complaint?
Norman Baker
I do not believe any officer should be prevented from reporting any behaviour that they regard as being worrying or inappropriate in their force, either to their professional standards department or the IPCC.
Chair
I have to say I am very confused by the answers you are giving, because they are not consistent with what we have understood before and yet you are saying that there has not been a change in Government policy.
Norman Baker
I am not aware there is change of Government policy. I am personally relaxed about the idea that police officers—
Chair
Well personally, what is the Government’s policy? Is it okay for a named police officer to complain to the IPCC about their own force?
Norman Baker
I am satisfied that they should do so. If the Home Secretary has taken a different view, I will write to you subsequently and tell you that.
Chair
That would be very helpful. Thank you very much indeed. It has not been an easy session, but you have been very frank with us. I do not think we are going to agree with everything you have told us, but I very much hope the Government will take our recommendations seriously.
Norman Baker
We will certainly look at them very seriously, Chairman.
Chair
I am most grateful. Oral evidence: Crime Statistics, HC 760 2