Agenda item

Report of the Commissioner of Police.

The Board received a report of the Commissioner of Police summarising the quantitative and qualitative performance of the City of London Police as the National Lead Force for Fraud in the period of Quarter 3 (Q3) 2015/16.

The Board considered the presentation of statistics within the report and debated potential alterations and additional information which would assist Members in scrutinising performance more accurately.

With regard to disseminations and Force reported outcomes, the Chairman observed that the current format only allowed for comparison between the current quarter and the same quarter of the previous year; it would be helpful to provide a chart or table showing the cumulative statistics and percentile performance across several quarters, thereby allowing for the identification of trends and a more rounded analysis of performance across time.

Members discussed the investigative and prosecution timeframe, noting that cases took on average around two and a half years to conclude, and asked if anything could be done to increase the speed of the process.

The Commander advised that only the investigative part of the timetable was within the control of the police, noting that once cases were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who required substantial time to prepare cases involving complex frauds, the timetable was out of the Force’s control. Following the CPS’ preparation, the third stage of the process was for the Courts to consider the case which, again, could take a lengthy period given the complexities involved. The Commander added that the City Police tended to deal with more complex and detailed fraud investigations which subsequently meant that the three stages of the process took longer than with more straightforward crimes. He therefore concluded that the most effective method by which to increase the speed at which cases were dealt with would be to deliver effective fraud prevention work, thereby decreasing the volume of such crimes and consequently freeing up resource to focus more effectively on a fewer number of cases.

 A Member noted that the Force had received 5213 disseminations for the period, but with only 2% of outcomes being non-judicial, compared to a national average of 18%. The Commander advised that the reason the City Police received this number of disseminations is because the NFIB (Action Fraud) determined that these reports should be investigated by the City Police either because the locus of the relevant enquiries was in the City or because the case appeared to fit with the Lead Force’s role. As to the reason why the percentage of non-judicial outcomes was so comparatively low, this was because this sort of outcome tends to consist of disruptive activity; the City Police generally dealt with larger-scale and more complex fraud cases as the National Lead Force and therefore primarily sought to achieve a judicial outcome. As a result, there was less “disruptive” or non-judicial activity, so as not to risk the success of achieving a judicial outcome.

It was subsequently asked if it would be possible or appropriate to provide a breakdown of cases in progress according to whether they were still the subject of police investigation, or if they had been referred to the CPS or Court service. This would enable the Force to evidence that it was processing its own investigations expeditiously and make clear that it was not in control of the overall timeframe. Similarly, it was asked if the judicial outcome section could be broken down to clarify what percentage led to prosecutions and what proportion resulted in acquittals. Following some debate as to the practicalities involved, the Commander undertook to explore the most appropriate way in which such information could be provided in an appendix to the report, where practical.

You queried when Concentrix – who have taken over the handling of the Action Fraud call centre – would be fully up and running. I can confirm that they are currently fully operational on an interim basis and have been so since December, operating at 100% capacity. The reason they are currently operating an interim solution is because the designated funding from the Home Office for the permanent solution does not come on stream until April.

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