Agenda item

Report of the Commissioner of Police

The Board received a report of the Commissioner of Police outlining the quantitative and qualitative performance of the City of London Police as the National Lead Force for Fraud between April 2017 and September 2017.

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that a 7% Year-to-date (YTD) increase in the number of crimes reported to Action Fraud amounted to 9,000 victims.  He explained that all economic crime was under-reported, and so there is an assumption that increased awareness is the basis behind a consistent increase in reported crimes.

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that staff retention was an inherent challenge due to the nature of the work and the value of the skills required to tackle Economic Crime.

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that an effort to improve the clarity and simplicity of reporting lines was expected to increase lines of enquiry.  There has also been a concerted effort to engage nationally, where other forces have met limitations.

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that there was a very large volume of targets – approximately 190,000.  He explained that the CoLP are leading the world with regards to taking down criminal/fraudulent websites, and there was a strong desire to maintain its footprint beyond the limits of the City of London.  He explained that a recent appearance on Crimewatch boosted the CoLP’s profile.  The Chairman explained that Crimewatch had recently been cancelled, and suggested that perhaps it would be beneficial for the Police Committee to write a letter to the BBC to show their support of its continued production.

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that there had been successful promotional work achieved across social media.  The Chairman noted that the summary of engagement levels on social media, as referenced within paragraph 3.2, would benefit from more background information to supplement it. (3)

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that the 7% of victim respondents that were not satisfied with the service, could generally be attributed to those who had not received the outcome they had hoped for.  He explained that this was always going to pose a challenge, regardless of service standards, due to the volume of individual cases that don’t result in positive outcomes.  A Member suggested that it might be useful to alter the question in order to accurately portray the opinions of those with regards to the provision of victim care specifically. The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime agreed. (4)

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime proposed that the layout of the reports submitted to the Board be changed to reflect the four priorities: Pursue, Protect, Prepare and Victim Service.  The Chairman stated that the reports should be submitted in any format that is determined to be the most effective and useful, and approved this change.

The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that there were currently 4 vacancies, and a Member asked what percentage of the total staff this amounted to.  It was explained that this was 4 out of a total 23 positions.  The Chairman noted that this seemed to be an urgent matter.  A Member asked if there had been any useful Deloitte recommendations in this area, to which the Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime confirmed that there were, and also stated that there needed to be awareness of the value in seeking external resources to cover costs rather than circulating costs within the City Corporation.

The Chairman noted an error in paragraph 5.3, where it stated there had been an increase of 56% in survey respondents.  The figures included within the report illustrate that this was in fact a decrease of 36% from the previous period.

A Member queried the correspondence between the data in the “Total Outcomes Recorded” graph, and the following tables within the report, citing the total of approximately 11,000 Total Outcomes recorded in Q2 within the graph.  Members discussed the use of cumulative recording of data, and all agreed that it would be best to refrain from using this method in the future when reporting ECD data. (5)

A Member asked for results-based evidence of progress made in these areas.  The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that they had shown improvements by reducing the number of KPI areas marked as RED down to just one, illustrating significant improvement.

A Member queried the root cause of the small number of final outcomes from total investigations.  The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime explained that they were commencing new cases immediately as previous cases are finished, and due to lack of information in many instances these cases were not marked as “complete”.

A Member queried the absence of data under the heading for “Value for Money”.  The Detective Chief Superintendent of Economic Crime confirmed that this would be available at the next meeting.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.