First supplementary memorandum submitted
by the Home Office
ANNUAL REPORT—SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION
At the Home Affairs Select Committee hearing
on 20 July in response to a question from Mr Marsha Singh MP (Q26),
John Gieve undertook to provide details on the Home Office's consultation
on our SR04 PSA targets.
Please find enclosed a note from Mr Gieve setting
out the organisations that were consulted, a summary of the responses,
and how the PSA targets have changed in light of these responses.
A large amount of the feedback on the PSA targets was received
at a series of seminars organised by the Home Office where respondents
were assured that there responses would not be attributed. Mr
Gieve has provided as much detail as he feels able to without
compromising that commitment.
I trust that you will find this helpful.
Dr Paul Chandwani
Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary
27 August 2004
Annex A
ANALYSIS OF RESPONSES TO CONSULTATION
| PSA | Wording proposed in consultation
| Stakeholder responses | Home Office comments
| Final PSA target |
| 1 | Reduce crime by [x%] and further in high crime areas
| * Some police concerned that the target focuses on volume crime; anti-social behaviour (ASB) and organised crime/counter terrorism are not reflected.
* Police, crime and other regional/local stakeholders eg Government Offices strongly welcomed the focus on local areas and the proposals for flexibility in setting local targets.
* Some police responses have pressed for even greater local focus eg casting the PSA target entirely in terms of local areas.
| * About a fifth of all crimes captured by the BCS cover what many people regard as ASB. Tackling ASB is therefore a key element of achieving PSA1. Furthermore, the perception of ASB is now included in PSA 2, emphasising its importance and capturing elements of ASB that may not be a crime.
* We will ensure that action against serious and organised crime is driven effectively. While a separate target has not been included in the PSA set, we are developing new measures which will seek to capture the work on serious and organised crime in a way that reflects the impact on law abiding citizens. The aim is to include these measures within the Policing Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF). The PSA reflects central government's ambition to reduce crime nationally, especially in those areas where crime is particularly high. At the same time local areas will have more freedom and flexibility than before as the new PSA does not specify reductions for particular crime types.
| Reduce Crime by 15% and further in high crime areas
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| 2 | Reduce fear of crime and build confidence in the Criminal Justice System.
| * Police, crime and other stakeholders (eg Government Offices) felt that the fear of crime element was negative and did not capture the work of the police with their Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) to make the public feel safer and satisfied with the service the police provide through local "reassurance" programmes.
* Some stakeholders felt CJS confidence was primarily about the police.
* CJS partners/stakeholders were content with the wording on confidence but there were some views that victims and race elements should form an explicit part of the target at headline level.
* Some Local Criminal Justice Boards felt the target should be expressed in terms of confidence in local CJS agencies.
| * Reassurance has now been included in the PSA.
* Target elements on levels of confidence have now been included for victims and witnesses plus for race (see technical notes).
* We decided not to change the CJS confidence target to focus on local agencies only in order to retain continuity with the way the SR02 target is measured. Furthermore, we do not currently collect data on this. However a target element on satisfaction with the police locally has been included as part of reassurance.
| Reassure the public, reducing the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour, and building confidence in the criminal justice system without compromising fairness.
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| 3 | Bring [y] million offences to justice.
| * Most police and crime stakeholders favoured a target based on offenders, rather than offences, brought to justice because of concerns that reducing crime would impact on ability to meet the target, and lead to focus on low level offences.
* Split views on whether target should be expressed as ratio of recorded crime rather than absolute number, to reflect falling crime levels.
* The SR02 definition of "offences" intended to capture only the more serious offences. But some Local Criminal Justice Boards felt that there were several additional offences that were sufficiently serious to be included but did not currently count towards the target.
| * The Home Office decided that it would be unhelpful to change the target from offences to offenders as the move could create perverse incentives—for example disincentivising the prolific offender work.
* We considered altering the target to a ratio and including additional offences but decided that, on balance, retaining the definitions used in SR02 gave benefits in terms of clarity and transparency that outweighed the arguments for change. In addition, use of the ratio would leave the target susceptible to changes in police recording practices.
| Improve the delivery of justice by increasing the number of crimes for which an offender is brought to justice to
1.25 million
by 2007-08.
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| 4 | Reduce problematic drug use
| * Drugs Strategy partners and stakeholders were concerned whether problematic drug users could be defined in a way that could be measured.
* There was a strong preference for a target on the overall harm caused by drugs, instead of problematic drug users as this captured all key elements of drugs strategy activity.
* But supporting elements would need to be owned by other government departments and built into their PSAs or other targets.
* There was support for measuring the target using a "Harm Index" and a need to recognise while reducing this was important, the real aim was to deliver the benefits anticipated by the drugs strategy.
* Views (esp police, Government Offices, & Local Authorities) that alcohol should also be covered by the target.
* Local delivery would need to be driven through strong performance management framework eg CJIP.
| * The harm caused by illegal drugs has been adopted for the PSA and this will be measured using the Drug Harm Index (see Technical Note).
* Other government departments are fully engaged in the cross government drug strategy. Chapter 21 of the Public Service Agreement White Paper defines the shared responsibility for the delivery of the 3 PSAs which make up the action against illegal drugs target set. A separate drugs technical note combining in one place the supporting elements of the harm PSA has been published on the Home Office website alongside the Home Office technical notes.
* Alcohol raises a different set of issues that are being tackled via the national alcohol harm reduction strategy.
* A new performance management framework for the national drug strategy was published in December 2003.
| Reduce the harm caused by illegal drugs including substantially increasing the number of drug misusing offenders entering treatment through the criminal justice system
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| 5 | Reduce unfounded asylum claims and illegal immigration
| * Stakeholders endorsed the shift in focus to both asylum and illegal immigration.
* Stakeholders were not keen to see a specific target on illegal working because of complexity of the issues in this area including for example what should be measured and how.
* There were some concerns among carriers that there were no targets on providing an efficient service to legitimate travellers.
* Some asylum stakeholders do not like the focus on "unfounded" applications and preferred a focus on legitimate cases. They also wanted to keep transparent quality and process measures on face of target and to include a measure on integration.
* There was a general view that the target should have wider managed migration focus, to provide a wider context for the Government's approach.
| * It was decided to retain the focus on unfounded asylum claims whilst setting this in the context of the wider strategy on managed migration.
* The PSA set focuses on outcomes as far as is possible rather than on business processes.
| Reduce unfounded asylum claims as part of a wider strategy to tackle abuse of the immigration laws and promote controlled legal migration
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| 6 | Increase community engagement especially (by z%) in most deprived areas
| * A range of stakeholders endorsed the focus on "those at greatest risk of social exclusion".
* One Government Office proposed expanding the target to "those at risk of social exclusion and for identified communities of interest".
* There was general support for the basket or index of measures and some interest in other government departments owning some measures, but probably not at PSA level.
* There were some concerns among other stakeholders that "community engagement" is too vaguely defined to be a meaningful target.
| * The focus on "those at risk of social exclusion" has been retained.
* Community engagement has been defined in the technical note.
| Increase voluntary and community engagement, especially amongst those at risk of social exclusion
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7
Race equality | No separate HO PSA —cross cutting approach across government
| * There was general support for the cross-cutting approach to tackling race inequalities, through floor targets in PSAs.
* The key PSAs proposed were CJS confidence; drug treatment; mental health; access to health care; fatal diseases; housing; educational attainment; and access to further education.
* A majority of stakeholders were keen to see an overarching Home Office owned target retained in order to send a clear message about the priority of this issue. But with clearer systems of accountability than in SR02, with more transparent targets, measures, and an annual report or review of progress.
| * A race and community cohesion PSA has now been added to the PSA set.
* The new PSA is now linked to other targets at PSA level and below that are owned by other government departments. These other targets are set out in the PSA 7 technical note.
| Reduce race inequalities and build community cohesion
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