Police Authority Defends Local Priorities Criticism

THE Thames Valley Police Authority has today responded to criticisms following a poor performance assessment by the independent Audit Commission.
Thames Valley Police Authority Chair, Christine Weston has supported the efforts of Thames Valley Police following the publication of the Force?s performance assessment for 2007, and pledged to work with the force to improve the one headline area where the force was found to be performing poorly – local priorities.
She said: ?I am disappointed by our rating of poor in local priorities. I feel it fails to recognise the work we have done on neighbourhood policing.
?This was the first year this area has been assessed and following advice from the Home Office, we set ourselves extremely tough targets.
?Along with ten other forces, Thames Valley Police failed to hit those targets, but we have already started work to ensure we will improve in this area next year.
?However, it is a mark of our success that despite an ever-changing population and the increasing financial pressures this brings, residents? perception of police performance continues to be rated as good/excellent.?

Mrs Weston welcomed good ratings in the areas of public protection, dealing with serious crime and managing resources and efficiency.
She said: ?I am pleased to see our excellent performance in bringing offenders to justice and sanction detections.
?The performance assessment reflects a recent independent survey by the Audit Commission in which Thames Valley Police were among the UK?s best forces for recording crime data.
?That is reflected in our excellent performance in recording incidents of domestic violence.
?However, a good performance in recording crime does impact on our crime statistics and that has resulted in a deterioration of our performance in tackling crime.
?Thames Valley Police Authority is monitoring this situation closely and we have been pleased to see that crime has fallen in Thames Valley this year.?

Thames Valley Police scored seven points out of a possible 21 points scored across the spectrum of police forces. The government’s Police Performance Assessments rates the 43 UK forces in seven different categories, with a rating given of excellent, good, fair or poor.
The categories were tackling crime, resources and efficiency, serious crime and public protection, protecting vulnerable people, satisfaction and fairness, implementation of neighbourhood policing and local priorities.

Although Ministers have argued that it is “erroneous” to compile a national league table from the statistics, which compare similar forces rather than all forces as a national group,” using the points system – three points for an “excellent” rating, two for “good”, one for “fair” and minus-one for “poor”, Thame Valley came second from bottom, with Bedfordshire appearing to be the worst performing force.

Photo: Thames Valley Police Authority Chair, Christine Weston