Letter to the Eastbourne Herald

Your readers may by now have received through their letterboxes this year's Policing East Sussex, a newspaper which prints on Page 7 a table which purports to be a national assessment of Sussex Police's performance. The data provided appears to be a selection from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary's report, Baseline Assessment - Sussex Police, published in October 2005. Any reader wishing to see the actual assessments for Sussex can read the document online. The Summary of Judgements appears on Page 9.

For Investigating Crime, there are six sub-categories, three of which were judged to be Good and three Fair. "Volume Crime Investigation", which would affect many people, was only Fair. For Providing Assistance, there are three sub-categories, two Good and one Fair. "Call Management", which again would affect many people, was only Fair. Resource Use has six sub-categories, three of which are only Fair, including "Human Resource Management", direction Deteriorated. Local Policing does not occur as a heading, but seems to refer to HMIC's Citizen Focus, which has four categories, one of which - "Fairness and Equality" - is only Fair, and none of which is labelled "Local Policing".

This last entry seems nearer to the Chief Constable's view rather than that of HMIC. At a Sussex Police Authority meeting in April, the Chief Constable said, "I think we've developed excellence in local policing". The HMIC report presents a different view: "Violent crime has seen a 36.1% increase for the year April 2004 to March 2005 compared with the previous year and now stands at 20.0 per 1,000 population and places the force 5th in its MSF [most similar forces] group and 26th nationally. The local policing plan (LPP) target of a 6% reduction was not met."

I have heard it said at a Sussex Police Authority meeting that the Authority and the Police are compelled to publish an annual newspaper; but recipients do not have to read it, and if they do so, should be careful not to mistake propaganda for the truth.

The newspaper's leading article on Page 1 claims that crime detection rates "have improved sharply". The HMIC report says, "Volume crime investigation performance is disappointing for a force that has invested so much effort to improve standards of investigation, and more needs to be done to improve the detection rates for domestic burglary, vehicle crime and violent crime."

The newspaper's table is printed below: