Panel challenges Bedfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner over transparency of local performance figures

Speaking at an Extraordinary Meeting on Wednesday (June 25), panel chair Paul Downing said he struggled to carry out effective scrutiny because of a lack of accessible information.

“I cannot see information that I think I should be able to see, both as a member of the panel and as a member of the public,” he said.

Adding that data had been easier to find on the previous Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) website.

PCC Tizard said: “The data is on the website, but it may not be as accessible as it could be.”

He said the data is within the reports for the performance and governance meetings with the chief constable.

During the meeting the PCC gave a breakdown of recorded crime figures and solve rates for the county’s three unitary authorities, revealing:

• Bedford: just over 15,000 crimes (8.7 per cent increase) and a 14.8 per cent increase in solve rate
• Luton: just under 20,000 crimes (4 per cent increase), and a 8.5 per cent increase in solve rate
• Central Bedfordshire: over 16,000 crimes (1.4% increase), and an increase of 7.5 per cent for the solve rate

Councillor Gareth Mackey (Central Bedfordshire) said: “Without knowing what the base solved rate is, none of these other figures really come into their own.

“I think we need to delve into those kinds of figures and understand what the actual solved rate itself is, what the base rate is, so we can move on and understand these figures.

“I’m not saying the statistics are bad, I’m saying if you don’t have anything to tie them to then it’s [not] great.”

The PCC clarified that the solve rates figures were increases and not the final solve rates, which he “didn’t have easily at hand”.

Luton councillor, Ghulam Abbas, said he was “pleased” with the data being shared.

But added that “with data you have to add context”.

Councillor Basit Mahmood (Luton Borough Council) said: “We repeatedly asked [your predecessor] for more data and more information.

“I think this is good, [you’re] being transparent and we’ve got more data than before.

“If we’re not data-led then we’re stabbing around in the dark.”

Councillor Marc Frost (Bedford Borough Council) was more critical.

“[You said] you are robustly holding the chief constable to account, albeit that hasn’t translated into an improvement in the numbers,” he said to the PCC.

“In fact, they’re getting worse.

“If we were running a business and the top management team had a set of KPIs that were getting worse month on month for a period of time, you change the team.

“How do we deal with this? Because if you’re telling us that you’re doing everything that you can do and the numbers are still getting worse, there has to come a point where we do something different,” he said.

Tizard responded that crime was rising nationally, and while improvements are needed, simply “sacking the manager” would not solve complex social issues.

“You can’t arrest your way out of all the problems,” he said, emphasising the need for multi-agency collaboration.