Latest Inspectorate report on crime data recording rates Lincolnshire as ‘Good’

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate also says Lincolnshire Police is ‘Outstanding’ in its Leadership and Culture to meet National Crime Recording Standards.

In its latest report Her Majesty’s Inspectorate says that Lincolnshire Police has improved the integrity of its crime data recording since the last inspection in 2018 and allocated an overall ‘Good’ grading.

They also say that the force is ‘outstanding’ in its demonstration of leadership and culture to meet the national standings for crime recording.

Chief Constable Bill Skelly says he is extremely pleased with the progress made. “It is particularly gratifying that we have achieved an ‘Outstanding’ grading for our culture of improvement to meet the national standards,” he said. “We have also been recognised as ‘Good’ in the category of being
effective at recording reported crime, but we recognise that we still have work to do in improving our systems and processes to support accurate crime recording.

“These improvements can only benefit victims because better data quality means we make better decisions, therefore enabling us to deliver a better service to people in Lincolnshire. We remain committed to doing all that we can to make sure we focus our efforts on protecting victims and trying to prevent anyone from becoming a victim of crime.”

The Crime Data Integrity re-inspection, which took place in November and December 2019, said that the force had: ‘significantly improved its crime recording arrangements’ which included ‘developing a comprehensive crime recording and e-learning package and invested in additional
resources to scrutinise and improve crime recording decision making and data quality’ .

Within the element of the ‘effectiveness of the force at recording reported crime’, the Inspectorate itemises a number of categories of crime including sexual offences, rape and other violent crime.

It judged the force as having high levels of compliance with the integrity of recording (90.3% of crimes reported were recorded), 87.3% of reported violent crimes were recorded, 98.6% of sexual offences (including rape) were accurately recorded, all of which led to the ‘Good’ grading in that category.

Mr Skelly said the force had noted the areas highlighted for improvement, such as crime reports held on other systems and the way Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC) are conducted.

“We have already taken steps to introduce new operating procedures to ensure our compliance meets the high standards of these inspections,” said Mr Skelly.