Yorkshire crime tsar in stinging attack on his own force

In a strongly-worded statement, Shaun Wright described the performance by South Yorkshire Police in several key areas, including rates of domestic burglary and vehicle crime, as ‘unacceptable’.

Former Labour councillor Mr Wright, who was elected as police and crime commissioner in November and whose role involves holding chief constable David Crompton to account, said the force was failing to meet the objectives set out in his Police and Crime Plan earlier this year.

He said figures released as part of last week’s Crime Survey showed that South Yorkshire is one of the five worst performing forces nationally and is second and third worst respectively for burglary and vehicle crime.

Bosses this month launched a new scheme, Operation Lockdown, to tackle these two issues, with specialist officers from other parts of the force told to contribute and more than 150 people arrested so far.

Mr Wright said South Yorkshire also performs badly compared with forces covering similar parts of the country and has not recorded monthly crime levels below the average for this group since January 2011. He said: “Despite the pressure on budgets of reduced Government funding, I have maintained financial support to the force to avoid it having to reduce the number of officers at the same rate other forces have had to do. So it is extremely disappointing and frustrating that other forces continue to perform better.

“I have done my best to provide the force with the financial resources it needs to achieve the objectives I have set in my Police and Crime Plan, which are based on what the people of South Yorkshire have told me are their main concerns.

“I and the people of South Yorkshire are entitled to expect better. But Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) also believes that the force should be performing better with the resources that it currently has; indeed they believe it should be doing better with less resources.

“Real transformational change is required to shape the future operating model of the force and that change is not happening fast enough. The force now needs to step up to the mark, do more and do it faster. I have made it clear to the Chief Constable that I want to see improvements and I want to see them fast.”

A report by HMIC in July said South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Police had responding “poorly” to the need to make dramatic reductions imposed by the Government in its 2010 spending review. They were among five forces where further cuts after 2015 could endanger the services offered to the public, HMIC said.

A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: “Overall crime has fallen in South Yorkshire for 24 successive years but we recognise that the current speed of reduction needs to accelerate.

“We are aware of the Commissioner’s concerns and share his aspiration to continue to drive down crime whilst operating within ever-reducing budgets.

“The task of improving performance with increasingly less money and, of necessity, fewer officers and staff, is a challenge for every police force and in South Yorkshire a significant programme of work is well underway to transform how we will deliver policing services to further reduce crime and remain within budget.”

Neil Bowles of the South Yorkshire Police Federation, representing rank and file officers, said he was ‘angered’ by the comments. He said: “It is still one of the worst funded forces in the country when you compare resources per head of the population.

“When morale across the force is at such an all-time low, I would like to know how this statement is designed to motivate my already overworked members.”