Target to Recruit 20,000 Police Officers Too Low

Officials from the Home Office, College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) have said the target to recruit 20,000 police officers is too low because the figure does not take into account current officers who will be retiring or will leave the service in the same time period. Instead, they say the target should be closer to 50,000.

In addition to the target not being high enough, current figures suggest that only one in ten candidates who apply to join the police are successful, meaning to reach the target of 50,000 officers, nearly 500,000 people would need to apply.

Source: BBC News

Statistical reporting on progress with the recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales

The Home Office has published an explanatory note to clarify the starting figure for which the recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers will be measured against. Also it is looking to publish regular official statistics on progress in the recruitment campaign. Planned releases will provide information on the recruitment process and will include force level breakdowns.

The information note can be read in full here.

Source: Gov.uk

Taser use by police in England and Wales reaches record high

Incidents where Taser was deployed doubled since 2016, with record number of incidents reaching 23,000 in span of 12 months to end of March 2019. In most cases they were only aimed but on 2,500 occasions between April 2018 and March 2019 they were fired. This is thought to be the highest number recorded.

Home Office is providing funding to enable 10,000 more officers to carry Tasers, with the police stating that they are vital to ensure safety. At the time of writing, a petition calling to equip all officers with Taser reached 113,000 signatures.

Source: BBC

Spending review 2019

The Chancellor Sajid Javid has outlined his departmental budgets for next year at the spending review 2019. He committed the government to a 4.1% increase in expenditure from 2019-20 to 2020-21.

However, Javid’s plans were criticised by the shadow chancellor who stated that the budget does not show the government is involved in any long-term planning. Moreover, the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted that ‘once health was excluded from the calculation, the extra funds barely reversed a quarter of the cuts to spending departments since 2010’. Nevertheless, the chancellor stated that these announcements would be drawing a line under the era of austerity.

Source: The Guardian

Tell MAMA Annual Report 2018: Normalising Hatred

The group Tell Mama has published its Annual Report 2018 which details cases of anti-Muslim or Islamophobic reports. It details two significant spikes of anti-Muslim hatred in 2018. It also reports a steady increase of anti-Muslim hate crimes both in person and on social media.

The first spike was found to reflect the ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters sent out in spring 2018. The second occurred around the time that the then foreign secretary Boris Johnson referred to Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank-robbers’ in a newspaper column. The week following these comments saw a 375% increase in anti-Muslim incidents recorded.

The report notes that it was most common for anti-Muslim attacks/incidents to take place in public areas. The majority of victims were female (57%), the majority of known perpetrators were male (73%), and 61% were white men.

Source: Tell Mama

Rape Monitoring Group Dashboard Publication

HMICFRS have published the Rape Monitoring Group (RMG), a multi-agency group in England and Wales, dashboard which contains data from 44 different force areas in England and Wales. The data shows how cases of rape are dealt with at all stages of the criminal justice process.

Key facts include an increase in recording of rape. However there has been a fall in cases continuing to conviction. However, there are a number of factors that could affect these statistics. These include, victims not wanting to take cases forward, advice from the CPS, or a change in the classification of the offence; or a change in the classification of the counting rules.

Source: HMICFRS

Economic and social costs of reoffending

The Ministry of Justice has published research which examines the economic and social costs of reoffending. The report contains the costs broken down for adults, and children and young people. The research examines the cost of reoffending over a 12 month follow up period for a 2016 offender cohort.

Key statistics in the report include:

• The estimated total economic and social cost of reoffending was £18.1 billion for the 2016 cohort. For adults in the 2016 cohort, the total was estimated to be £16.7 billion
• Costs as a consequence of crime accounted for an estimated £10.0 billion of the total costs for adults in the 2016 cohort
• The estimated cost of reoffending by adults who had previously recieved received a custodial sentence of less than 12 months was £5.0 billion. For those who had served a sentence of 12 months or more, the estimated cost was £1.0

The full report can be read here.

Source: Gov.uk

Deloitte Tech Trends 2019

Technology can help make government more effective by protecting and maintaining infrastructure, creating more personalised and secure citizen interactions, or automating tasks so workers can focus on more value‑added jobs. As leaders work to reshape their organisations and realise these possibilities, they rely on fresh, relevant insights. This perspective provides a UK Government and Public Services lens on Deloitte’s Technology Trends 2019: Beyond the digital frontier.

We touch on the macro forces at play and how real power emerges when they combine. Finding the jobs new technologies can do is a first‑level challenge. Finding ways to integrate them into a new operational paradigm is the next‑level challenge that’s now unfolding.

Public sector organisations can and do learn from each other. They can draw lessons from their counterparts in the private sector and from other nations. Each organisation is on a path toward greater digital adoption, but they’re at different places on that journey. What do they have in common? A commitment to mission‑driven service. Through real‑world examples and sector‑specific examinations of new technology capabilities, this perspective should help leaders throughout the public sector sharpen their view of how new tools fit into this mandate.

Source: Deloitte

The full report can be found here.

World Economic Forum – Global Risks Report

The Global Risks Report 2019 is published against a backdrop of worrying geopolitical and geo-economic tensions. If unresolved, these tensions will hinder the world’s ability to deal with a growing range of collective challenges, from the mounting evidence of environmental degradation to the increasing disruptions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The report presents the results of our latest Global Risks Perception Survey, in which nearly 1,000 decision-makers from the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society assess the risks facing the world. Nine out of 10 respondents expect worsening economic and political confrontations between major powers this year. Over a ten-year horizon, extreme weather and climate-change policy failures are seen as the gravest threats.

This year’s report includes another series of “what-if” Future Shocks that examine quantum computing, weather manipulation, monetary populism, emotionally responsive artificial intelligence and other potential risks. The theme of emotions is also addressed in a chapter on the human causes and effects of global risks; the chapter calls for greater action around rising levels of psychological strain across the world

Source: World Economic Forum

22 cyber-related sex crimes against children recorded on average a day

New figures from the NSPCC state that an average of 22 cyber-related sex crimes have taken place on a daily basis in 2018/19. Data was gathered from 40 out of 44 police forces in England and Wales. Cyber-related sex crimes include online grooming, sexual communication with a child, and rape.

The NSPCC also state that 8,224 child sexual offences logged by police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland had an online element, double the number since the NSPCC began collating the data in 2015/16.

Source: NSPCC