Written question asked by David Davis (Conservative) on Monday, 28 April 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 1 May 2008. It was answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern (Labour) on Thursday, 5 June 2008 on behalf of the Home Office.

Crime: Statistics

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many records of offences (a) in total, (b) of violence against the person, (c) sexual offences, (d) of robbery, (e) of burglary, (f) of theft of a vehicle and (g) of theft from a vehicle recorded by the police in 2002-03 can be attributed to the effect of the National Crime Recording Standard.

Answer: [holding answer 1 May 2008]: An online report entitled ““National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS): an analysis of the impact on recorded crime””, published in July 2003 evaluated the impact of NCRS on recorded crime figures. The report stated that the national picture for total crime (2001-02: 5,525,024; 2002-03: 5,974,960) demonstrated an overall NCRS impact of 10 per cent. on the recorded crime statistics for 2002-03.Estimates of the percentage impact of the NCRS on recorded crime in 2002-03 varied considerably between offence types:"Violence against the person: 23 per cent. impact""(2001-02: 650,326; 2002-03: 845,078)""Robbery: 3 per cent. impact""(2001/02: 121,359; 2002/03: 110,271)""Burglary: 3 per cent. impact""(2001-02: 878,509; 2002-03: 890,099)"Equivalent estimates of the impact of the NCRS on sexual offences, theft of a vehicle and theft from a vehicle recorded are unavailable.It is thought that there was some continuing impact of the NCRS on the number of recorded crimes in the three-year period following its introduction as a result of audits to further improve recording.

Secondary information