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 what percentage of crime recorded by the police in (a) 2002-03, (b) 2003-04, (c) 2004-05, (d) 2005-06 and (e) 2006-07 would not have been counted prior to the introduction 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 record crime figures. The report stated that the national picture demonstrated an overall NCRS impact of 10 per cent. on the recorded crime statistics for 2002-03. The total recorded crime figure was 5,525,024 in 2001-02 and 5,974,960 in 2002-03.This analysis of the impact of the NCRS on recorded crime has not been replicated since it was originally carried out in 2003 so equivalent estimates are unavailable for 2003-04 through to 2006-07. It is, however, 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