The future of recorded crime and police activity statistics: consultation

Part Three – Police Activity Statistics

51. This part of the consultation invites users to provide feedback on what other areas of policing in Scotland they would like to see the potential production of new statistics on, including how such data should be made available.

52. The Scottish Government produces several annual statistical bulletins which provide information on criminal activity dealt with by the police, in addition to the statistics on Recorded Crime in Scotland, discussed above. The publications, listed below, focus on providing users with detailed information on the nature of crimes and offences recorded by the police:

• National Statistics on Homicide in Scotland
• Official Statistics on Drug seizures and offender characteristics
• Official Statistics on Recorded crimes and offences involving firearms

53. In addition to the above publications we also produced a social research report on the characteristics on hate aggravated crimes recorded by the police in Scotland in 2018-19.^[5] A refresh of this analysis for the 2020-21 financial year is due to be published in 2022.

54. While these publications provide a valuable resource, they represent only one component (i.e. those involving the recording of at least one crime or offence) of the incidents police officers deal with on a daily basis.

55. In 2020-21, around one and half million incidents (1,506,805) were recorded on Police Scotland's command and control system.^[6] Of these, not all will involve criminal behavior and result in a crime or offence being recorded, such as those relating to assisting the public or responding to requests for prevention activities. Over the same period, the police recorded around 500,000 crimes and offences.^[7] (comprised of 246,511 crimes and 240,174 offences).

Other information on policing in Scotland

56. In addition to the publications listed above, the Scottish Government also produces the annual Official Statistics on Domestic Abuse recorded by the police in Scotland. This includes information on the characteristics of domestic abuse incidents recorded by the police, including the proportion of these which resulted in a crime or offence being recorded. For example, in 2019-20, the police recorded 62,907 incidents of domestic abuse, of which 40% included the recording of at least one crime or offence.

57. Police Scotland publish management information on the number of incidents reported to the police as part of their Quarterly Management Information Reports. These reports include a breakdown of volumes and rates per 10,000 population by the type of incident (including for example antisocial behaviour, transport-related and crime-related incidents). This information is available at national, divisional and council level. In addition, these publications include separate information on the number of missing person and domestic abuse related incidents recorded over the relevant period.

58. Alongside the above publication, Police Scotland produce a Quarterly Performance Report. This publication includes management information detailing the number and type of calls received (i.e. 999 versus 101), number of persons arrested and numbers of Antisocial Behaviour Fixed Penalty notices issued.

Statistics on policing in other countries

59. Notwithstanding the differences in the definitions used for certain types of crimes and offences in different countries, alongside different Justice Systems and policing practices, statistics on criminal incidents, including police recorded crime, clear-up rates, criminal proceedings and survey-based measures of victimisation are broadly available internationally.

60. A selected sample of countries.^[8] has been considered to identify what data is available on policing activity beyond crime-related information. With the exception of statistics in New Zealand on police demand and activity, including information about calls for service, as well as volumes of police proactive activities – there was limited data available in other countries on this topic.

61. Whilst the sample considered is not exhaustive and targeted additional information may be available, such evidence appears to be generally limited, compared to the breadth of information available on crime-related work carried out by the police.

62. It is however widely acknowledged that policy activity is more complex than 'crime-fighting' solely. A study from the College of Policing estimated that non-crime related incidents account for 83% of all 'command and control' calls that come into call centre staff.

Potential for new indicators on policing activity

63. Scottish Government statisticians have been working closely with analysts in Police Scotland to examine what further information on police activity, beyond those publications described above, could be produced as Official Statistics. What follows is a discussion of the kinds of information that could be made available, along with some potential limitations.

Volume and type of incidents recorded by Police Scotland

64. When a member of the public contacts the police to report an incident (or if a police officer is witness to an incident) the information is logged on Police Scotland's System for Tasking and Operational Resource Management (STORM) – this is Police Scotland's national command and control system.

65. STORM was rolled out nationally in February 2018 and is largely used for resource allocation purposes. This system collects information about each incident reported to the police including when the incident was first reported.

66. This resource could be used to provide additional measures, beyond the National Statistics on Recorded Crime in Scotland, of the demand on police officers in terms of the volumes and types of incidents that they respond to and where resources were deployed.

67. Any future Official Statistics publication could provide information on types of incidents (beyond those resulting in the recording of crime or offence) such as antisocial behaviour and public welfare (including missing persons and concern for persons). To highlight the potential for exploring some of these specific incident types further, we have provided some additional information on missing persons incidents below.

68. However, what STORM does not include and therefore any statistics using it as a source would be unable to provide, is information about the person who reported the incident, or any potential victims or perpetrators of criminal activity.

Missing persons incidents dealt with by Police Scotland

69. When a person is reported missing in Scotland, Police Scotland log the incident within STORM and record any details about the missing person episode in their MisPer database.

70. Information from the MisPer database is available from April 2019. The database can provide additional details on the types of missing person episodes, for example characteristics of the missing person including health conditions, and the average time a person is missing.

Questions to consider

Question Nineteen: Would the production of new Official Statistics on incidents recorded by Police Scotland be something you would find of value? If so, what types of police recorded incidents would be of most interest? Do you have a preferred way you would like to access the information (i.e. a statistical bulletin, Excel tables or an interactive data exploring tool)?

Question Twenty: If this information on policing activity was made available, what would you use these statistics for?