Budgetary Information

I have been looking at the breakdown of crime statistics on your website. It does seem to me that these statistics are of little use without

a) each area statistic being accompanied by the amount of money spent by Cheshire Police on curbing crime in that region. Will this be rectified next year to take account of the fact that Cheshire now covers Cheshire East, Cheshire West, Warrington and Halton and is separately funded by these bodies?

b) I note too that crime statistics are not broken down into categories in respect of age, sex and ethnicity. Every public body requests these particulars from individuals, surely then offender statistics should be broken down along the same lines?

I am a great supporter of the work of the police and recognise that they have to operate within the parameters laid down for them by the government, but it does seem to me that citizens need to have the full facts in order to appraise the situation.

In accordance with section 1 (1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

a) The question of the allocation of funds is set out in our Force Budget Report

b) The crime statistics cannot be further broken down into the categories you suggest. To do so would be an enormous amount of work requiring the detailed analysis and production of data for between 25,000 to 30,000 individuals who have been dealt with in in any one year in relation to detected crimes. We have to balance the provision of information with the cost and the benefits of so doing. We do produce a large volume of information in response to specific requests and I would suggest that you look at the Crime Statistics disclosure Log Section. 

In addition may I suggest that you view the Home Office statistics web page where you will also find a large amount of statistical information relating to crime.