Report Summary
This report provides members of the Scottish Police Authority Policing Performance Committee with the final update of the Benchmarking Short Life Working Group, detailing the key achievements of the group and outlining how benchmarking and comparative analysis is now embedded in the Police Scotland performance, underpinning ongoing continuous improvement activity.
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Data Sources
For police forces elsewhere in the UK there is no centralised database of all of the data sought for comparative analysis. The SLWG have therefore identified a variety of sources suitable for use. These include:
• Office of National Statistics
• Home Office
• Force websites
• Police and Crime Commissioners
• National Crime Agency
• Police Oracle
The focus has been on publicly accessible datasets, therefore removing any issues with sharing of the data in our reports and briefings.
The Authority and Police Scotland have also built relationships with the APCC, NPCC and the College of Policing, who have provided assistance and advice on accessing data sets, including the HMICFRS Digital Crime & Performance Pack.
Even with this assistance there are substantial gaps in the data required to compare the 44 measures of success, or even on smaller subsets. For 12 of the 44 measures complete datasets have been accessed for the list of MSG forces, with partial datasets found for 14, and incomplete datasets for the remaining 18 (see Appendix 1).
The Authority has therefore made direct contact with the six MSG forces in an attempt to access additional information. One force has already provided additional data by email, three have committed to doing this, and the other two forces have not yet responded.
It is important to recognise that sourcing appropriate datasets has been the most complex and challenging of the SLWG’s activities. Engagement with other forces and oversight bodies will continue. To support this a presentation was delivered to the 2023 AGM of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioner Chief Executives (APACE) Group, outlining the aspirations of the work and seeking support from PCCs and other oversight bodies to access and utilise suitable datasets.
