§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many sexual assaults were recorded in each Basic Command Unit area of each metropolitan police force in each year for which Basic Command Unit information has been available. [141195]
§ Ms BlearsNumbers of sexual assaults are not available at Basic Command Unit (BCU) level, although the total number of sexual offences have been published at this level. The metropolitan police forces are taken to be the Metropolitan Police Service, City of London, West Midlands, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Northumbria. The published information is available via the Research Development Statistics (RDS) website, at the following locations:
- 1990–2000 and 2000–01 BCU data (Home Office Statistical Bulletin 12/01, Table 11):
- http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/1201data3.xls
- 2001–02 and 2002–03 BCU data:
- http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb703sup2.xls
The National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) was introduced across England and Wales in April 2002. Some forces adopted the principles of the Standard prior to this date. Of the eight metropolitan forces, both Greater Manchester (January 2002) and West Midlands (April 1999) adopted the Standard early. Broadly, the NCRS had the effect of increasing the number of crimes recorded by the police. Therefore, following the introduction of the Standard, numbers of recorded crimes are not comparable with previous years.