§ Mr. VazTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what instructions he has issued to police authorities on the recording in local crime statistics of offences committed under section 39 of the Ciminal Justice Act 1988.
§ Mr. John Patten[holding answer 3 May 1989]: The compilation of local crime statistics is a matter for the chief constable. The information collected centrally relates to notifiable offences recorded by the police covering nearly all indictable offences and a few types of summary offence. (Full details are given in the appendices to "Criminal statistics, England and Wales", pp 180 and 184–8 of the issue for 1987, Cm. 498). The coverage of this series has not been changed since 1978, apart from its extension in 1983 to include offences of gross indecency with a child and offences of drug trafficking, currently together amounting to about 9,000 offences a year. The procedures for recording notifiable offences have also not been changed since 1980 when new counting rules were introduced to improve the consistency of recording multiple, continuous and repeated offences. Those offences made summary under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 continue to be covered, with the exception of offences of common assault made summary under section 39 of the Act. The police are being advised no longer to include offences of common assault in the count of notifiable offences reported to the Home Office, in order to avoid unduly complicating police recording practices for 289W summary offences of assault. The average number of such offences recorded by the police in the whole of England and Wales over the last 10 years has been around 600 a year so the reduction in the coverage of the series for notifiable offences recorded will be negligible (about 0.02 per cent.).