§ 33. Mr. LansleyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his policing objectives. [24646]
§ Mr. MichaelAs I said in my reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) on 3 November 1997,Official Report, column 29, I have arranged for copies of the Key Objectives and Key Performance Indicators for the police service in 1998–99 to be placed in the Library.
The two new objectives which I have set for the police in 1998–99 on dealing speedily and effectively with young offenders and targetting and reducing local problems of crime and disorder reflect the particular importance which the Government attach to tackling these problems. For the first time there will also be a separate key objective on drug-related crime in the light of widespread concern that a high proportion of all crime is attributable to drug misuse. We recognise that it not the responsibility of the police alone to deal with these problems. So all three of these objectives focus on what the police can do in partnership with other local agencies.
We have kept the existing objectives requiring the police to maintain and, if possible, increase the number of detections for violent crime: to increase the number of detections for burglaries of people's homes: and to respond promptly to emergency calls from the public. We have done this to provide some continuity in the objectives and, more importantly, to reflect the fact that these continue to be issues of serious public concern.