Office for National Statistics (ONS) – crime in England and Wales – January to December 2019

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today released figures which show the county seeing a drop in recorded crime between January-December 2019 compared to the same period the year before.

The ONS reports a 10% drop for period, although the actual decrease is closer to 2% due to an underlying backlog in recording crimes as a result of the force’s implementation of a new records management system which will go live next month and will replace many existing outdated force systems. This is a major project which will bring together many intelligence, information and operational systems that support officers and staff and will deliver more modern and efficient ways of working and improve service and outcomes for local communities. Work has been underway for many months on the transition programme and in managing and reducing the related crime recording backlog and this will be reflected in the next ONS crime recording stats to be released in July 2020.

Deputy Chief Constable Nick Baker said: “I welcome the latest figures which show a reducing crime trend across the county, building on the previous set of figures released by the ONS which also showed a small decrease. We recognise that there is still much work to do and the force is continuing to proactively target those who seek to cause harm to communities and vulnerable people as we work with partners to make Staffordshire a safer county.”