Ahead of a London Assembly Police and Crime Committee meeting tomorrow morning, on violence against women and girls and Metropolitan Police resources, the committee has published a report on violent crime, which it describes as remaining ‘a pernicious and pervasive threat to Londoners’.
The report points to rises in violence in 2020 and 2021. Levels of violence in London have fluctuated, the councillors say, with steep declines seen during the capital’s covid-19 lockdowns (as with all crime), but rising again as restrictions were lifted. While the mayoral authorities at City Hall have hailed their new approach to violent crime through a VRU (violence reduction unit, led by Lib Peck), the report queries the ‘limited information available describing each of the VRU’s initiatives, and it is difficult to assess the geographical spread of services across London; who they are reaching; and what impact they are having’.
The committee raises a concern that the VRU has still not published a performance framework; the report says that ‘without a comprehensive framework, it is not possible to measure and reflect the cumulative impact of the VRU on outcomes for young people, which is fundamental to the evaluation of the effectiveness of London’s VRU’. Likewise the report asks the London VRU to publish comparisons with the other VRUs on its web pages ‘so that Londoners can easily compare the performance’ of London and other VRUs. Some 19 VRUs cover parts of England and Wales, based on the ‘public health approach’ to violent crime as originated by a Scottish VRU.
In conclusion, the report calls on the VRU to ‘make evaluation front and centre of its approach now and over the coming years’.
Also, the committee asks about long-term funding for London’s VRU, from the Home Office and the Mayor for London; so that the VRU is ‘able to plan and sustain long-term interventions’.
Tomorrow the committee is due to hear from Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (MOPAC); and from the Metropolitan Police, Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, Met Operations; and Robin Wilkinson, Chief of Corporate Services. The meeting can be viewed live or later via webcast or YouTube.
Among the data from the Met, calls to the police about anti-social behaviour have fallen by 40 per cent from almost 508,000 in 2020-21, to 304,000 in 2021-22, the higher figure being due in part to noisy neighbours during lockdowns from spring 2020 onwards. Total notifiable offences however have gone up ten per cent, from 748,000 to 823,000.
On all the questions asked in a public attitudes survey, public satisfaction has fallen between the surveys in December 2020 and December 2021.
Picture by Mark Rowe; the Thames from south bank near Westminster Bridge, winter evening.
