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Jul 24, 2024 · Key findings. This bulletin reports on investigative outcomes that police forces have assigned to notifiable offences recorded in England and Wales (excluding Devon and Cornwall; see Section 1.2)...
2 days ago · To help compare figures between the different types of victims, they are given as percentages. ... The North West has the highest rate of victims with 5.6 (per million persons aged 18 or over) and ...
- Key findings
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Outcomes assigned to offences recorded in the year ending 31 March 2023
- 3. Timeliness of investigations
- 4. Experimental Statistics: Investigative outcomes assigned to Fraud and Computer Misuse Act (CMA) offences
- 5. Further Information
This bulletin reports on investigative outcomes that police forces have assigned to notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales (excluding Devon and Cornwall) between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. Section 2 reports on trends in numbers and proportions of offences assigned an outcome, by both offence and outcome type.
•police recorded crime levels increased for most crime types in the year ending March 2023 compared with the previous year, up to 5.5 million offences, excluding fraud and computer misuse (a 5% rise) and up to 1.2 million fraud and computer misuse offences (a 15% rise)
•the proportion of crimes (excluding fraud and computer misuse) resulting in a charge and/or summons this year increased slightly to 5.7% (compared with 5.5% the previous year), halting the long-term downward trend since the introduction of the Outcomes Framework in the year ending March 2015, when 16% of crimes were resolved with a charge and/or summons
•the most common reason for a case being closed remained no suspect having been identified, with 39.3% of cases closed this way in the year ending March 2023; an increase from 36.7% in the year ending March 2022
•the proportion of offences not yet assigned an outcome decreased from 11.2% last year to 8.0% this year, returning to levels reported in the year ending March 2021 (at 7.8%)
As in previous years, the length of time it took police forces to assign an investigative outcome to a crime varied by both the type of offence and the type of outcome (see section 3).
Overview
This bulletin reports on investigative case outcomes that have been assigned to notifiable offences recorded by the territorial police forces in England and Wales. It covers all territorial police forces except Devon and Cornwall Police for the years ending March 2022 and March 2023, as data were unavailable at the time of publication. In April 2013, the Home Office introduced the current crime outcomes framework, replacing a more narrow-focused one based on ‘detections’ (see Technical Annex for further information). As well as this annual publication, the Home Office also publishes quarterly outcomes tables, without commentary. These are published in the Crime outcomes in England and Wales statistics collection. Crime and crime outcomes data are also published alongside justice outcomes data from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the Criminal Justice System Delivery Data Dashboard. For more detailed background on the outcomes framework and how it was developed, see Annex A6 of the Technical Annex: Crime Outcomes Data Quality.
The full outcomes framework
Since its introduction in April 2014, the framework has developed to cover a broader range of outcome types for police forces to use. Detailed descriptions of each outcome type can be found in the Technical Annex. The data presented in this report provide a snapshot, at the time of analysis, of the current case status of offences recorded during the year ending March 2023 (excluding experimental data on fraud and computer misuse outcomes, reported in Section 4, which are a record of the total number of outcomes assigned in the year and may be linked to offences recorded in previous years). The outcomes of some cases, especially those recorded towards the end of the financial year, may be subsequently revised once investigations have been completed, or new lines of enquiry have been opened. While all crimes will eventually have an outcome, this may take considerable time for some offences, particularly so for fraud offences covered in Section 4, which are often complex to investigate, with offenders often operating from behind a computer screen, perhaps in another country. At any given point, police forces will be undertaking crime investigations to which they will not yet have assigned a final outcome. Police forces will therefore submit revised data to the Home Office as investigations are completed and some data previously published will be revised in subsequent releases.
Outcome groupings in this bulletin
Some of the tables and charts in this bulletin show grouped outcomes to simplify presentation. For transparency, Open Data tables are also published that show the full range of police outcomes. These are accessible from the Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables. For statistical purposes, all recorded crimes are assigned one outcome type. Please refer to the Home Office Counting Rules for information on recording outcomes. Table 1.1 shows the grouping of outcomes used in this report. These were structured taking into account user feedback following a consultation in 2014.
Key findings
police recorded crime levels increased by 5% in the year ending March 2023 compared with the year ending March 2022 with 5.5 million offences recorded in the latest year alongside the rise in crime levels, there was an increase of 22,033 in numbers of charge/summons outcomes recorded compared with the previous year (a 7.6% increase from 290,134 to 312,167). This led to a slight rise in the charge/summons rate, up to 5.7% compared with 5.5% in the previous year which halted the downward trend since the year ending March 2015 (when the comparable figure was 16%) as in previous years, the most common reason for a case being closed was due to no suspect being identified (39.3%), a slight increase compared with the previous year (36.7%). This varied by offence type, for example, theft offences received the highest proportion of cases closed in this way (73.7%), compared with drug offences which received the lowest (5.5%) the proportion of offences where the investigation remained open at the year-end decreased from 11.2% last year to 8.0% this year, returning to levels seen in the year ending March 2021 (at 7.8%)
Background and trends in recorded crime outcomes
The analysis presented in Section 2 and Section 3 is restricted to those offences initially recorded by the territorial forces and the British Transport Police (BTP) and therefore excludes fraud and CMA offences, which is centralised via Action Fraud (the UK’s national fraud and cyber-crime reporting centre) and managed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) at the City of London Police. It should be noted that not all offences recorded in the year ending March 2023 had been assigned an investigative outcome at the time that the data was prepared for this bulletin. A fuller picture of how crimes have been resolved by the police will become available in subsequent releases of tables; published on a quarterly basis. This means that the figures presented here are subject to change. For example, the proportion of offences in the year ending March 2022 receiving an outcome of charged/summonsed was 5.5% when first published in July 2022 but in the latest update this has increased to 6.8%. However, to allow like-for-like comparisons in this bulletin we report on trends using data as first published. Except for a drop in levels of some types of crime in 2020 and 2021 due to the suppression effect of Government Public Health restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, levels of police recorded crime and outcomes have steadily increased since 2014/15. A significant driver for increases in recorded crime levels has been the critical inspections of crime recording carried out by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), detailed in reports from 2014 and 2019[footnote 1][footnote 2]. The 2014 report revealed significant under-recording of crimes that had been reported by victims to the police. This was followed by a programme of rolling inspections of forces to examine compliance with the Home Office’s National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS). This has led to improved compliance and increased caseloads as more crimes were correctly recorded than in previous years. The HMICFRS has estimated in their State of Policing 2019 report that, compared with their findings from their 2014 inspection, better compliance with recording standards meant police forces recorded around 570,000 more crimes during 2019. In addition to improvements in recording, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has commented that some of the increases in recorded crime in recent years may also reflect changes in society. These include a greater willingness of victims to come forward to report to the police and genuine increases in some types of crime. As a result, compared with 2013/14 the volume of the crime caseload being dealt with by the police has grown. In addition, the crime mix has also changed with rising numbers of more complex offences to investigate, such as rape, which has more than doubled since the year ending March 2015. The increasing volume of digital evidence (which may require more intensive work to investigate) across a wide spectrum of offences from harassment to sexual offences is also thought to have added to the investigative demands on the police. Following the government’s commitment to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by the end of March 2023, the total number of officers peaked in March 2023, at over 149,500. However, HMICFRS noted the composition of the workforce has changed, as the recent influx of new recruits to replace combined with the retirement of a cohort of experienced officers from 2010 has led to a more inexperienced workforce. HMICFRS has also pointed to a continued shortage of experienced detectives. At the same time, it has been reported that forces have sought to manage demand by adopting local policies to prioritise the use of investigative resources. These factors are likely to have an impact on the distribution of outcomes over time and across forces. Police forces have increasingly prioritised high- harm crimes, such as rape and domestic abuse, leading to less focus on lower-harm crimes, such as certain types of theft. More recently the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has made a commitment to ensure that the police attend all home burglaries, which aims to support victims and catch more burglars. Overall, there has been a downward trend in the proportion of offences with a charge/summons outcome assigned within the same year that the crime was recorded since the year ending March 2015 (falling from 15.5% in the year ending 2015 to 5.5% in the year ending March 2022). The latest figures show that this downward trend has halted with a slight increase to 5.7% of investigations closed with a charge/summons. At the same time, there has been a growing proportion of cases recorded where victims did not support police action (up from 8.7% in the year ending March 2015 to 26.7% in the year ending 2023). Both these trends are likely to have been influenced by the changing caseload and crime mix being dealt with by the police.
Variation in how cases were closed by outcome type
Table 2.1 summarises the investigative outcomes given to all crimes recorded in the year ending March 2023 at the time the data were finalised for analysis (May 2023). It also compares this with outcomes assigned to crimes recorded in the previous year as they were when first published in July 2022. Some of the key points (see Figure 2.1 and Table 2.2) reported below. The number of offences closed with a charge/summons increased from 290,134 to 312,167 when compared with the previous year. Fewer investigations of crimes recorded in the year ending March 2023 remained open at the year end (with 438,991 offences with no outcome yet assigned) than was the case for the year ending March 2022 (588,561 offences). This was equivalent to 8% of offences in the year ending March 2023 compared with 11.2% of offences the previous year. As in the previous year, the most common reason for a case being closed was no suspect having been identified with over a third of all cases closed in this way (39.3% in the year ending March 2023; an increase from 36.7% in the year ending March 2022). The proportion of cases closed with out-of-court (formal) disposals was similar to last year (1.0% in the year ending March 2023 compared with 1.1% in the year ending March 2022). This was also true for out-of-court (informal) disposals (2.5% in the year ending March 2023 compared with 2.6% in the year ending March 2022). The proportion of offences closed with evidential difficulties where the victim supported action and a suspect was identified increased slightly from 12.1% the previous year to 12.8% in the latest year. For cases closed due to evidential difficulties where the victim did not support further action, the proportion was similar in both years ending March 2023 and March 2022 (26.7%).
Key findings
there was an overall increase of 2 days in the average (median) time taken to assign an outcome from the date the crime was initially recorded (from 12 days in the year ending March 2022 to 14 days in the year ending March 2023), the highest recorded since the year ending March 2016 the average days for an outcome to be assigned has generally been rising since the year ending March 2018 (when it was 6 days) reflecting the increasing volume and complexity of caseloads being dealt with by the police for cases that closed with a charge/summons outcome, the average days to outcome was 44 days in the year ending March 2023, the same as the previous year. There has been a steady increase in the average days to assign a charge/summons outcome since the year ending March 2016, up from 14 to 44 days (a rise of 30 days), which is likely a reflection of the growing caseload and changing crime mix there was a mixed picture for charge/summons outcomes when breaking down by offence groups, with decreases for some crime types and increases for others. Violence against the person, criminal damage and arson, public order offences and sexual offences saw an increase in the average time to assign a charge/summons outcome compared with the previous year (an increase of 2, 4, 4 and 10 days respectively). In contrast, rape, robbery, drug offences and possession of weapons saw a decrease in the average number of days to assign a charge/summons outcome compared with the previous year (a decrease of 47, 13, 4 and 4 days respectively) during the latest year (March 2023), the evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports action) outcome type increased its average (median) days to outcome by 6 days (from 43 to 49 days), compared with the previous year. There was also a smaller increase in evidential difficulties cases where the victim does not support action, where the average days to outcome was 19 days (an increase of 2 days compared with the previous year) the investigation complete with no suspect identified outcome saw no change in its average days to assign an outcome (remaining at 3 days), compared with the previous year. However, there were differences when broken down by offence group. Robbery, sexual offences and violence against the person offences that closed with this outcome went up by 24, 6 and 2 days respectively. Possession of weapons and drug offences went down in the number of days to outcome (3 and 2 days respectively) This section explores the variation in the time that elapsed from the initial recording of a crime to the point at which the outcome of an investigation was registered on a police force’s crime Record Management System (RMS). In contrast with the previous section, the data presented in this section cover all outcomes recorded in the year ending March 2023, regardless of when the offence was initially recorded. This enables a more complete picture of cases finalised in the latest year. Time, in days, is presented using the median average as this measure is less susceptible to being skewed by a small number of unusually high or low values. It should be noted that this measure will not always reflect the actual time taken to deal with an individual case since, for example, there may be a delay between an offender being charged and the force crime RMS being updated. Timeliness by offence and outcome type In the year ending March 2023, it took an average of 14 days to assign an investigative outcome to an offence. Around 37% of all outcomes were assigned within five days of the offence being recorded and around 61% within 30 days. These proportions were slightly lower than the previous year when 39% of all outcomes were assigned within five days and 64% within 30 days. The proportion of cases taking over 100 days to assign an outcome increased to 20% (up by 4 percentage points). These averages masks significant variation across offences and outcomes, which is visible when analysis is broken down to that level. Figure 3.1: The time taken (median days) for outcomes to be assigned to offences broken down by offence groups, year ending March 2023, England and Wales Source: Home Office Data Hub (HODH) Table 3.1 shows the average (median) length of time to assign an outcome by offence type for the last six years. There has been an upward trend for all crime, with a rise from 6 days in the year ending March 2018, to 14 days in the latest year. The latest HMICFRS State of Policing report suggested a combination of factors affecting police performance, such as a criminal justice system issues, resource pressures and an increase in demand/complexity of crime cases. Table 3.1: The difference in the average (median) length of time taken to assign an outcome between the year ending March 2018 and the year ending March 2023, by offence type Source: Home Office Data Hub (HODH) Notes: Median days for the year ending March 2018 to the year ending March 2022 are as first published. Only includes data for forces who send offence-level data to HODH. In the year ending March 2019, only 2 forces did not submit offence-level data and in the following years (year ending March 2020, year ending March 2021, year ending March 2022 and year ending March 2023) 3, 4, 5 and 4 forces respectively did not submit offence-level data. Charge/Summons There was a mixed picture in the number of days to assign a charge/summons outcome when breaking down by offence groups, with decreases for some crime types and increases for others. Violence against the person, criminal damage and arson, public order offences and sexual offences saw an increase in the average time to assign a charge/summons outcome compared with the previous year (an increase of 2, 4, 4 and 10 days respectively). Rape, robbery, drug offences and possession of weapons saw a decrease in the number of days to assign a charge/summons outcome compared with the previous year (a decrease of 47, 13, 4 and 4 days respectively). Drug offences The average days taken to assign an outcome for drug offences increased to 25 days in the year ending March 2023 (up from 23 days the previous year). Some forces in the past have reported a backlog of forensic examinations, including analysis of items such as mobile phones, to ascertain evidence of drug dealing, as well as testing to identify the drugs that have been seized. This may have contributed to the increase in median days. However, the average days taken to assign a charge/summons outcome for all drug offences has gone down by 4 days to 59 days. Sexual offences Within all sexual offences, rape saw a decrease in the time taken to charge/summons (down by around 47 days, from 467 to 421 days. However, for all sexual offences including rape there were increases in the average number of days for an outcome to be assigned (up by 10 days) to 72 days. While the average number of days taken for a rape offence to receive a charge/summons fell, the opposite was true for other sexual offences which saw an increase in the time taken for such an outcome (up by around 10 days, from 261 to 271 days) when compared with the previous year. The timelier response seen in charge/summons for rape offences is likely due to police increasingly prioritising high-harm crimes (such as rape) and therefore delivering a timelier charge/summons outcome, this could have had trade-offs with other offence types and outcome types. Robbery offences The police were quicker to reach a charge/summons decision (down by 13 days to 56 days) when compared with the previous year. There were also increases in the number of robbery offences that were assigned a charge/summons outcome during the latest year; an increase of 18% (up by around 750 offences). The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) accounts for a disproportionate volume of robbery offences which has bearings on the national trends. The trends seen for robbery offences could be an artefact of an administration issue faced by the MPS. Theft offences Median days to assign a charge/summons outcome for theft offences stayed at 30 days when compared with the previous year ending March 2022. Median days to assign a charge/summons outcome for residential burglary offences increased slightly by 1 day (from 52 to 53 days) when compared with the previous year ending March 2022. Evidential difficulties During the latest year ending March 2023, the evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports action) outcome type increased its average (median) days to outcome by 6 days (from 43 to 49 days), compared with the previous year ending March 2022. There was also a smaller increase in the evidential difficulties cases where the victim does not support action; the average days to outcome rose by 2 days to 19 days, compared with the previous year ending March 2022. The median days’ increase in the evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports action) outcome type, was seen across most offence types; violence against the person (up by 6, to 45 days); sexual offences (up by 18, to 145 days); rape offences (up by 30, to 222 days); robbery offences (up by 26, to 141 days); theft offences (up by 5, to 57 days); criminal damage and arson offences (up by 5, to 43 days); drug offences (up by 13, to 102 days); possession of weapons offences (up by 3, to 47 days); and public order offences (up by 2, from to days). Rape offences The ‘Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports action)’ outcome for rape offences increased by 30 days, up to 222 days when compared with the previous year ending March 2022. The ‘Evidential difficulties (victim does not support action)’ outcome for rape offences increased by 7 days, up to 73 days when compared with the previous year ending March 2022. Around 54% of rape offences were assigned an evidential difficulties outcome (the same proportion as last year). Although there has been a concerted effort to improve the investigative performance of rape, these offences remain challenging to investigate. Violence against the person offences Violence against the person offences saw increases in the average number of days for an outcome to be assigned (up by 2 days, to 23 days) compared with the previous year. This has been gradually increasing since the year ending March 2018, when it stood at 15 days. The overall increase in average days to outcome was influenced by rises in evidential difficulties. The ‘Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports action)’ outcome increased by 6 days, making the total average days to outcome 45 days, when compared with the previous year ending March 2022. The ‘Evidential difficulties (victim does not support action)’ outcome also increased slightly by an increase of 1 day, totalling 18 days, when compared with the previous year. The proportion of violence against the person offences that received an evidential difficulties outcome increased to around 62% (up by around 2 percentage points) compared with the previous year ending March 2022. The number of these offences that received an evidential difficulties outcome has also increased from 1.2 million to 1.3 million offences. Investigation complete – no suspect identified The investigation complete – no suspect identified outcome saw no change in its median days to assign an outcome (stayed at 3 days), compared with the previous year ending March 2022. However, there were differences when broken down by offence group. Robbery offences The median days taken to assign an outcome for robbery offences has increased steadily since the year ending March 2018, from around 23 days to 46 days during the year ending March 2022, to 65 days in the year ending March 2023 (up by 19 days) when compared with the previous year). This has been primarily influenced by an increase in median days to assign an outcome of ‘Investigation complete – no suspect identified’, compared with the previous year, which went up to 66 days (an increase of 24 days). The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) accounts for a disproportionate volume of robbery offences (39% of all those recorded in England and Wales in the latest year) and trends in this police force area tend to impact on the national picture. The MPS recorded an average rise of 84 days in assigning an ‘Investigation complete – no suspect identified’ outcome (up from 74 to 158 days) which may be an administrative issue with file closures during the latest year. Theft offences Overall, theft offences took the least time to assign an outcome at an average (median) of 4 days, which is an increase of 1 day compared with the previous year (year ending March 2022). The median days taken to assign an ‘Investigation complete - no suspect identified’ outcome for theft offences closed at 2 days during the latest year ending March 2023, which is no change on the previous year. Theft offences have had a high proportion of outcomes closed as ‘Investigation complete; no suspect identified’ (around 74% during the year ending March 2023) and the median average days taken to close a case for that specific outcome group was relatively low (2 days), therefore, driving the relatively low overall figure. This might reflect decisions taken to de-prioritise certain cases for investigation where it is judged not to reach a threshold for these offences, whereby a police decision is taken relatively quickly as they are generally less complicated in nature. For residential burglary offences, police forces took on average 16 days to close an outcome in the year ending March 2023, which is a 6 day increase compared with the previous year. The median days taken to assign an ‘Investigation complete - no suspect identified’ outcome for residential burglary offences closed at 11 days during the latest year ending March 2023, which is an increase of 5 days compared with the previous year.
Figure 3.2: The difference in the average (median) length of time taken to assign an outcome between the year ending March 2016 and the year ending March 2023, by outcome group
Source: Home Office Data Hub (HODH) Figure 3.2 shows the average length of time to assign outcomes by type of outcome and how this has changed over the past seven years. The average time taken to assign a charge/summons outcome had been increasing since the year ending March 2016, when the average was 14 days. Gradual rises were seen up to the year ending March 2018, when the average was 18 days; a period of steeper increases followed until the year ending March 2021, when the average was 43 days. More recently the trend has flattened, with an average of 44 days in both the year ending March 2022 and March 2023. Figure 3.3 shows that there are variations in outcome types for sexual offences. Charge/summons outcomes for sexual offences took the longest amount of time to be assigned, at a median of 271 days, up from 261 days the previous year. However, charge/summons outcomes for the sub-category of rape offences fell, as described above. The average number of days taken for cases of sexual offences to be closed due to evidential difficulties where the victim supported action increased from 127 in the year ending March 2022 to 145 days in the latest year. The average number of days taken for sexual offences closed with evidential difficulties where the victim did not support action also increased from 49 to 55 days in the same period.
Figure 3.3 The time taken (median days) for sexual offences to receive an outcome, broken down by the type of outcome, for the years ending March 2022 and 2023, England and Wales
Source: Home Office Data Hub (HODH)
Key results
the number of fraud offences recorded increased by 15% between the year ending March 2022 and the year ending March 2023, from 976,093 offences to 1,125,168 offences. This was largely driven by an increase in reports from UK Finance, with a 57% rise from 293,560 offences to 460,537 offences in contrast, the number of Computer Misuse Act (CMA) offences recorded decreased by 8%, from 28,189 in the year ending March 2022 to 26,024 in the year ending March 2023 of those offences recorded by the police, a relatively small number were referred to territorial forces for investigation (2%), The number of fraud offences referred to forces for investigation decreased by 32% (from 26,520 to 18,063) compared with the year ending March 2022 the number of CMA offences referred to forces for investigation fell by 17% (from 4,169 to 3,480) the total number of fraud offences assigned an investigative outcome decreased from 50,202 in the year ending March 2022 to 42,933 (down 14%) in the year ending March 2022, while the total number of CMA offences assigned an outcome decreased from 7,695 to 5,324 (down 31%)
4.1 Introduction
Action Fraud is the UK’s national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre, having taken over the recording of fraud offences from individual police forces in England and Wales on a rolling basis from March 2013. More information on the recording of fraud and Computer Misuse Act (CMA) offences can be found in the Crime Statistics User Guide. Action Fraud reports are reviewed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), based at the City of London Police, who are responsible for allocating offences to forces for them to investigate (these are known as a ‘dissemination package’). Each dissemination package can be made up of any number of offences, from one to hundreds. This depends on the size of the suspected fraud network, as many similar crimes may be linked together if investigators believe one suspect, or set of suspects, is responsible for a number of different offences. Also, an offence can be disseminated more than once, if it links to multiple crime networks. However, each offence only receives one final investigative outcome. The police recorded crime series, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), also incorporates offences reported to the NFIB by two fraud prevention industry bodies: Cifas and UK Finance. Figures for these fraud bodies have been included in fraud and total counts only, as neither industry body collects or provides reports relating to CMA offences. Outcomes data for the year ending March 2022 differ from those published last year and are based on updated data received from the NFIB. For the year ending March 2023, revised figures will be published next year as additional outcomes records are added to the system over the coming months, which may change the percentage differences between years. Where comparisons are made to last year’s data, these are based on the revised data.[footnote 3] For further information on the NFIB’s outcomes recording process please see the Technical Annex Section. The disseminations and outcomes dataset provided by the NFIB continues to be subject to development and quality assurance and so these statistics continue to be badged as experimental. The outcomes presented in this section differ to those relating to other crime types as they are based on the old-style outcomes, that is, the number of outcomes recorded within a year regardless of when the offence occurred. As part of the Government’s Fraud Strategy, launched in May 2023, work is being done with the City of London Police to refresh and upgrade the Action Fraud service. The new service is expected to be fully operational by spring 2024 and will improve the ease of reporting; quality and validation of data; timeliness of the reports from the public; and provide law enforcement with the intelligence they need to investigate and disrupt more fraudsters. The Fraud Strategy sets out plans for working jointly across government, industry, and law enforcement to tackle fraud. It aims to stop frauds from reaching consumers, support victims better and pursue more fraudsters.
4.2 Fraud and Computer Misuse Act offences, disseminations and outcomes in the year ending March 2023 - headline findings
The findings from the disseminations and outcomes data for the year ending March 2023 are presented below. Fraud and CMA offences are presented separately to provide more detail on the outcomes of these related crime types, which differ in their nature and investigation. Table 4.1 shows the number of unique fraud and CMA offences sent to police forces for investigation, alongside the total number of fraud and CMA offences recorded in the years ending March 2022 and 2023. The number of recorded fraud offences have been on an upward trend since the NFIB took over responsibility for recording fraud in April 2011. Unlike most other crime types, fraud and CMA offences have continued to rise since the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a 15% increase in the year ending March 2023 compared with the previous year (up from 1,004,282 to 1,151,192 offences). While levels of fraud offences have continued to increase, the number of disseminations in the last year have decreased from 26,520 cases to 18,063 in the year ending March 2023. Disseminated CMA offences also fell (by 17%) in the latest year from 4,169 in the year ending March 2022 to 3,480 in the year ending March 2023. The NFIB experienced staff shortages in the year ending March 2023 which contributed to this decrease in disseminations. Table 4.1: Number of fraud and CMA offences and disseminations, year ending March 2022 and year ending March 2023, not including Devon and Cornwall Police (Experimental Statistics) [note 1, 2, 6] Notes: Caution should be taken when comparing data for fraud offences and disseminations. Data presented are for offences and disseminations recorded within the year. Offences which are disseminated will not necessarily be disseminated in the year the offence was recorded. These data are Experimental Statistics, which means that caution should be taken when interpreting the figures. Recorded fraud and CMA offences for the year ending March 2022 do not match previously published figures due to data revisions and the exclusion of Devon and Cornwall Police. These numbers reflect the total number of unique offences referred to forces for further investigation, so offences in two or more disseminations packages are only counted once. The overall total includes some offences without a final offence code, so totals do not sum. Cifas and UK Finance do not report CMA offences. Devon and Cornwall Police have been excluded from this publication due to data availability issues. During the year to March 2023 the NFIB experienced staff shortages, contributing to a reduction of disseminations by volume. [x] indicates that data are not available.
References
Home Office (2017), “Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2016/17”, and subsequent quarterly data tables. Available at: Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2016 to 2017 second edition - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Home Office (2019), “National campaign to recruit 20,000 police officers launces today”. Available at: National campaign to recruit 20,000 police officers launches today - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Home Office (2020), “Police Officer uplift statistics”. Available at: Police Officer uplift statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Home Office (2021), “Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2020 to 2021”. Available at: Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2020 to 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Home Office (2023), “Fraud Strategy: stopping scams and protecting the public”. Available at: Fraud Strategy: stopping scams and protecting the public (accessible) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Home Office. Criminal justice system (CJS) delivery data dashboard. Available at: Home - CJS Dashboard (justice.gov.uk) Home Office. Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables. Available at: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Home Office. Home Office Crime Recording Rules for frontline officers & staff. Available at: Home Office Crime Recording Rules for frontline officers and staff - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) His Majesty’s Government (2021). “The end-to-end rape review report on findings and actions. Available at: The end-to-end rape review report on findings and actions (publishing.service.gov.uk) HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) (2014), “Crime-recording: making the victim count”. Available at: crime-recording-making-the-victim-count.pdf (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk) HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) (2019), “State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2019.” Available at: State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2019 (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk) HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) (2022), “State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2022.” Available at: State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2022 - His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk) National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) (2022), “All home burglaries will be attended by the police”. Available at: All home burglaries will be attended by the police (npcc.police.uk) National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) (2023), “Police now attending scene of every home burglary”. Available at: Police now attending scene of every home burglary (npcc.police.uk) Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2018), “Crime in England and Wales: Year ending March 2018”. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2017), User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales. Available at: Crime and justice methodology - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022), “Domestic abuse and the criminal justice system, England and Wales. Available at: Domestic abuse and the criminal justice system, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023), “Crime in England and Wales: Year ending March 2023”. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/crimeinenglandandwalesyearendingmarch2023 Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023), “Crime in England and Wales: Other related tables”. Available at: Crime in England and Wales: Other related tables - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) Crime and crime outcomes data are also published alongside justice outcomes data from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the [Criminal Justice System Delivery Data Dashboard](https://criminal-justice-delivery-data-dashboards.justice.gov.uk/ UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) (2014), “Assessment of compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics”. Available at: Assessment Report 268 - Statistics on Crime in England and Wales (statisticsauthority.gov.uk)
Important Information
Before April 2013, official statistics about how the police deal with crimes focused narrowly on ‘detections’ (the number of cases resolved with a formal or informal criminal justice outcome). In April 2013, the Home Office introduced the new outcomes framework and changed the presentation of its crime outcomes statistics. From April 2014 onwards, police forces have supplied data to the Home Office on a broader set of outcomes including those that do not result in a formal or informal criminal justice outcome. The year to March 2014 bulletin [footnote 5] , published in July 2014, showed the first provisional statistics from the new outcomes framework. We have since developed the statistics with input from police forces and users. Outcomes 1a, 2a, 3a, are currently not published within the summary or open tables. To increase transparency there is plan to start publishing them from October 2023. The Home Office will begin a quality assurance process over the summer. We continue to ensure that these police recorded crime outcomes statistics are: meeting identified user needs, including providing new analysis and greater transparency well explained and readily accessible produced according to sound methods managed impartially and objectively in the public interest The statistics in this bulletin are designated as Official Statistics as in January 2014, the UK Statistics Authority found that police recorded crime statistics did not meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics. The full assessment report against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics can be found on the UK Statistics Authority. In July 2014, the Home Office Chief Statistician and the UK Statistics Authority Head of Assessment agreed to badge the year to March 2014 Crime Outcomes bulletin as Official Statistics, rather than National Statistics. This reflects the move to the new outcomes framework, and also the possibility that outcomes data are affected by similar issues to those that led to the de-designation of police recorded crime statistics. Full details are available here: Outcomes (formerly Detections) Statistics Outcomes (formerly Detections) Statistics
Previous Releases
Earlier editions of this bulletin included a section on outcomes for domestic abuse-related offences. This has not been produced in recent years as data are now published by ONS. Previous editions of ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ bulletins Copies of other Home Office publications (including crime statistics releases prior to April 2012) Copies of crime statistics publications from April 2012 are available from the Office for National Statistics website This includes the User Guide to Crime Statistics, a useful reference guide with explanatory notes regarding the issues and classifications that are key to the production and presentation of the crime statistics.
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