The rural police power exhibiting the remainder of the UK the way it’s finished: How Norfolk Constabulary has finest crime fixing price in England and Wales with a charging price THREE instances increased than the Met

A police force that has championed a back-to-basics policy of investigating every reported incident has achieved the best crime-solving rate in England and Wales.

Norfolk Constabulary has an 11.99 per cent charging rate for offences – nearly three times that of the country’s largest force, the Metropolitan Police, which came last with 4.28 per cent.

Fines, cautions, community resolutions and other out-of-court measures raised the proportion of solved offences to 21 per cent, or more than one-in-five.

Norfolk was also the top force for tackling shoplifting – which many police forces have been accused of ignoring – with nearly half of thefts solved and a third resulting in a charge. The Met brought charges in just 5.3 per cent of shop thefts.

Members of the public have increasingly found forces unwilling to look into complaints unless they are able to produce hard evidence, such as CCTV footage. Many have turned detective themselves to solve crimes.

Norfolk’s chief constable, Paul Sanford, attributed the rural county’s success to never considering any crime too inconsequential to look into.

‘There is a clear focus throughout the organisation that all crime is a priority, regardless of the severity or value of loss,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.

Making sure new recruits are ‘fit for the future’ by sharpening their investigative skills with stints in support units and investing in technology such as facial recognition and data analysis to link suspects to crimes and improve response times had also helped, he added.

Norfolk Constabulary has an 11.99 per cent charging rate for offences – nearly three times that of the country’s largest force, the Metropolitan Police, which came last with 4.28 per cent

‘All this data allows us to target the most prolific offenders, while maintaining vigorous oversight of those suspects we are yet to detain,’ Mr Sandford said. 

Policing experts said forces’ ability to solve crimes had suffered as they focused on ‘woke’ issues like non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) while reducing the range of offences they were prepared to investigate.

Tory MP Sir John Hayes, a former Home Office minister, said: ‘One of the big challenges we face is if you raise the bar of what’s investigated then the bar never stops going up.

‘Once you’ve raised it to exclude minor thefts like lawn mowers and bicycles then you ignore burglaries, then minor robberies.

‘It also sends out a message to those who break the law that they are [not] likely to be investigated and convicted.’

He also criticised forces’ ‘pandering to political correctness’ by investigating NCHIs, saying: ‘They waste money on all kinds of woke causes.’

More than 133,000 NCHIs have been investigated by the 43 police forces of England and Wales since they were introduced in 2014, taking up an estimated 666,000 hours of police time.

Former Met detective chief inspector Dave McKelvey, who now runs a private security firm whose staff are hired to patrol residential and business beats vacated by police officers, said his company’s viability was based on doing the basics that had once been expected of constabularies.

Norfolk’s chief constable, Paul Sanford, attributed the rural county’s success to never considering any crime too inconsequential to look into

Members of the public have increasingly found forces unwilling to look into complaints unless they are able to produce hard evidence, such as CCTV footage (file image)

It uses the Broken Windows policing strategy championed by New York in the 1990s which places emphasis on tackling low-level crimes, such as vandalism and loitering, to avoid an environment that encourages more serious offences.

‘What we see too often these days is police forces just responding or reacting to crime, rather than proactively trying to reduce it with patrols,’ Mr McKelvey said.

‘On some nights there will be no police presence in the areas we patrol. Our bobbies are doing what police forces should be doing, carrying out regular, high-visibility patrols [and] responding to all sorts of crimes.’

Norfolk had a 14 per cent crime-solving rate when Mr Sanford became its most senior police officer in 2021.

In the year to March 2024, the number of crimes in the county fell 11 per cent to 59,471 reported incidents.

Mr Sanford agreed that prevention was ‘better than cure’, saying: ‘We apply this principle in many ways, including using civil orders to control the criminal behaviours or repeat offenders, including banning shoplifters from our town centres to prevent future offences.’

But he warned backlogs in courts were damaging the deterrent effect of swift justice, while a £1.3 billion budget shortfall in police funding over the next two years was also affecting the ability to snare offenders.

City of London had the second highest rate of offences resulting in a charge at 10.65 per cent, followed by Cheshire on 10.48 per cent, Cumbria’s 10.44 per cent and Merseyside with 10.35 per cent.

Norfolk was also the top force for tackling shoplifting – which many police forces have been accused of ignoring – with nearly half of thefts solved and a third resulting in a charge (file image)

The West Midlands was second worst with 4.96 per cent. Above them were Sussex on 5.58 per cent, Gloucestershire with 5.65 per cent and Surrey on 6.05 per cent, according to figures obtained by the Telegraph’s analysis of Home Office data.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘The figures are unacceptably bad, especially in the poor-performing forces such as the Met and West Midlands.

‘The police agreed over a year ago to always follow-up lines of inquiry but they are failing to do so, despite record funding and police numbers.

‘They should always run an image through the police national database, follow-up geo-locating information and follow-up stolen goods on online market sites. The best forces are doing this already but the others have a lot to learn. This is not acceptable.’

Labour have said they will put 13,000 officers and PCSOs on Britain’s streets to crack down on common offences such as burglary, theft and anti-social behaviour.