Sussex Police solved fewer crimes after a cost-cutting reshuffle of its investigation teams.

The force merged its North Downs and West Downs divisions to save £800,000 in April 2011 as part of a £52 million cuts programme.

The rate at which crimes were solved in Sussex as a whole fell against the national average last year, and the detection rate in the new West Sussex division fell even faster.

The force said the public was getting a better service since the merger and that figures did not include “community resolution”, where offenders do not get official punishments.

Nationally, the proportion of crimes which led to a charge, caution or other penalty action, known as “sanction detections”, fell to 27% between April 2011 and March 2012, from 28% in the previous financial year.

In Sussex the number of cases which were solved in those ways fell from 30% to 26% in the same period.

In the most recent financial year, Sussex solved 49% of violent crimes, compared with a national average of 44%. The force solved 27% of sex offences, compared with 30% nationally, 9% of burglaries, against 13% nationally, and 6% of vehicle crimes against 11% nationally.

The force beat the national average for robberies, solving 27% compared with 21%, and for drug crimes.

In April 2011 the force made changes to its structure in West Sussex as part of work to find £52 million savings by 2015.

As well as merging the senior management of the division, the merger involved abandoning district CID offices, and creating CID “hubs” in Worthing, Chichester and Crawley.

Sussex Police said the figures did not include “community resolution”, where victims agree to allow offenders to make amends, for example by apologising or paying for damage.

Chief Superintendent Martin Walker, Sussex Police divisional commander for West Sussex, said policing in the area had improved efficiency, “partnership working” and service to victims of crime and families in need.

He described the merger as “a success”, but said: “As expected, immediately following the merger there was a small dip in performance as new processes bedded in, but since then performance has remained steady and good.

“There is of course fluctuation in different crimes types in different districts and these are addressed through weekly performance meetings.”

He said burglary detections were improving and the area had hit its targets for solving sexual offences, violent crime and domestic violence. “Where there has been a decrease in the rate of detections we are making every effort to get things back to where they were.”

Councillor Ben Duncan , who represents Brighton and Hove City Council on Sussex Police Authority – the body which currently oversees Sussex Police – said that policing should be as local as possible.

He said: “It’s no surprise that West Sussex has seen a disproportionate decrease in detections since becoming a single policing division.

“Of course these figures suggest that the massive – and ongoing – cuts to the Sussex Police budget are already being felt. As cuts bite we are likely to see fewer and fewer detections across the whole of Sussex, especially if we see a police commissioner elected who isn’t committed to locally-managed neighbourhood policing.”

Bob Brown, chairman of Sussex Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said: “It might be purely coincidental, but when we increased police officer numbers, detections went up.” He added: “You can’t read too much into one year’s figures, but it may be an indication that the reduction in police numbers is leading to the detection of crimes suffering as a result.”

Figures

  • There were a total of 96,546 crimes in Sussex betwen April 2011 and March 2012.
  • Crime as a whole went down by 1% compared with the previous 12-month period. In the 2011 calendar year it had risen by 1%. 
  • In England and Wales it fell by 4% on average. 
  • Violent crime in Sussex fell 9% and robberies fell by 17%. 
  • The number of burglaries rose by 4%, while it fell by the same amount nationally.