News Release

24th October 2006

STAFFORDSHIRE POLICE - NUMBER ONE

Michael Fabricant has congratulated Staffordshire Police for coming number one in the Home Office's list of successful English and Welsh police forces. Michael says: "The Government's Police Performance Assessments rate the 43 forces in seven different categories: reducing crime, investigating crime, promoting safety, providing assistance, citizen focus, resource use, and local policing. According to the Home Office, each "excellent" rating is worth three points, "good" is worth two, "fair" is worth one and "poor" carries a minus one rating. Adding up the ratings, Staffordshire came tops with 18 points while Humberside and Northamptonshire came bottom with just 3. West Midlands came in the middle category with 12 points. This demonstrates the madness in the Government's plan, now ditched, to merge Staffordshire into an enlarged West Midlands force. It would have just watered our own Staffordshire service down. My congratulations to the Chief Constable and all ranks in achieving this excellent result."

The results were as follows:

3 POINTS
Humberside
Northamptonshire

4 POINTS
Nottinghamshire

5 POINTS
Lincolnshire

7 POINTS
Bedfordshire
Cleveland
Warwickshire

8 POINTS
Cheshire

9 POINTS
Greater Manchester
Gwent
Norfolk

10 POINTS
Cambridgeshire
Derbyshire
Gloucestershire
South Wales
Suffolk
Wiltshire

11 POINTS
Cumbria
Devon and Cornwall
Kent

12 POINTS
Avon and Somerset
Essex
Hampshire
Merseyside
Metropolitan Police
South Yorkshire
Sussex
West Midlands

13 POINTS
Durham
North Yorkshire
Thames Valley
West Mercia

14 POINTS
City of London
Dorset
Dyfed-Powys
Hertfordshire
Lancashire
Leicestershire
North Wales
Surrey
West Yorkshire

17 POINTS
Northumbria