Tory cuts force crime survey to ditch more than 50 questions - despite soaring crime

More than 50 questions have been wiped from the
nation’s crime survey - despite warnings violent
offences are soaring.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales was forced
into the decision after the Tory government cut its
funding.
Questions people will no longer be asked include: “In
the last 12 months, have you witnessed a crime?”.
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Interviewees also won’t be asked if they think police
are “effective at catching criminals” despite officer
numbers falling by 20,000 under the Tories.
And they won’t be asked how confident they are that
the criminal justice system as a whole is “effective”
or “fair”.
Shadow Policing Minister Louise Haigh said: “Our
overstretched police are at breaking point and cynical
cuts to the crime survey will silence the public’s
growing concerns.”
She claimed: “Rather than giving the police the
resources they need to investigate more crimes, the
Tories would rather we just stopped being asked
about it.”
Around 65 questions are thought to have been cut in
total from three modules, relating to performance,
experience and attitudes relating to the criminal
justice system.
Cut questions include whether people are confident
courts give punishments that fit the crime, and
whether prosecutors are effective at their job.
The sample size for the major research will be also
cut slightly by 600 to 34,400 and the target response
rate will be cut to 71%.
Other questions about victims’ experience of the
system were saved from the chop following an outcry.
The Crime Survey, which is separate to the police-
recorded figures, is run by the Office for National
Statistics.
The ONS is having its funding cut by £200,000 this
year and around £400,000 a year from April 2018.
An ONS spokesman said: “The questions that have
been removed will not in any way reduce our ability to
estimate levels of crime.
“They do not feed into our quarterly headline figures
on crime.
“Priorities for including questions in the survey are
decided based on taking views from our users and
available funding.”
The final proposals, published online without fanfare
this month, come despite police recording 1,229,260
violent crimes in the year to June - up 19% from
1,033,719 in 2015/16.
Overall police recorded 5.2million crimes, up 13%
including a rise in rapes, knife crime and theft.

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