Two of the key roles of West Midlands Police Authority are to agree the policing plans and ensure an effective and efficient police service for the West Midlands through monitoring performance.

Policing Plans

These plans are drafted by the Chief Constable and bring together the national policing priorities for England and Wales, as outlined in the National Community Safety Plan, with the local priorities that have been identified through consultation with our communities, partners and stakeholders. They set out the level of service you can expect to receive from the police and report on the performance of the police force over the last year.

The plans consist of the Annual Policing Plan, the Performance Plan, a set of Statutory Performance Indicators and an updated Strategic Plan. The current suite of plans were approved by the Police Authority in February 2009 and can be viewed through the following links:

• Annual Policing Plan 2009-10
• Performance Plan 2009-10
• Statutory Performance Indicators 2009-10
• Updated Strategic Plan 2009-10

West Midlands Police Authority also pursues Best Value although it is no longer required to publish a Best Value Performance Plan.

• Improvement and Efficiency Plan 2009-10

The police authority also approves the Human Resources Strategy and Annual Budget.

Performance Management

As stated the police authority has a statutory duty to ensure an effective and efficient police service for the West Midlands. The police authority therefore closely monitors force performance against the targets outlined in the plans. This process takes various forms including reports and briefings at committee meetings, working groups and regular meetings with OCU commanders and heads of departments.

Performance is not just related to crime reduction but also includes areas such as police visibility and accessibility, customer satisfaction, crime detection rates, as well as the various diversity and equality elements outlined elsewhere on this website.

Annual performance against these targets is reported in the Policing Plan and also in the Annual Report.

• Annual Report

Information on performance in your area is available through your local policing summary or through the performance page of the West Midlands Police Force website

Performance is also assessed by the Home Office and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary as part of the Police Performance Assessment process.

For further details on this assessment and to see how the West Midlands performed during the last reported year please click here.