GOVERNMENT officials are concerned at the level of crime in Greater Manchester and the ability of police to detect it.

Now Greater Manchester Police has given itself a 90-day deadline to improve.

If they don't then the Home Office could be forced to intervene.

As we reported previously, the force has a higher rate of burglary, robbery, and car crime than five other similar English forces.

The MEN has learned that GMP is 'on the radar' of the Police Performance Steering Group, which includes Home Office officials, members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, (HMIC) and the Association of Police Authorities.

This means that over a period of time its performance has been recognised by the Home Office as being not good enough.

The force is currently being monitored by the Home Office and has been on and off for five years – most recently from March last year.

They are having to regularly report to the government on what they are doing and whether there is any sign of improvement.

Just before Christmas, following the November meeting of the steering group, Chief Constable Peter Fahy and his deputy Simon Byrne imposed the 90-day action plan.

It includes:

Getting more officers on the street.

Cutting bureaucracy.

Targeting the worst performing force divisions with the aim of getting them to rise three places up national league tables.

Motivating officers to do their job and detect burglary, car crime, and anti-social behaviour.

The chief and his deputy will get daily progress reports.

After the 90 days the HMIC will assess the force again and decide whether to let it continue or recommend that the Home Office intervenes with support.

Deputy Chief Constable Byrne, said: “We want to put more impetus into what we are already doing.

“It is about understanding some of the reasons why the force is not performing as well as we want it to and putting more push into those initiatives.

“We are not trying to make excuses because the Chief Constable and I believe that crime in Greater Manchester is too high, anti-social behaviour is too high, and confidence levels need to improve.

“But Manchester is one of the largest cities and covers a huge conurbation. It has things that generate crime – unemployment, some of the types of housing – there are reasons that make it more vulnerable to crime.

Organised crime

“Some things work well in GMP – we are good at tackling serious organised crime and have some of the safest roads in the country but on the day to day stuff – burglary, robbery, we definitely need to improve.

Mr Byrne added: “While this scrutinizing is going on it is a distraction. We are having to repeatedly report to London to show them that we have a plan, it is good, and we are making progress.”

As part of the 90-day plan the force's successful crackdown on burglary – Operation Storm will be extended to car crime.

The force plans to civilianise certain roles to get more police on the beat and to introduce changes to improve local policing.

Mr Byrne said: “It was not a knee-jerk reaction to the November steering group meeting. We just got to the point where we didn't want this as a distraction to our organisation.

“The good thing is we are finding and fixing things to improve the service. The more energy we can apply to that the better.”

“It's not a flash in the pan it is about getting the day to day policing better faster.

“There has been sensible decisions made in the past to invest heavily in tackling organised crime and that has made the streets safer.

“We are not complacent about that, but in a finite budget, if you move people, you create a gap – we are readjusting our position.”

Commenting on bureaucracy created by the government and GMP in the last five years, he said: “We have huge levels of checking, which is not efficient, which has created a culture generally where people are afraid to innovate.”