Improvements must be made but the use of “inflammatory language” when it came to a report stating Dyfed-Powys was failing to record reports of violent crime adequately has been questioned by the Police and Crime Commissioner.

In May Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and Fire and Rescue Services published a cause of concern relating to Dyfed-Powys Police’s crime date integrity (CDI) which stated the fore was “too often failing to record reports of violent crime, particularly domestic abuse and anti-social behaviour towards people.”

The HMIC report stated that 87.6 per cent of reported crime was documented, equating to around 4,400 crimes not recorded every year.

At Friday’s (July 30) Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Panel Mr. Llywelyn said that improvements were needed – and had meant to have been made since 2018 when the issue was first raised – adding it was “disappointing” as previous assurances of progress had been made.

He said he had raised the “inflammatory language” used in a press release when the report was published – the day after the commissioner election due to purdah – with HMIC and he was hoping to find out why a wider report into the force had not been published.

Mr. Llywelyn said that the review found that of 597 crime related incidents recorded between August and October 2020 there were 62 were not recorded but “42 of the 62 were crimes were within crimes.”

The “nuances” of recording crime were not reflected in the “binary view – this is the percentage of crimes not recorded appropriately,” he said.

He added that assurances had been sought from chief officers that progress is being made, and monitoring would be carried out regularly but despite some improvements recently “some aspects of recording anti-social behaviour have not reached an improved state” with work still to do.

The panel heard that “85 areas of improvement had been whittled down to a figure a lot less.”

Mr. Llywelyn agreed with a point raised by Clr. Keith Evans that the force needs to “understand and follow the interpretation given by HMIC” but added there was a risk of losing the “element of police discretion” and a balance needed to be struck.

The panel was also told that a new recording management system was being phased in, similar to ones used in other areas, which would help improve crime data integrity and reduced demand on response officers.