West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford speaks to Express & Star senior reporter James Vukmirovic about the ONS statistic around crime and his own thoughts on the work done by the force to reduce crime in the region.
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00:00Okay, Chief Constable, so tell me about your reaction to the ONS results for this year.
00:07I'm really pleased with the statistics that have been produced and I think it's really
00:12important because it shows just how much effort has been going on behind the scenes with all
00:16the officers and staff on behalf of the public. And to put this in perspective, there are
00:22now 35,000 fewer victims of crime. It's a very substantial reduction. It's 10% and it's
00:28reduced in some very key areas of focus that we've been having, particularly around burglary
00:33dwelling, vehicle crime, robbery, serious violence, but also some elements of knife
00:39crime as well, which we've been measuring because the stats go to June. Obviously we're
00:43in October and that I can say to the public, that trajectory is continuing in the right
00:47direction.
00:48And for you, I mean you've mentioned a few of them, but what have been the real headline
00:51figures for yourself?
00:52Well, the headline figure is that volume of crime. We very often compare ourselves to
00:57Greater Manchester Police and we're about 10 or 20,000 crimes lower than they are,
01:03which is one of the first times that we've achieved that. That's very important for us
01:07in looking at our peers, but really on behalf of the public, violent crime, burglary, vehicle
01:14crime and those elements of knife crime. We are very focused on driving down the volume
01:20of knife crime in West Midlands and with our partners, we are continuing to have some success
01:25in doing so.
01:26I'll get to knife crime in just a second, but let's talk about, I suppose, the force
01:30itself, because when you came in, it was being assessed for measures by external bodies and
01:37you're now out of those measures. So what's been done within that time to help the force
01:42to progress to a point where it's seen as improving?
01:45Yeah, we're seen as the most improving force. I mean, we were out of those monitoring processes
01:49in record time, but part of the reason that that was the case is because very early I
01:54changed the structure of the force, in particular moving away from rather a siloed structure
01:59and a functional structure towards a local policing model, where each of our policing
02:04areas, there's a chief superintendent and they work closely with the local authority.
02:09It's very important that we do that because that enables the resources to be flexed accordingly.
02:14That's one big step. Secondly, a big investment of focus in this building that we're in now.
02:21So the whole way that we answer the telephone and get to the calls has improved absolutely
02:26dramatically. We answer about 70,000 999 calls a month. When you go into that room next door,
02:32which I'll take you for a picture next, you'll see that on average we answer a call in about
02:37four seconds. On a 101 call, we now answer those in about 40 seconds. That used to take
02:43an inordinate amount of time. Those performance stats are some of the best in the country.
02:48And obviously because we're answering it, we're getting to those jobs quicker. So our
02:52response times have improved quite dramatically. Our arrest numbers have doubled. I've opened
02:57another couple of custody suites. I'll probably be opening a third one in addition very soon.
03:03And all that says to me, and in particular to the criminal justice system, there are
03:07more people being brought to justice. That's not sending everybody to prison. That's making
03:12sure that proportionately we deal with people who are first-time entrants as much as possible
03:18to divert them away from the system. But what it does mean is those recidivists and those
03:22that really harm communities, we are going to produce material that sends them to court
03:27and we look towards the court to be dealing out the right sentences for those individuals
03:34because they harm society. So at the moment, we've doubled our arrests. We've got some
03:40of the best call answering figures in the country. We've got a good local structure.
03:44And then on top of that, we're recruiting locally. We've got a good waiting list for
03:48people to come in. We've got a diverse workforce which is increasing in its diversity. We've
03:53got more younger people joining the organisation. That's good for the local community and it's
03:59really good operationally for West Midlands Police.
04:01People, obviously, there's all these good things that have come out and as you've mentioned
04:05there's lots of things going on. The public will talk about how they feel that violent
04:10crime seems to be prevalent within the area. I'll give two examples. The Sean Caesar High
04:15murder case and just recently the stabbing at Besscott Stadium station. What can the
04:21force do to reassure people that violent crime is on a downward spiral? Because if you look
04:28at the media these days and if you read the press, it does seem to be widely reported.
04:32It feels like it's everywhere.
04:33Yeah, I think you've answered your own question and the word is media. Because the statistics
04:37show that it's reducing quite considerably. But of course, some negative news sells good
04:43stories, doesn't it? And that's just the situation we're in. But also, more and more people have
04:49got iPhones, smartphones, etc. and are sharing stories outside of the media too. And I think
04:54that adds to things. But the predominance is that violent crime is reducing and we are
05:00absolutely determined to make sure it continues to reduce. So one of your questions just before
05:05we were preparing was around what are the areas which you are concerned about. And we
05:10are very determined to push that knife crime level down and the serious violence down.
05:15We are keeping resources in local policing. We've still got officers that work with schools.
05:20That's important. We work with our partners. We want to try and divert young people away
05:25from the system. That is much better than the cost of the cure, which is behind bars.
05:31And I don't know if you're aware of our silent crime campaign that we've been running. If
05:36not, people have been speaking to us about how they feel that there's not enough bobbies
05:41on the street, how they feel that they're reporting minor crimes and not getting anywhere
05:44with that. But what can you say to reassure people that basically they are being noticed?
05:49Yeah, well, number one, report it. You get through to us, you get the phone answered
05:53and we will make a decision on whether we're going to come or not, if we're going to investigate
05:57that from within this building or we're going to send somebody out to investigate it. We
06:02have means of you sending us your footage electronically without us needing to come.
06:06That's good. It's good for the individual. It's particularly good with domestic violence
06:10victims. We can take a video call and put that into evidence. That's a real good step
06:15forward. But really the message of reassurance is the model of policing we've got shows more
06:21local officers than we've had in years. But be under no illusion, since 2010 we're still
06:28around 800 officers less today in the West Midlands. And some police forces in the UK
06:34have got more officers than they've ever had in their entire histories. That's a matter
06:38of fact. But that fact is important for politicians to consider because it's politicians that
06:45decide on the funding allocation, not chief constables.
06:50Looking forward, as a way of reassuring the public, are you as chief constable able to
06:56say things are not perfect but they are going in the right direction?
07:00110%. We've massively improved our performance. We've taken some big leaps. Not just baby
07:07steps, very big leaps. But I'm never going to be sitting here thinking the job's done
07:12because it's not. I want more, I want better and I want safer. And that's my job as chief
07:18constable and the job of the officers and the staff of this force to deliver on behalf
07:21of the public that we serve.
07:23Just back on the ONS stats, because I went through the comparison between 2023 and 2024
07:28up to March, which is when they were available for us to have a look at. The two big ones
07:34that stuck out for me were a rise in shoplifting offences and a rise in sexual offences. Obviously
07:41a lot has gone down but there is still work to do of course.
07:44Absolutely. And going back to the shoplifting, nationally shoplifting has increased. We're
07:48no different than anywhere else. The one positive with shoplifting that I've got, particularly
07:53local shopkeepers in particular, is I think some people stopped reporting crime to us
07:58a few years ago because you couldn't get through on the phone. And now with our excellent telephone
08:03entering performance, we're finding we're getting much more reports. But pleasingly,
08:09because I can track this through the system, we've doubled the number of people we arrest.
08:13So that means the cops are getting to those jobs and we're getting justice for the shopkeepers.
08:17That's really important. But linked to that, you asked me a question around sexual offences,
08:23we are one of the vanguard forces for rape investigations. We have doubled the number
08:28of people that we charge with rape. That is very significant because we're the second
08:32biggest force in the country. That is a big volume of effort on behalf of those victims.
08:38I've seen those offences, the reported crimes, rise. I want to see them continue to rise
08:43because I believe it's so underreported. And I'm not bothered if you report that to us
08:48or to a third party reporting centre. I just want the information on the offender to be
08:53able to go and do something about it.
08:58Absolutely. We need to be equally as good as some of your colleagues in being able to
09:03say what we have done, so the you said, we did. But most importantly, I think on behalf
09:08of the public is, the local police have really improved their performance. And that's down
09:13to some hard work by those officers and staff.