POLICE must cut crime by 15 per cent and convict thousands more criminals under a new three-year plan.

The Home Office is also setting up a national police improvement agency to get forces to work together and oversee changes in police intelligence systems after the highly critical report by Sir Michael Bichard on the Soham murders.

The agency will have powers to force chief constables to follow national plans and ensure that forces improve their detection rates.

The improvement gency is outlined in a national policing plan issued by the Home Office. It calls on forces to cut the 11.7 million crimes reported annually in the British Crime Survey by more than a million by 2007-08. Police are being told to concentrate on volume crime, including burglary, car crime and street robbery, but also to reduce violent crime and criminal damage.

The Home Office also identified 40 crime hot spots, many of them in inner-city areas, where police will be expected to cut crime by even higher levels in the next three years.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, wants more effective or “sanction” detections. These are detections that result in a caution, conviction, penalty notice or the offender asking for the offence to be taken into account.

Currently the average percentage for sanction detections in England and Wales is 18.7 per cent. The national plan calls for this to be raised to 25 per cent by 2008, which would result in penalties for 1.25 million offences a year.

Forces will be told to concentrate on 7,500 prolific offenders who are believed to be responsible for more than 10 per cent of crime and often terrorise local communities.

The new improvement agency, run by a chief executive, will have the power to force chief constables to take action if they drag their feet over improving neighbourhood policing, tackling cross-border crime and ensuring that the Bichard reforms are carried out uniformly.

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