Police forces are pursuing minor offenders rather than tackling more serious offenders, in order to improve their performance statistics, the Home Office said yesterday.

Tony McNulty, the policing Minister, said there were “perverse incidents” in the way that some forces recorded crimes in official figures.

Addressing the Police Superintendents’ Association, Mr McNulty said that performance targets set down by the Government needed to reflect better the priorities of the police service.

Ian Johnston, the association’s president, said that the current system of targets was “a shambles” and called for it to be abolished.

“Centrally imposed targets are preventing senior police officers from delivering the policing that the public wants and deserves,” Mr Johnston said. “We need to restore discretion to senior police officers, enabling them to make decisions that relate to local policing issues, ensuring that we deliver a high standard of quality policing.”

Mr Johnston said that the present performance targets had no credibility among officers. He said some senior officers had fallen ill as they struggled to manage the targets and 70 per cent of local commanders believed the targets had had a negative impact on policing the streets.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We recognise that some forces have sought to deliver improvements by focusing disproportionately on low-level offences. It is also the case, though, that other forces have delivered improvements through a more balanced and sustainable approach.

“Officers should not pursue detection numbers for numbers’ sake if that means chasing minor misdemeanours at the expense of serious offenders. This amounts to hitting the target, but missing the point.”

The Home Office said that targets were intended to set the strategic direction for policing and it was “for senior police officers to decide the most appropriate way for their forces to achieve government targets, and for police officers to make day-to-day operational policing decisions”.

The spokesman added: “We are currently discussing future targets in this area so that both our crime reduction and detections targets give much more prominence to more serious crime, particularly the most serious violent crime.”

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, is currently conducting a widespread review of policing which includes an examination of the current system of performance targets. A key objective of Sir Ronnie’s review is the reduction of bureaucracy in policing.

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