To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the recent statement by West Midlands police on the force's ability to detect crime.

The sanction detections rate for West Midlands police was 25.0 per cent. in March 2004, which compares with a rate of 25.8 per cent. in March 2003. Despite this small decline in the sanction detections rate,, the West Midlands force continues to perform well when compared with their peer group of similar constabularies. The average sanction detections rate of the forces against whom the West Midlands force is compared was 20.5 per cent. in both March 2003 and March 2004.

The Government acknowledges the need to raise sanction detections performance across all police forces. For that reason, a major drive has been under way since last summer with the aim of achieving a significant increase in sanction detection rates. Provisional data for 2004–05 shows that this concerted effort has already resulted in performance improvements and we are hopeful that all forces, including the West Midlands, will benefit from this.