Exeter has been named as the UK city where police are “toughest” on crime. New figures show that it has the highest percentage of reported crimes resulting in a charge.

Mary Stenson www.devonlive.com

Analysis of crimes reported in cities across the UK has shown police in Exeter to have had the highest percentage of suspects charged from June 2022 to June 2023. Out of 1,423 incidents reported to the police in that time frame, 20.1 per cent resulted in someone being charged.

The South West dominated the top spots, with Devon’s other city Plymouth coming in second place having a charge rate of 16.85 per cent out of 3,063 reports, while Bristol came in third and had a rate of of 15.56 per cent out of 26,746 reports. The rest of the top ten consists of cities in the North of England, as well as Wrexham in Wales.

Both cities in Devon had a significantly lower number of reported crimes than most other cities. However, all of the top ten cities were way above the national average for suspects being charged, which sits at 6.37 per cent.

In the data, analysed by Lawhive, police reports in each city were also broken down by crime category. Exeter was in the top three in the majority of crimes listed and ranked at number one for the percentage of charges relating to criminal damage and arson.

A number of other outcomes were listed for reported crimes, with the most common being “unable to prosecute suspect” which represented 510 cases. In 6 incidents formal action was “not in the public interest”, in 462 investigations no suspect was identified, a local resolution was found in 66 cases and an offender was given a caution in 93 cases. In the remaining 286 cases, a suspect was charged.

It comes just weeks after Devon & Cornwall Police was named the safest force area in the country by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). There had been concerns that previous issues with the force having been placed into special measures and a lack of crime figures in 2022 due to issues with installing a new crime recording system. ONS was able to confirm to PlymouthLive that all these factors had been taken into account and Devon & Cornwall Police had still come out on top.

While crime figures for Devon and Cornwall are now back in the public domain, there is still a lag with restoring hyper-local figures to police.uk. Earlier this month a Freedom of Information request by DevonLive revealed a snapshot of the figures that are missing from public record, showing that 849 crimes had been recorded in the city in August this year. Devon & Cornwall Police say they are having to carry out thorough checks on locations before they can fill in the backlog on police.uk’s crime maps.

Celebrity chef Mitch Tonks has delayed putting his Sidmouth Rockfish restaurant proposals in front of planners, writes local democracy reporter Bradley Gerrard.

eastdevonnews.co.uk

The Rockfish restaurant chain owner has been asked by the Environment Agency to provide more detailed flood risk assessments before his plan for the town’s Drill Hall goes to East Devon District Council’s (EDDC) planning committee.

The proposed build, at the former headquarters of the Sidmouth Territorial Army branch, was set to be debated by Councillors on Tuesday (November 21), but will now be considered at a future date.

The Environment Agency has asked Mr Tonks for a flood evacuation plan before the committee considers the scheme.

East Devon District Council, which owns the land, said it is committed, alongside Rockfish, to “achieve the redevelopment of the seafront site”, and that Mr Tonks would work hard to get the application in front of planners soon.

Mr Tonks originally hoped the restaurant would open to the public in the autumn of 2020.

Rockfish owner Mitch Tonks says he is looking forward to opening an eatery in Sidmouth.

The scheme, which would involve replacing existing public toilets with fewer cubicles, had split opinion.

A total of 15 out of 24 public comments were objections, which cited the negative impact on views to Port Royal, the loss of recreation land, and loss of existing shelters and seating next to the building.

However, those in support acknowledged that redevelopment was “much needed” and recognised the potential for new jobs.

They also welcomed the removal of the shelters, stating that this could help decrease anti-social behaviour there.

Sidmouth Town Council supported the application, but highlighted a “missed opportunity to provide an exceptional building which would take full advantage of the views of the World Heritage Site and be a credit to Sidmouth”.

The town council added that it did not feel that two unisex toilets were sufficient to replace the current public conveniences.

This is the impact on Local Authorities.

Will Devon now go bust? – Owl

www.localgov.co.uk

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal outlook published today says ‘it is mainly due to the Chancellor’s decision to leave departmental spending broadly unchanged’ that borrowing is reduced by £27bn in 2027/28 compared to its March forecast.

The OBR estimates that day-to-day spending in departments which are not protected like health and care, education, defence and international development would need to fall by 2.3% a year in real terms from 2025/6 after the end of the current Spending Review to meet current forecasts. The OBR says this would ‘present challenges’ and mentions the 11 s114 notices issued by councils as an example of ‘signs of strain.’

It adds that use by councils of current reserves for current spending increased by £2.3bn in 2022/23 for the first time since 2019-20 and predicts that ‘there will be further drawdowns during the current Spending Review period, of £1.5bn in 2023/24 and £0.8bn in 2024/25 ‘compared to an assumption of no drawdown in both years in our March forecast.’

The OBR says that ‘delivering these spending plans while maintaining or improving public services would require significant improvements in public sector productivity.’

The Autumn Statement says that ‘the government has therefore driven even greater efficiencies than those assumed at Spending Review 2021 to manage down these pressures and ensure departments can live within their settlements and deliver the service outcomes the public expect.’

Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton, Chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA) said: ‘With a 1% rise in spending on public services set for the coming years, unprotected departments like local government will face another round of damaging austerity, following the decade of cuts since 2010.’

As the Chancellor seeks to recoup £5bn in unpaid taxes.

“We will ensure that over time the growth in public spending is lower than the growth in the economy whilst always protecting the services the public value. I will also provide HMRC with the resources they need to ensure everyone pays the tax they owe, raising an additionFromal £5 billion across the forecast period.”

From: Autumn Statement

See:

HMRC examines if David Cameron failed to fully disclose Greensill private flights as taxable perks

We’re not in a good place. – Owl

Expanded version below:

Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, has just issued his early analysis of the autumn statement.

Johnson starts by “getting a few things straight”:

The public finances haven’t meaningfully improved. The growth outlook has weakened. Inflation is expected to stay higher for longer. Higher inflation pushes up tax receipts by more than it pushes up spending on debt interest or social security benefits.

But rather than use the proceeds to ease the ongoing ‘fiscal drag’ effects of threshold freezes, or to compensate public services for higher costs, the Chancellor opted to cut other taxes – most notably National Insurance and corporation tax.

These tax cuts won’t be enough to prevent this from being the biggest tax raising parliament in modern times.

Johnson then warns that announcing immediate and certain tax cuts in response to highly uncertain changes in assumptions about the UK’s medium-term economic prospects is “not a recipe for good management of the public finances”.

One reason the Chancellor feels he has space for tax cuts is that the forecasts have rolled forward, giving him another year to get debt falling under his fiscal rules, buying him an extra £5 billion to play with – but this hardly represents an underlying improvement in the state of things.

Spending the entirety of such a windfall, but allowing borrowing to rise when bad news comes along, is not the route to fiscal sustainability.

Johnson says the “prudent thing” would have been to build in a larger buffer into his plans, rather than only aim to meet the government’s “poorly designed, and loose” fiscal target by a tiny margin.

That’s especially true when one considers the possibility that things move against the Chancellor in the spring. But instead we got tax cuts, which will limit the room for manoeuvre for whoever is Chancellor after the next general election. That might make for good politics. It does not make for good policymaking.

Having said all that, Johnson concludes, Hunt has chosen a “pretty sensible set of taxes to cut”.

Making full expensing permanent rather than temporary is welcome, though it’s a shame there was no hint of an appetite for more structural reform. Cutting National Insurance is a good way to boost employment.

But these tax cuts have been ‘paid for’, in effect, by a bigger squeeze on the real-terms value of public service budgets and an even bigger squeeze on public investment, which is frozen in cash terms. There’s a material risk that those plans prove undeliverable and today’s tax cuts will not prove to be sustainable.”