The Government do not make assessments on the differences in the delivery of policing in rural and urban areas. Under the Police Performance Assessment Framework, police forces were compared within a similar group of forces. Selection criteria for these groups took into account a range of socio-economic factors including urbanisation and rurality. Following the publication of the Policing Green Paper, responsibility for assessing policing performance shifted from the Home Office to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary (HMIC).
The HMIC are currently reviewing the mechanisms for qualitative assessments and developing rounded assessments for the delivery of policing services.