To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of violence against the person offences including physical harm they estimate would not have been recorded prior to the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard. [HL1856]

An online report entitled National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS), an analysis of the impact on recorded crime, published in July 2003, evaluated the impact of NCRS on recorded crime figures. The full report can be found here:

http://www. homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/rdsolr3103.pdf

The report estimates that the introduction of NCRS led to a 23 per cent increase in recording of overall violence against the person offences in 2002-03. The analysis carried out for the report did not split violence against the person offences into those with or without injury.

The estimate of 23 per cent relates to an estimated effect in the first year of operation of the NCRS. No similar estimate was made for subsequent years as changes continued to be bedded in. However, the Audit Commission undertook substantial audit work on crime recording in the years following NCRS introduction up until 2006-07, this indicating a generally increasing level of NCRS compliance across forces. Furthermore, it is known that some forces had taken steps to make their recording of crime more victim-oriented prior to the formal introduction of NCRS.