Angus has seen a marked increase in serious crime over the last year, it has emerged.
Members of Angus Council’s police and fire and rescue sub-committee will meet today to note year-end performance results, submitted by Tayside’s Chief Superintendent Hamish Macpherson.
The statistics reveal that instances of the worst crimes violence, rape, robbery, vandalism and housebreaking rose by 2.6% in the Angus policing area between April 2012 and March this year.
There were 3,171 crimes of this type, referred to as group one to four crime, compared to 3,091 in 2011-12.
Group one consists of violent crime, group two sexual offences, group three the largest crimes of dishonesty, and group four vandalism, fire-raising and malicious mischief. There has been a marked statistical increase in four Angus burghs and a fall in three.
Forfar and Kirriemuir saw the largest spike 16.3% or 147 additional crimes with two more robberies, nine violent crimes and 32 instances of vandalism the major factors.
Five fewer instances of domestic housebreaking were recorded. Montrose and Brechin saw group one to four crimes increase by 15.8% or 111 crimes but a 29.8% upturn in vandalism was responsible.
Arbroath saw its major crimes decrease by 8.9% or 101 instances since 2011-12, with a reduction in percentage terms across the board. Robbery fell by 20% and violent crime by 22.2%.
Carnoustie and Monifieth saw the greatest change in group one to four crime, although its low baseline level in 2011-12 saw a 50% reduction in crimes of robbery two to one and instances of violent crime dropped from 13 to eight, a 38.5% change.
Mr MacPherson states that the low incidence of some kinds of crime means some swings could radically alter percentages. Across Angus Group 1-4 crime rose from 3,091 to 3,171 crimes, a 2.6% increase, while detection rates fell by 2.9%.
This included a reduction in violent crimes by 6.2%, and housebreaking by 7.7%, offset by a 0.5% increase in vandalism.
Mr Macpherson said that road policing targets across Tayside were met, with a reduction in the number of serious road injuries across Angus, but there was an increase in the number of road fatalities.
“Angus road casualty figures show that there were six fatalities during 2012-13, compared with four the previous year, none of whom were children,” he said. “Seriously injured numbers fell by 26.3% from 57 to 42, three of whom were children.
“All targets for the Tayside area as a whole achieved the interim targets at the end of March.”
Mr Macpherson’s report also deals with the satisfaction levels of people who contact the force, and officer sickness absence.
The area recorded “a statistically significant improvement in satisfaction with service” at first contact from 91.7% to 95.8%.
This is paired with an 8.3% rise in “updating the public” from 58.8% to 67.1%, the highest result across the Tayside division.
Staff sickness levels saw an increase from 12.3 days lost on average per person to 14.1 days, but officers themselves have dropped from 10.4 to 10.2 days on average lost per person, narrowly missing target.
Last month policing was changed forever as Tayside was broken into four areas under Police Scotland.
These are Angus, Dundee North, Dundee South, and Perth and Kinross, with four chief inspectors in charge: Gordon Milne at the helm in Angus, Conrad Trickett in Dundee North, Shaun McKillop in Dundee South, and Mike Whitford leading Perth and Kinross.
Policing areas comprise 12 sections, headed by local inspectors, and these are made up of 28 ward areas.