Total fudge, which is the same across all government bodies. Truth is that not all crimes are individually registered. What happens is that at the beginning of a shift a case file is opened, with one number for that file, and all similar crimes committed go into that file, so at the end of the shift ten crimes may have been committed but because filed under one case number only one officially recorded. Another way also employed to drop numbers is allowing known criminals to commit 7 crimes before arresting them. When the 7th crime has been committed there is then a negotiation with the criminal to own up to a couple, rather than the whole lot. All this aside from police lying to people to inform them that they can do nothing, when they can, and non-response to incidents.

The police think they are being clever in keeping numbers down. Well the top brass are pleased above all because they get bonuses, whilst the the average bobby gets the sack because too few crimes being committed, so no need to have so many officers.

As a point, added to the above. If you make a complaint against a governmental body, a governmental ombudsman, say BMA, PHSO, HCPC, you will always be palmed off so as to cover up what the real state of the system is.