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Tackling Vehicle Crime: A Five Year Strategy

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Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team

This document is issued by the Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team (VCRAT), which was established in September 1998 to develop and implement a strategy to meet the Government’s 30% vehicle crime reduction target for the period 1999 to 2004. 

Contents

Foreword

Vehicle crime accounts for a quarter of all recorded crime. It costs over £3 billion a year and causes immense distress and inconvenience to its victims. That is why the Prime Minister has set a national target of reducing vehicle crime by 30% over five years.

I set up the Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team to develop the strategy for achieving that target. The Action Team and its Task Groups included representatives from every sector of the vehicle industry as well as the police, consumers, insurers and Government. I welcome this report on the Action Team’s work over the last year, which offers a number of specific recommendations.

This report shows that the target can be achieved - but only if all those organisations represented on the Action Team and others play their part. This equally applies to all of us as motorists.

The Government is determined to play its part. Much is already being done to improve vehicle and driver licensing and registration. The Action Team has now identified a number of areas where fresh legislation may help to achieve the target. Over the next few months we will decide exactly what legislative changes are necessary, so that we are ready to make them when Parliamentary time permits. That will include assessing the proposals for improved regulation of the salvage industry. We will be following the procedures that we have agreed across Government to ensure that we make a full assessment of the impact before we introduce any new regulatory burdens.

We will also want to consult widely on the Action Team’s proposals on immobilisers on used cars. The Action Team’s assessment makes a strong case, setting out the very substantial crime reduction benefits which greater security on used cars could produce. We will be considering over the next few months whether that should be achieved through a compulsory scheme, or whether voluntary fitting of better security would be the best way forward.

The Action Team considers that there is not a compelling case at present for the introduction of compulsory carrying of driving licences. I will want to look again at that in the light of developing technology and further assessment of the potential wider crime reduction benefits.

The Action Team rightly identifies the importance of providing the public with information to make well-informed decisions about vehicle security, including what car to buy, and where it can be safely parked. We will be looking to make available to the public the best possible information so everyone can make well-informed choices.

Many police forces and local crime and disorder reduction partnerships have already taken up the challenge and included vehicle crime reduction targets in their plans for the current year. From next April I shall want to see all police forces and local partnerships have vehicle crime reduction targets which will reflect the scale of the local problem and contribute to the achievement of the national five-year target.

I am very grateful for the Action Team’s work, which shows that, working together, we can achieve our target. We will continue to support their work. Comments on their proposals should be sent to Colin Petter at the Home Office (Room 576, 50 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AT) by Tuesday 30 November.
 

Jack StrawHome Secretary

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Chairman’s Introduction

  1. The Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team was set up in September last year to carry forward the work necessary to meet the Government’s target for reducing theft of and from vehicles by 30% over the 5 year period 1 April 1999 - 31 March 2004. This means that, on the basis of currently available recorded crime figures, we need to see a reduction from 1.1 million to 783,000 offences – a fall of 317,000 offences over the 5 years.

  2. This document sets out how we propose to deliver that reduction. It reflects contributions from the broad range of interests represented on the Action Team and the Task Groups that report to it. These include representatives from motor manufacturers and retailers, insurers, the salvage industry, car park owners and operators, consumers, the police and Government Departments. A list of Action Team members and the 13 Task Groups that report to the Action Team is attached at Annex A. I am grateful to all of them for making available their time and expertise. Our recommendations do, of course, reflect our own collective view rather than, necessarily, that of the various organisations from which we are drawn.

  3. The starting point for the Action Team’s work was the "14 Point Plan" for reducing vehicle crime (Annex B), which had been jointly developed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the Home Office and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. This is reflected in many of our proposals that address the issues we regarded as the highest priority. The Action Team has yet to develop its views on regulating the export of vehicles, and the issue of external funding and, in particular, the "Michigan Scheme". We have agreed not to proceed with work on the "pre-insurance inspection law", because it was felt to be impractical, in the light of earlier unsuccessful attempts to introduce such a scheme.

  4. The Action Team commissioned each of the Task Groups to produce a plan setting out key issues and how they could deliver their contribution to the target. Their proposals are reflected in this strategy document. The message from the work of the Action Team and the Task Groups is that we can meet the target by:

    • improved security on new cars, benefiting from the widespread fitting of electronic immobilisers on new cars from around 1992 (and which became compulsory under EU law from 1998). Encouraging manufacturers to fit deadlocks and other security features on a wider range of models will help reduce "thefts from" as well as "thefts of" vehicles;

    • improving used car security to reduce substantially the number of "thefts of". This can be achieved, in particular, by the widespread fitting of electronic immobilisers. Whether to legislate for this is a matter for Government but the Action Team believes this is the surest way to achieve our common objective. Encouraging retailers to promote, and consumers to buy, a package of security measures for used cars will also help reduce both "thefts from" as well as "thefts of";

    • better policing and community responses which target prolific offenders, crime "hotspots" and the market for stolen goods. Measures to make it more difficult for vehicles or their contents to be stolen are not enough on their own. We also need to focus on potential offenders and areas of high crime. There is a large prize here in being able to tackle by these means the large number of "thefts from" which make up two-thirds of all recorded vehicle crime;

    • improving car park security. About 22% of all vehicle crime takes place in car parks so successfully tackling this will make a sizeable contribution to meeting the target;

    • developing new procedures at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and working with the motor salvage industry to stop stolen vehicles being given the identity of other, legitimate, vehicles. Improving regulation of the salvage industry will also help to stop vehicles being stolen for spare parts. Reducing the market for stolen vehicles in this way will mean that they have less value to the thief who will in turn have less to gain by stealing them in the first place.

     

  5. The measure with the biggest single pay-off is the widespread fitting of electronic immobilisers on new and used cars – producing about half of the total target reduction required. The graph below at Figure 1 shows our estimate of the combined impact of the measures we propose, assuming the Government agrees to require electronic immobilisers to be fitted on used cars 7-10 years old and that this takes effect from April 2001 (i.e. to apply to cars registered during 1991-1994). But an important message – reflected in the membership of the Action Team and our approach to the task – is that we have to move forward on all fronts to tackle vehicle crime. We need a comprehensive and coherent approach.

Mike Wear, Chairman
Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team
September 1999

Estimated effects of proposals to reduce car crime - graph

Note:
Vehicle crime figures for 1998/99 are provisional. Collated statistics of notifiable offences for 1998/99 will be published on 12 October 1999.
 
 An explanation of the crime reduction contribution from each Task Group is available from the Home Office, Crime Targets Task Force, at 50 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AT (TEL: 020 7273 3351/3884).

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Last update: September 2003

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