WWL1
Reduction in crime
Crime
Where we live
Reduction in crime
According to Victim Support ‘A crime is a deliberate act that causes physical or psychological harm, damage to or loss of property, and is against the law.’ There are many different types of crime and nearly everyone will experience a crime at some point in their lives with crime affecting people from all backgrounds, locations and ages.
The social and economic costs of organised crime to the UK is estimated to be approximately £37 billion (Home Office Understanding organised crime 2015/16).
According to the most recent ONS data, of adults in England and Wales, an estimated average of 36.4 personal crimes were committed per 1,000 adults in the year ending March 2023. (Crime Survey for England and Wales from the Office for National Statistics)
Key Value
A monetised fiscal, economic and social value of £5,300
Monetised social value of fiscal, economic and social costs of an average incidence of crime.
Where does this headline value come from?
The headline value comes from figures from the Ministry of Justice and other Government publications, used in the GM Unit Cost Database to provide the average cost per incident of crime (all types) covering fiscal, economic and social costs.
The values are based on the GM Unit Cost Database, with the original source ‘The Economic and Social Costs of Crime, Second Edition’ (2016/17). The estimate is for the total cost of crime split into fiscal, economic and social elements of the cost of crime.
The types of crime included in the estimated average cost include robbery, violent crime, sexual offenses, theft offices, and other miscellaneous crimes.
The fiscal cost is based on estimates to different affected public services including police, probation, courts and legal aid, prison system, criminal justice, NHS and victim services. The economic value includes increased insurance and property loss. The social value is based upon the physical and emotional impact on the direct victims of the crime.
The calculation includes in 2015/2016 prices:
- £1,100 estimated fiscal saving
- £1,300 estimated economic gain
- £1,600 estimated social (wellbeing) gain
Adjusted for inflation to 2023 prices this works out as: £1,406 + £1,679 + £2,188 = £5,273 in 2023 prices.
An overall rounded value of £5,300.
Fiscal and economic values are adjusted by using GDP deflator (fiscal year). Wellbeing value is uplifted to 2023 prices using GDP deflator (fiscal year), and real GDP per capita growth in conjunction with the marginal utility of income elasticity parameter of 1.3 as recommended the Green Book Wellbeing guidance. Our approach to inflation adjustments is explained on our Methodology page HERE
How to measure Reduction in Crime
If you’re just starting out, start with Bronze first. The result of a Bronze measurement is just an estimate, but requires the least effort; whereas Silver and Gold give more accurate results but require more effort.
Each level has an effort to accuracy indicator, choose the one that’s right for you.
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised value from estimated number of crimes averted x the bronze value of £5,300
For example, for a project increasing home security across housing facilities estimated to impact on 1000 homes, including a decrease in incidences of crime in the local area.
The estimated national average of crimes as of year ending March 2023 was (approx) 36 personal crimes per 1,000 adults.
The project estimates to decrease crimes in the local area by 6, taking the average for the area to (approx) 30 per 1000 adults, as opposed to the national average of (approx) 36 per 1000 adults.
To use the Measure Up Bronze value calculate 6 crimes by £5,300 = £31,800 economic, fiscal, and social value saved
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the number of specific crimes averted by the relevant crime unit cost
At silver level you could use a more specific understanding of the types of crime being averted, and use the unit cost of averting that particular type of crime instead of the average for the whole.
You could also look at a more geographically specific estimate of that type of crime in the area you are working in, rather than using the national average of crime incidences in general.
You could also start to look at who is being impacted, as outlined by the Crime Severity Score (CSS) data for police force areas and community safety partnerships, which equate in the majority of instances to local authorities. The CSS outlines that crime harm is most commonly split into harms experienced by individuals, communities, institutions and wider society. The framework splits this into a harm level for each group:
- individual level – harms directly impacting individual members of society, for example, emotional damage to a person or a broken bone or other physical injury
- community level – harms impacting communities at a local level, such as antisocial behaviour, that can affect the neighbourhood environment and perceptions of safety
- institutional level – harms that directly affect businesses, the government and third sector organisations, such as financial losses from fraud and theft offences
- societal level – harms that have wide-ranging impacts that affect society as a whole, such as expenditure of public money to fund victim services
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Record the outcomes people report experiencing in relation to reduced crime in their area, and multiple that by the associated value for that outcome.
At Gold level you are looking to build on your silver estimations by engaging with the person or people affected.
Therefore, at the Gold level, you could survey those affected about their experiences rather than using the proxy value.
There are many options for surveying people to understand impact on their lives.
A good starting point for questions to ask directly through primary research with your stakeholders is the Maximise Your Impact Guide. This guide covers 10 overall impact questions. For Gold level practice you would be looking to understand the question ‘what changes do people experience?’ and ‘how much of each change happened’. Questions you might want to include in your survey to uncover the outcomes they experience could include:
- What changed for you (or happened to you) as a result of our activity or programme?
- Were there any other changes?
- Did these changes lead on to anything else?
- Were the changes all positive?
- Were any of them unexpected?
- What did you want to happen?
- How did your situation/ circumstances affect your experience?
A starting point for questions related to wellbeing is to look at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing website: https://whatworkswellbeing.org/about-wellbeing/how-to-measure-wellbeing/ .
As you start to measure wellbeing directly from the people affected, one set of questions it is important to consider is the ONS4 – the national measures for subjective wellbeing in the UK which asks the following 4 questions on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’:
- Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
- Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things that you do in your life are worthwhile?
- Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
- On a scale where 0 is ‘not at all anxious’ and 10 is ‘completely anxious’, how anxious did you feel yesterday overall?
Specifically in relation to the impact of reduction in crime you could ask questions aligned to particular areas of harm that victims may experience, or avoid. The CSS (Crime Severity Score) outlines 4 categories of harm for individuals when they experience crime:
- physical harms
- emotional or psychological harms
- financial or economic harms
- privacy
In the ONS National Wellbeing Dashboard crime is measured through ‘incidence of personal crime’.
You could also consider other data gathering activities, including direct observation, or focus groups.
Support in developing your Gold survey approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At the Gold+ level, you are building on your Gold value calculation by assessing the value against the counterfactual, or ‘what would have happened anyway’.
To do this you should identify a control group suitable to assess in line with your intervention, in order to more accurately attribute any changes to your intervention.
You could also consider any other discount or causality elements linked to your job creation activity.
Support in developing your Gold+ counterfactual, causality and discount approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
| Value Type: | Master outcome |
What's this?
This is the type of value. Some values are outcomes, which means many different interventions might lead to them, others are specific interventions that have a set value. |
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| UN SDG Categories: |
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What's this?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are global goals adopted in 2015 for all signed up nations to achieve for us to have a sustainable global future by 2030. There are 17 Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030. |
| PN06/20 Categories: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts introduced the Central Government Social Value Model in 2020 which all Central Government contracting authorities must use in their in scope procurements. It consists of 5 themes, 8 policy outcomes, and 24 Model Award Criteria which outline key priority areas to achieve more social value. |
Evidence
Measure Up focuses on empowering you to numerically measure the impact you’re having. We recommend that numeric reports are backed up with stories and other types of evidence to help illustrate, in human terms, the impact that’s being made on individuals.
We recommend seeing consent from one or more participants in your intervention to collect and tell their story. This should include a little background on the participant, a summing up of life before the intervention, the human impact of the intervention, and the longer term (if known) impact on the person’s life outside of, and after, the intervention.
Providing photographs, audio recordings, video interviews or even artefacts from the intervention (for example, writing, paintings, music, etc from creative interventions) can add more colour, and convey the emotional impact of interventions more directly.
In some cases it’s appropriate to anonymise or abbreviate the personal information of case study participants. No story should be published or shared without the recorded consent of the individual(s) it concerns. Individuals continue to own the rights to their stories and if they request you stop sharing the story or making it available online you should do so promptly and without need for justification.
Feedback
Measure Up is an open, collaborative and transparent. If you have any suggestions or feedback on our pragmatic, recommended approach to measuring and valuing social value, including wellbeing, economic, and fiscal impact, and effects on our environment, please get in touch so we can share and discuss this at our next Advisory Group meeting.
More help
We want to empower anyone to perform and improve their impact measurement – without needing a degree in economics.
If you need any more help, or just someone to do the legwork for you we can help signpost you to software, training and consultancy to help you get to grips with the impact you’re having.
