鶹 Office documents, seen by the Guardian, indicate that the public do not believe government ministers’ promises to tackle crime.
Polling carried out for the government found a high fear of crime, and low confidence much will be done about it, with the leak revealing that the public are not convinced by a series of flagship initiatives by Boris Johnson’s administration on law on order, such as the Beating Crime plan.
Following a decade of Conservative cuts to the police and the criminal justice system, only one in three of those polled had faith the government could tackle crime, with the document noting: “Current initiatives to tackle crime are not cutting through to the public – only around a third (35 per cent) say they have confidence in the government’s handling of crime and justice, and awareness of the Beating Crime Plan is low.”
The document, called 鶹 Office Violence Reduction Unit Communications Strategy, dates from March and contains polling from February. This means that the polling took place after weeks of furore over ‘Partygate’.
The 鶹 office document also found that 61 per cent of the public think that crime is going up nationally, and 51 per cent are worried about becoming a victim of crime.
The planned response to lack of public confidence planned by ministers is a public relations campaign to convince voters the government can tackle crime. Under communications objectives, the document says the 鶹 Office wants to boost the numbers of those believing police ‘have the funding and resources they need’.
