Essex Police blamed resource-sapping major inquiries for missing crime reduction and detection rate targets.

The figures, which relate to 2001, show that while the force aimed to detect 22 per cent of burglaries, just 14.4 per cent were actually cleared up.

And 67.9 per cent of violent crimes were detected, compared to the target of 77 per cent.

There were 5,629 household burglaries compared to the 5,303 burglary reduction target and 20,487 vehicle crimes, 1,573 more than the 18,914 reduction target.

One area of success was in arrests for drugs offences: 337 led to convictions or cautions, compared to a target of 222.

Det Ch Insp Mick Jones, of Colchester police, said that newer figures for just this division which run up to the end of February this year make it one of the highest performing in the county.

He said: "We're likely to come on target for burglaries of commercial premises.

"We're on target for reducing instances of dwelling burglary and although we're off target for detecting dwelling burglaries, we're still the highest performing division and we detect one in four offences."

Commenting on the Essex-wide drop, a spokeswoman for the force said that in 2000/2001 it had performed very well in terms of the crime figures so when the targets were set for 2001/2002 they were set high.

But she said forces around the country saw results get worse last year.

One reason why they may have declined in Essex, she added, is that a lot of officers were needed for major investigations and had to be taken off operations designed to prevent crime.

Published Friday, March 8, 2002