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investigation of the majority of crimes; a skills gap in basic crime investigation skills is impacting on performance.

"It remains questionable whether staff are effectively investigating crime at the present time, with a tendency to record offences at the earliest opportunity and move on to the next."

However, inspectors praised GMP in other areas, saying it was good at tackling organised and serious crime. It was rated as good on reassuring the public, roads policing, dealing with critical incidents, forensic management, leadership and direction, strategic management, race and diversity and working with crime and disorder reduction groups.

Mr Todd sparked controversy last year by saying some officers in GMP did not have basic skills and criminals would be better off being "interviewed by someone who has watched The Bill or Inspector Morse".

He ordered a retraining programme which has so far been taken by 800 officers and says this has already started to improve the "skills gap" detailed in the report. Mr Todd said: "We were, I would say unfairly, given the label of the `worst force in the country' following an inspection two years ago, a label which has proven difficult to shake.

"However, I am pleased to say that we are not among the five forces highlighted as in need of support this time around.

"Although officially rated poor in the area of `volume crime', the assessment was based on figures from the past three years. Since the report was compiled, GMP has improved by much more than the inspectors predicted."

According to more recent statistics he said all crime had been reduced by more than 11,500 in the past year.

He added that there had been more than 1,530 fewer street robberies and more than 4,600 fewer domestic burglaries.

He said: "Our work to tackle organised crime which involves the `Mr Big' type characters is often invisible to the public, but I am glad it has been highlighted in the report. Following a series of operations 28 of our most wanted criminals are now behind bars."

Lancashire Police has been rated as one of the best forces in the country, according to today's inspection report. The force ranks as "excellent" in seven of the 16 categories assessed by the inspectorate.

The five poorest performing forces were Humberside, Cambridgeshire, Cleveland, Nottinghamshire and West Yorkshire.

nicola.dowling@men-news.co.uk

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