Home Office pledges to improve conviction rates for violent crimes

The Home Office said last night that much more needed to be done to increase conviction rates for rape and other violent crimes after fresh claims that only one in 10 of such offenders is brought to justice.

Officials would not confirm figures published in the Observer and said that levels of violent crime have fallen 43% from their 1995 peak. But neither did they seek to deny the newspaper's analysis that conviction rates for serious violent offences have fallen since Tony Blair came to power, to 9.7% for serious woundings including stabbings, 8.9% for robbery and 5.5% for rape.

Emphasising its efforts to improve the record in rape cases, a Home Office statement also said yesterday: "As well as delivering justice for victims, increasing conviction rates is vital in terms of crime reduction, both in preventing further offences, and sending a deterrent message to potential offenders."

With his department under sustained political attack since before the removal of his predecessor, Charles Clarke, John Reid, the home secretary, is considering reforms such as separating the troubled Immigration and Nationality Directorate which handles asylum and immigration into an arms-length directorate. Mr Reid has also signalled a willingness to go into "listening mode" about the controversial mergers between police forces. It was part of an efficiency drive which Mr Clarke had sought in order to achieve effective neighbourhood policing and a better ability to tackle major crime, "without having to rob Peter to pay Paul" as currently happens when numbers are stretched.

Mr Reid, who has been working at his wife's holiday home in the south of France, will be back in London tonight, having curtailed longstanding family commitments for the second time since taking up his post in the May 6 reshuffle. The Home Office will remain shut tomorrow while officials finish a four-day bank holiday weekend with what is known as a privilege day off.

Ken Clarke, the former Tory home secretary, told BBC1's Sunday AM yesterday that Mr Reid should stop only talking tough. "He should come back with less of an intention of doing a poor man's Alan Sugar imitation in his interviews and with some clear idea of how he is going to tackle these problems and restore his authority," said Mr Clarke.

Mr Reid's department is reeling from revelations that ministers sanctioned a policy shift as far back as 2002 to deal with prison overcrowding. It allowed foreign convicts liable to deportation on release to be transferred to less crowded open prisons - where some were absconding until fresh restrictions were imposed last week. Eleven foreign inmates have walked out of Ford open prison in Sussex since May 1 when the prisoners scandal was first revealed.