THE number of knife crimes in England and Wales was the highest on record last year, up seven per cent on the previous 12 months.

Police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument rose to 45,627 for the year to December, figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today, Thursday, found.

This meant it was 49 per cent higher than when comparable recording began in 2011 and the highest number on record, according to the statistics.

But the figures do not include Greater Manchester Police (GMP) statistics, which did not submit its data to the Home Office due to a new IT programme it implemented.

A force spokesman said: "Last year Greater Manchester Police underwent one of the largest ever public sector IT programmes in the UK.

"As well as numerous future planned enhancements, this project has given us the ability to view incidents and hotspot areas in an easy-to-read format, as well as enhancing our recording of incoming calls to our Operational Communications Branch.

"One element of this programme was a new Data Warehouse, which received a huge amount of historic data from the old data warehouse when we went live.

"The implementation of this has been very complex and work is ongoing to improve the data quality within that warehouse, which is a problem for many public and private sector organisations, particularly when data has been collected over many years.

"We are not supplying data for inclusion in today’s ONS records as we want the information to be as accurate as possible before we release it.

"We are working hard with our suppliers to resolve this issue.

"The data supplied by us to the Home Office has to be accurate and a complete representation of performance and we are well on our way to being able to supply this in the summer, with an ongoing commitment to evolve and improve our datasets and take advantage of new ‘big data’ opportunities the technology affords us.

"We also want to make sure the data we are sharing is not only accurate but firstly goes through the official channels, who will view it before it is submitted to the Home Office.

"However, internally, we have a wide range of data that covers the whole of Greater Manchester, which we use to help us prioritise where our service is required most.

"This ensures our communities are not affected by the fact we have not submitted any data to the Home Office."

The Government has acknowledged "there's more to be done" on tackling knife crime after figures rose to the highest level on record.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "I think the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have both been very clear about the importance they place on tackling knife crime and that's why we've given more powers and more resources.

"It's very clear that there's more to be done to crack down on thugs carrying knives and ensuring they are properly punished."