The home secretary has ordered the police to reduce the number of cases of murder, serious violence and neighbourhood crime within three years in return for her boosting officer numbers.

Signalling a return to targets, Priti Patel told a conference of police chiefs yesterday that there would be no excuses for not reducing crime.

Ms Patel said that she had delivered on the police’s demands by pledging an extra 20,000 officers and simplifying rules on stop-and-search, and now sought “outcomes” that were non-negotiable. The targets also include reductions in county lines drug dealing, domestic abuse and neighbourhood crime such as vehicle theft.

Her comments were made amid reports of a serious rift between the home secretary and the civil service. On Tuesday it emerged that