Police forces across the UK and Wales have announced they are to change the way crime is reported to give the public a clearer picture about unsolved crime.

Cases are currently recorded by police as falling within three categories, a charge, a caution or undetected.

A total of 70 per cent of police cases are recorded as 'undetected', and therefore this category will be replaced by several new others from April 1 2014.

These include 'prosecution prevented' for if a suspect is too ill to appear in court, 'community resolutuon' for when a suspect is dealt with without prosecution, 'prosecution not in the public interest' and 'evidential difficulties' for when witnesses are unwilling to give evidence.

The changes to the recording of crimes will also allow police to mark an investigation as complete.

Policing Minister Damien Green told BBC News, "Crime is definitely falling on all measures we have but clearly there've been some problems with measurement so we need to restore public confidence.

"But also, even more importantly, the police need to have information from the crime figures that actually enable them to cut crime."

The government believe the new framework will be especially useful for historical cases of sexual abuse.