Hampshire police are under orders to do more to tackle crime and make people feel safer.

Forces across the country have for first time been graded on the quality of their work in 23 areas, from crime fighting to handling 999 calls and roads policing.

Government inspectors said Hampshire's performance had been "mixed" last year. It was rated "excellent" in only one area-forensic management, "good" in seven and "fair" in eight.

Inspectors said the force must do more to crack down on burglary, robbery and "hate crime"-but they praised its performance in reducing car crime.

Hampshire attracted positive grades for day-to-day policing, management of critical incidents, 999 call handling and traffic policing.

But areas branded as "not on target and in need of improvement" included fighting organised crime, reassurance policies- aimed at making people feel safe-working with criminal justice agencies to secure convictions and crime reduction work in partnership with councils and other local agencies. The report said the force was geared up to tackle problem areas -and the inspector was "confident that gradings would have significantly improved by the time of his next report in autumn 2004".

The grades measuring performance against groups of similar forces have been drawn from detailed assessment by HM Inspectorate of Constabularies. They are described as "baseline assessments" or a snapshot of the police force last year.

Hampshire was the best performing force in its group for solving burglaries, vehicle crime and robbery.

Chief constable, Paul Kernaghan, has welcomed the report. He said: "Domestic burglary has been a consistent priority for Hampshire constabulary and it is gratifying to note that we are the best-performing force in our family of forces with the lowest incidence of burglary and the highest detection rate.

"Our recently-launched Creating Safer Communities programme will ensure that our focus on crimes of particular community concern in maintained and intensified."