DERBYSHIRE police has an "effective approach" towards protecting people from serious crime but does not solve enough cases, according to a Government report.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary today published a "report card" for all forces in England and Wales.

It rates Derbyshire police as "fair", meaning performance varies but is acceptable for the three categories of local crime and policing, protection from serious harm and public confidence and satisfaction.

This is the third of four possible outcomes – excellent, good, fair and poor.

The inspector rating the force, former high-ranking civil servant Zoë Billingham, said Derbyshire's crime rates were in line with those in similar areas and that it had "a strong and effective approach to protecting people from more serious crimes".

But she said it also needed to "increase the number of crimes solved".

Mrs Billingham noted the force's chronic under-funding, which gave it less cash and fewer officers than similar forces in Cumbria, Durham and Hull.

Last month, members of the county's police authority agreed to support Chief Constable Mick Creedon by raising the overall police budget from £165m to £170m.

Responding to today's report, Mr Creedon said that, if the force was funded to the same extent as similar forces, it would receive an extra £17m a year, which could pay for 400 more police officers.

He said criticism of the force's crime-solving did not take account of those dealt with under the county's restorative justice programme.

Under this, victims of crime can choose whether offenders make amends in other ways, such as fixing a vandalised fence.

"To date, around 4,000 crimes have been dealt with in this way since April 2009," he said. "The process is recognised by the HMIC and the Home Secretary as the way forward but we are surprised that we have not been given recognition for it."

Chairman of Derbyshire Police Authority Janet Birkin was also surprised the results of the restorative justice scheme were not included in the score card.

She said: "We will discuss with the HMIC the scoring process to consider how this can be put right in the future."

People can see in detail how the ratings were decided via www.MyPolice.org.uk from Saturday.

An HMIC spokesman said its ratings were based on comparing Derbyshire with similar forces.

He claimed Derbyshire's force had been shown an early version of the report that did not include restorative justice results but that these would be included on the website.