Durham PEEL 2014

The chief constable and deputy chief constable provide clear and effective leadership in promoting professional behaviour. Staff are supported in challenging unprofessional behaviour and have access to confidential reporting systems. Force policies include express reference to integrity matters and these are kept up to date. The workforce receives training about integrity and ethics, some of which is personally led by the deputy chief constable, and integrity issues are considered in the context of promotions and specialist posts.

The force has identified threats and risks from corruption, and has an effective action plan. Monitoring of force systems is limited. However, the force conducts random drug testing to identify substance abuse. The professional standards department and counter-corruption unit investigation staff are trained and effective, but there is a need to standardise the way intelligence is managed and to ensure more effectively the security of sensitive operations.

HMIC considers that there are two sources of data that give an insight into the public’s perceptions of their police force: the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and the Victim Satisfaction Survey.

The data for Durham show that:

Crime Survey for England and Wales (12 months to March 2013)

• 60 percent of adults surveyed think that the police do an excellent/good job, which is broadly in line with the figure across England and Wales of 61 percent.
• 63 percent of adults surveyed agree that the police deal with local concerns, which is broadly in line with the England and Wales proportion of 60 percent.

Victim Satisfaction Survey (12 months to June 2014)

• 88.6 percent (± 1.8 percent) of victims were satisfied with their experience which is greater than the figure across England and Wales of 85.0 percent (± 0.2 percent).

The value for money inspection found the force had set a clear performance standard for response times, and this had remained the same since 2010. The inspection found that during this time the proportion of calls attended within these standards for both ’emergency’ and ‘priority’ calls had remained on target.

The crime data integrity inspection found that a victim-centred approach was at the heart of policing in Durham and was widely understood by officers and staff.

The domestic abuse inspection found that victims of domestic abuse were identified by the force when a call from a member of the public was received at one of the force’s two communication centres. The force had good systems in place to identify repeat callers. Staff were trained to collect as much relevant information as possible to establish risk levels before deciding the most appropriate response. They also routinely researched police databases to gather available information about a caller, perpetrator, family or address to help officers attending the incident to assess the threat of harm to a victim and any children present. However, the inspection found that dispatchers were not always sending the nearest and most appropriate resource, and attending officers were routinely not being given sufficient background information. Although staff working on the front enquiry desk in police stations regularly received reports of domestic abuse, they had not received any specific training.

The crime data integrity Inspection examined 102 incident records and found that 104 crimes should have been recorded. Of the 104 crimes that should have been recorded, 88 were. Of the 88, five were wrongly classified and ten were recorded outside the 72-hour limit allowed under the Home Office Counting Rules. This is of concern as it means that some victims’ crimes are not being recorded and that these victims are not receiving the service they deserve (because, for example, certain victim support services are only triggered once a crime is recorded).