Cumbria PEEL 2015

Cumbria Constabulary has a strong focus on tackling crime and anti-social behaviour at neighbourhood level. Neighbourhood policing teams (NPTs) take responsibility for resolving local issues, supported by other partner agencies. Few other frontline staff believe they have a significant part to play in long-term problem-solving. While there are effective countywide partnerships in place, such as through the multi-agency risk evaluation meetings and for road safety, partnership working is most effective at neighbourhood level.

NPTs are effective at problem-solving and providing solutions for community issues. However, little evaluation is done of problem-solving activity across the constabulary.

Face-to-face contact with the public is important to the constabulary; ‘street safe’, a community engagement initiative, and community access points in supermarkets and other public spaces are important features of this.
The constabulary is also expanding the use of online methods to obtain feedback and understand more about how crime and anti-social behaviour affects local residents.

A number of well-established ‘watch’ schemes are in place. These help the constabulary to tackle criminality by raising awareness of a number of different types of crimes, watch groups also promote safer driving in rural locations.

The standards of investigation of crime in Cumbria are mixed.

The best examples are in the investigation of complex crime which is undertaken by specialist teams. Enquiries are comprehensive and lines of enquiry are systematically followed to bring about prosecutions or other positive outcomes.

However the investigation of less complex crime has shortcomings; prosecution case files are sub-standard, workloads are unmanageable and the retrieval of digital evidence from computers is causing unnecessary delays.

The constabulary’s arrangements for managing persistent offenders have a number of shortcomings. The integrated offender management (IOM) scheme is understaffed, the commitment from partner organisations could be stronger and offender management plans are unstructured.

The IOM scheme in Cumbria was the subject of criticism in HMIC’s crime inspection in 2014. More should have been done to address these areas for improvement.

The constabulary should also improve its use of criminal records background checks for foreign nationals who are arrested. Knowledge of offences they have committed in other countries is important in determining how investigations are best managed.

Good schemes are in place to divert young offenders away from crime through the ‘prevent and deter’ panels and the ‘It’s your choice’ programme.

Cumbria Constabulary requires improvement in the service it provides to vulnerable people. The constabulary should improve its response to vulnerable victims by ensuring that all staff understand how to identify, assess, respond to and safeguard vulnerable victims. HMIC found inconsistencies in the understanding that some staff have of a range of vulnerability issues. The constabulary’s work with partners to improve services and share information is good.

The training of staff is a concern to us. Some training has been provided to improve the workforce’s understanding of vulnerability and child sexual exploitation. But it has made little impact on the staff we spoke to.

We found that the constabulary keeps victims updated about the progress of their case well. However, HMIC found that not all victims in Cumbria were offered the opportunity to make a victim statement at the appropriate time.

Work between professionals in the children’s safeguarding hub is good and the safety of children is prioritised. However, the constabulary needs to ensure the safeguarding hub has sufficient appropriately skilled police staff to manage referrals and any required safeguarding activity.

The collection and management of intelligence from vulnerable missing people can be improved. Currently this is not being inputted onto constabulary IT systems.

The constabulary is well prepared to respond to child sexual exploitation on an individual, case-by-case basis, once a victim has been identified. Cumbria needs to do much more to improve the quality of information available to increase its understanding of child sexual exploitation across the county and understand the risks better.

Officers attending domestic abuse incidents know how to assess risk and keep victims safe. They understand that safeguarding the victim is paramount. However, frontline staff and supervisors are not always aware of the immediate options available to keep the victim safe and where they can obtain specialist advice although longer term safeguarding issues and support are good.

Staff working in the serious and organised crime unit and on drugs units have a good understanding of the threat posed by serious and organised crime.

Knowledge and awareness of organised crime groups was not as comprehensive amongst front line staff. There was no routine use of officers and police and community support officers to gather intelligence and disrupt organised crime groups as part of an orchestrated, longer term plan to dismantle them.

While there are regular meetings within the constabulary to discuss how organised crime groups will be managed, there is no meaningful non-police partnership involvement. However, the constabulary has effective relationships with other law enforcement agencies such as the regional organised crime unit and the national crime agency.

The constabulary is fulfilling its commitment to national policing responsibilities and has recently conducted an exercise with other regional services to test preparedness for a major incident. Further similar exercises are planned in the future to enhance the constabulary’s capability in this area.

This is the first year HMIC has graded forces on their effectiveness at tackling serious and organised crime, including a force’s arrangements for ensuring that it can fulfil its national policing responsibilities, so no year-on-year comparison is possible.