This year, for the first time, we have assessed leadership across the force. The assessment has led to a narrative rather than graded judgment, which is summarised below.
Read more about my assessment of West Midlands Police’s performance this year, including exceptional events and where I would like to see improvements next year.
I would like to congratulate West Midlands Police on its performance in keeping people safe and reducing crime, which is particularly impressive given the complexity of its operating environment.
The arrangements for preventing crime and anti-social behaviour are good, as is the quality of investigations. The force is clearly committed to protecting vulnerable people, although improvements are needed in its understanding and assessment of the risks faced by some, particularly missing children and victims of domestic abuse. Good arrangements are in place to tackle serious and organised crime in Birmingham East, but elsewhere, more consistency is needed.
West Midlands Police is exceptionally well prepared to face future financial challenges. I continue to be impressed by its robust management of finances and demands for services. The force has embarked on an ambitious and innovative five-year change programme in collaboration with a commercial partner. The programme is expected to transform the operating model into one based on preventative policing rather than reactive policing, with the aim of reducing costs.
I am particularly impressed with the force’s emphasis on continuously improving the services that it provides to the public. I am also encouraged by the force’s determined efforts to recruit more black, Asian or minority ethnic people to make the workforce more representative of the community it serves.
Description of force area
West Midlands Police provides policing services to the metropolitan area of the West Midlands. There are areas of deprivation and affluence in the West Midlands. Around 2.8 million people live in a predominantly urban setting. The force covers the West Midlands conurbation, including the cities of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry and large surrounding townships. The resident population is ethnically very diverse, with 30 percent from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, and is increased by a large number of university students and the large numbers who visit, socialise in, commute into, or travel through the area each year. The transport infrastructure includes major rail stations and a major airport.
The proportion of areas in the West Midlands that are predicted to present a very high challenge to the police is higher than the national average. These are characterised by social deprivation or a concentration of commercial premises (including licensed premises), and in some cases both.
Exceptional events
The force deployed large numbers of officers to police protest marches involving supporters of the English Defence League, as well as counter demonstrations. The costs involved in policing such events attracted widespread media coverage.
A resurgence of gun-related incidents in the West Midlands towards the end of 2015 prompted the new chief constable to acknowledge the concerning regularity of shootings and the need to re-double efforts to bring those responsible to justice.
Working arrangements
The force has innovative arrangements with a strategic commercial partner, to implement its 2020 change programme. While West Midlands Police is mainly self-sufficient, the force collaborates with Staffordshire Police in fulfilling firearms licensing arrangements and with several other forces in the Central Motorway Patrol Group partnership.
During the past year the chief constable retired and a new chief constable (the former deputy chief constable) and new deputy chief constable were appointed.
Effectiveness
In our effectiveness inspection, we judged West Midlands Police to be good at keeping people safe and reducing crime. The force operates effectively at preventing crime and standards of investigation are generally high. Furthermore, the force works well with partners to manage the most harmful offenders. The force is clearly committed to protecting the vulnerable; however improvements are needed in its understanding of the risks faced by vulnerable people, particularly missing children. Good arrangements are in place to tackle serious and organised crime in Birmingham East but elsewhere more consistency is needed. This is the first year HMIC has graded forces on their overall effectiveness so a year-on-year comparison is not possible.
Efficiency
West Midlands Police is exceptionally well prepared to face its future financial challenges. The force demonstrates robust management of its current demand, its finances and its plans for change. Its direction of travel is one of improvement from an already strong base. The force has embarked on an impressive five-year change programme to transform how it intends to provide policing. In last year’s value for money inspection, which considered how forces had met the challenge of the previous spending review period, West Midlands Police was judged to be outstanding.
Legitimacy
There is a strong ethical culture with good support for the wellbeing of the workforce. The Code of Ethics is made part of day-to-day practice, and we found no bias in any disciplinary investigations.
The force understands the importance of effective engagement and the role it plays in the legitimacy of the organisation. West Midlands Police engages well with the communities it serves, understands their concerns and treats them with fairness and respect. The force complies with most aspects of the Best Use of Stop and Search scheme and the use of Taser is fair and appropriate.
This is the first time HMIC has graded forces on their legitimacy, so no year-on-year comparison is possible.
Leadership
West Midlands Police has a broad understanding of the current capacity and capability of its leadership at all levels in the organisation. It has shown there are clear links between skills audits and training. The force has set clear and consistent expectations for its leaders, although not all officers and staff have adopted these values and so the overall picture is variable.
A clear sense of its future direction has been communicated through its ‘WMP 2020’ programme which is well understood by the majority of the workforce. The force has clear and robust plans to develop an understanding of what leadership capabilities it will require in the future.
Insights from other inspections
HMIC undertakes other inspections in addition to the PEEL programme. Since the last PEEL assessment there have been five reports published on inspections that included West Midlands Police. More detail on some of these inspections can be found under the Other inspections section.
I would like to draw attention to our follow-up inspection on child protection, where I was encouraged to see improvements being made by the force. However, despite more staff being devoted to this work and the progress so far, the response to children at risk of sexual exploitation, or who go missing, requires improvement. We also recommended that the force prioritised the training and supervision of its extra child protection staff.
I was very pleased to find that West Midlands is one of only three forces nationally that is prepared overall to protect and support victims of so-called honour-based violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. It is also the only force where all the workforce whom we interviewed were confident in their awareness of these types of crime.
Looking ahead to PEEL 2016
In the year ahead, I will be interested to see how the force responds to this assessment, along with the causes of concern and areas for improvement that HMIC has identified in the last year.
I will be particularly interested to see:
- the strategic direction set for the force by the new chief constable and his recently appointed deputy;
- how the force improves its response to missing and absent children;
- how the force improves the assessment of and its response to victims of domestic abuse; and
- how the force continues its transformation from a predominantly reactive style of policing to one which is predominantly proactive in style.
In May 2016, like the majority of forces in England and Wales, the force will see the second elections for its police and crime commissioner.
