Good progress has been made since HMIC’s report in 2012 on managing professional and personal relationships with integrity and transparency. Gwent has worked hard to instil ethical and professional behaviour; however, more training on integrity issues and efforts to promote confidence in challenging poor behaviour are required. Decision making and recording processes in the professional standards department needs to improve. Some integrity-related policies need to be reviewed and the management of workflow in the professional standards department should be more efficient.
Further insights on legitimacy
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (12 months to March 2013) found that the proportion of respondents who think that the force does an excellent/good job was less than the figure for England and Wales. The same survey over the same period also found that the proportion which agrees that the force deals with local concerns was less than the average for England and Wales. The force’s own victim satisfaction survey (12 months to June 2014) found that the proportion of victims who were satisfied with their experience was less than the figure across England and Wales.
The crime data integrity inspection found that frontline staff, including call-takers, understood the importance of meeting the needs of the victim when considering crime-recording and investigation. The domestic abuse inspection found risks in the way the force manages the initial reporting of domestic abuse. There were no robust procedures in place to ensure that repeat and vulnerable victims could be consistently identified. There was inconsistency in the approach to assessing the risks posed to victims.
As a result of the crime data integrity inspection, HMIC is concerned that a notable proportion of reports of crime are not being recorded by the force. This means that victims are not receiving the service they should when they first report a crime. However, HMIC is impressed with the accuracy of the decisions taken by the force when making no-crime decisions (cancelling a recorded crime), nearly all of which are correct.
