Staffordshire PEEL 2014

Staffordshire Police’s approach to assessing threat, harm and risk is well-embedded; officers understand and use this approach well. The force has clear priorities which reflect the needs of local communities, and it assigns resources to these priorities through structured management meetings.

The quality of victim contact in Staffordshire is good, and there are robust processes in place to identify and address victim vulnerability. Decision making is victim centred, and victim satisfaction is high.

There is good evidence of a focus on crime prevention, reflected in effective partnership working at a strategic level. Multi-agency arrangements for safeguarding vulnerable victims work well, and the force has supplemented these with further work to divert those at risk of becoming offenders away from crime.

The quality of investigations by Staffordshire Police is variable. Investigations conducted by specialist staff are generally of a good standard. However, non-specialist crime investigations are not of a consistently acceptable standard, and the supervision of these is limited.

There is a clear priority from the leadership of the force to become victim focused and recognition that this is still work in progress. Not all staff understand their responsibilities under the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, and there are inconsistencies in the way that victims are updated as investigations progress.

The force has strong integrated offender management arrangements, and it is seeking to expand the scope of this scheme to cover a wider range of crime types. Close partnership working and a clear commitment to improvement are evident in Staffordshire’s approach to managing persistent offenders.

There is a clear commitment to treating anti-social behaviour as a priority in Staffordshire, and operational activity clearly reflects this.

The force listens to, and proactively involves, its partners and local communities – including those that are hardest to reach, such as religious groups and those living in isolated rural locations. The force engages consistently and effectively with the public, helping it to understand and address the things that matter most to local people. Co-location with partners enables the force to pursue an effective and coherent problem-solving approach to tackling anti-social behaviour. It analyses the needs of the public, and is responsive to community feedback.

The domestic abuse inspection found that the public could have some confidence that Staffordshire Police provided a good service to victims of domestic abuse and helped keep them safe. The inspection found that crimes had a structured response from officers. However, the response to victims was less structured, and there was concern that victims of repeat incidents of domestic abuse may not be identified and their safety adequately addressed. There was a delay in identifying the level of risk faced by victims, which was a concern.

The crime inspection found that Staffordshire treated domestic abuse as a priority. The inspection also reviewed Staffordshire’s domestic abuse action plan and found it had built on its existing domestic approach to develop further activity to respond to the HMIC recommendations. It had also assessed all its activity in line with the agreed national priorities for forces to improve their response to domestic abuse, and it had provided clear evidence of how it was doing this.

The value for money inspection found that there were arrangements in place with other forces for serious organised crime policing. These collaborations had enabled the force to save money and provide better equipped and more resilient specialist services to the public.

There was no Strategic Policing Requirement inspection for this force.