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 Nottinghamshire Police’s performance this year, including where I would like to see improvements next year.
I am pleased with the performance of Nottinghamshire Police in keeping people safe and reducing crime. The improvements that the force has made this year are noteworthy.
I particularly welcome the improvements the force has made to the quality of its crime investigations. The force has strong local partnership arrangements. It works well to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, and to prevent offending. I am pleased that the force is good at identifying and disrupting organised criminality.
Nottinghamshire Police generally provides a good service in identifying and assessing the risks to vulnerable people and safeguarding vulnerable victims. HMIC found some areas where improvement is needed to provide the best possible service to keep safe vulnerable people, particularly children. We also found that, although the force has improved its approach to tackling domestic abuse, further work in this area is needed. However, I am reassured that the force has acted on our inspection findings, taking prompt action to address these important issues.
I am satisfied that the force is adequately prepared to face future financial challenges. The force has a good understanding of the demand on its services, although at the time of our efficiency inspection it did not match its resources to meet that demand as well as it could. I welcome the progress the force has made in the implementation of a new way of organising itself, which involves the redeployment of some of the workforce to areas of the highest priority.
The chief officer team is fully committed to establishing an ethical workforce. For example, officers ensure that the use of stop and search is proportionate and properly recorded. There is a strong culture of listening to and responding to public concerns, although the force needs to improve its engagement with communities in some parts of the county. I am encouraged by the strong local policing presence and commitment to working with partners to keep people safe.
Description of force area
Nottinghamshire Police provides policing services to the county of Nottinghamshire. Although there are some more affluent areas, Nottinghamshire has a high level of poverty. Around 1.1 million people mainly live in the urban centres which include the city of Nottingham, as well as the towns of Mansfield and Newark on Trent. The population is ethnically diverse, with 11 percent from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, and is increased by university students and the large number who visit, socialise in, or travel through the area each year. The transport infrastructure includes major rail stations.
The proportion of areas in Nottinghamshire that are predicted to present a very high challenge to the police is broadly in line with the national average. These are characterised by social deprivation or a concentration of commercial premises (including licensed premises), and in some cases both.
Working arrangements
Nottinghamshire Police works well with other forces within the East Midlands and is part of a successful collaboration that provides policing and support services, such as major crime, special branch and serious and organised crime and forensics.
The force is also part of the East Midlands Operational Support Service, a collaboration between Leicestershire Police, Northamptonshire Police and Lincolnshire Police that is responsible for managing and deploying resources including firearms, dog sections, search and roads policing units.
Effectiveness
In our effectiveness inspection, we judged Nottinghamshire Police to be good at keeping people safe and reducing crime. The force works well to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour and to prevent offending. There are strong local partnership arrangements in place to support this work. The force’s approach to investigating crime has improved overall, but the way it supports some vulnerable victims requires improvement, particularly its services to protect vulnerable children and victims of domestic abuse. The force is good at disrupting the activity of organised crime groups. This is the first year HMIC has graded forces on their overall effectiveness so comparison of their year-on-year effectiveness is not possible.
Efficiency
HMIC found that Nottinghamshire Police is adequately prepared to face its future financial challenges. It has balanced the budget and has a good track record of achieving savings. It has plans in place to achieve most of its anticipated savings through to 2017/18. The force has a good understanding of the demand on its services, although at the moment it does not match its resources to meet that demand as well as it could. The force recognises this and is implementing a new way of organising itself that is designed to enable it to continue to provide an effective policing service at lower cost. In last year’s value for money inspection, which considered how well forces had met the challenge of the previous spending review period, Nottinghamshire Police was judged to require improvement.
Legitimacy
The chief officer team is fully committed to establishing an ethical workforce, and officers and staff are generally positive in respect of the wellbeing arrangements in place. The force engages successfully in some neighbourhoods and particularly with some community groups in the city, but there are places where engagement is less effective. The force complies with the Best Use of Stop and Search scheme and uses Taser fairly and appropriately.
This is the first time HMIC has graded forces on their legitimacy, so no year-on-year comparison is possible.
Leadership
Nottinghamshire Police is a well led organisation. The chief officer team provides clear expectations about how its leaders should lead by using the force’s shared values. The force has not analysed its current or future leadership capacity and capability.
Insights from other inspections
HMIC undertakes other inspections in addition to the PEEL programme. Since the last PEEL assessment there have been eight reports published on inspections that included Nottinghamshire Police. More detail on some of these inspections can be found under the Other inspections section.
Looking ahead to PEEL 2016
In the year ahead, I will be interested to see how the force responds to this assessment, and to the areas for improvement that HMIC has identified in the last year.
I will be particularly interested to see:
- how the force continues to focus on improving its child protection services;
- the continued improvement in the force’s response to domestic abuse victims and child sexual exploitation, not only in its service to the victims, but also in the identification and protection of vulnerable children at risk of harm; and
- the outcome of the work underway to ensure that the force has the right number of specialists with the requisite skills in complex cases involving domestic abuse and serious sexual offences.
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.
