Warwickshire PEEL 2015

Warwickshire Police is good at preventing crime and anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe. In HMIC’s 2014 crime inspection, we judged the force to be good at reducing crime and tackling anti-social behaviour.

The force’s vision and values reflect a commitment to protect people from harm and to work in partnership; and these are generally well understood throughout the force.
The force recognises the value of dedicated officers and staff working within neighbourhoods to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour. To that end it ensures that every local area has a visible and accessible safer neighbourhood team.

The force works effectively with partner agencies to keep people safe and tackle anti-social behaviour. Partner organisations spoke positively about the force’s commitment and contribution to effective joint working and HMIC found good examples of new legislation being used to tackle emerging issues of anti-social behaviour.

There is room for improvement in the way the force evaluates and shares information about effective problem solving, although it is planning to improve information sharing with partner agencies by introducing a shared problem-solving database.

The public can feel confident that the force is working well to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour, and keep people safe.

Warwickshire Police’s approach to investigating crime and managing offenders is good. This is consistent with HMIC’s crime inspection in 2014, in which the force was judged as good at investigating offending.

Crime investigations are well managed, have well documented investigation plans and are effectively supervised. Victims are generally kept well informed as investigations progress.

Investigators are trained and equipped to conduct investigations appropriate to their role. Good investigation support is provided through forensic analysis of exhibits to help identify offenders, although the arrangements for digital analysis could be improved.

Good procedures are in place to focus activity on those offenders who are committing most crime and anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods. Arresting outstanding offenders is a priority for all staff and is monitored through daily governance meetings.

The force effectively uses its integrated offender management programme to divert offenders out of the criminal justice system and prevent further offending. There are effective partnership arrangements in place to support this and local officers have good levels of awareness of offenders within the programme.

Management of offenders under multi-agency public protection arrangements is good with appropriate strategic governance and effective partnership working.

Warwickshire Police generally provides a good service in identifying vulnerable victims and responds appropriately with its partners, and the public can be confident that many victims are well-supported. However, in some areas improvement is needed to ensure that the force provides a consistent service to victims, and gives vulnerable people (particularly missing children) the response they need and keeps them safe.

HMIC found that the force’s approach to responding to vulnerable missing children and assessing the risks to domestic abuse victims is not consistently good enough. This means that the force is not always fully addressing the needs of some of the most vulnerable victims. However, where risk and vulnerability has been correctly identified, the force’s response to victims is good.

Generally, investigations into crimes against vulnerable victims and victims assessed as high risk are conducted by specialists to a satisfactory standard with effective supervision. The force works well with partner organisations to share information and jointly safeguard and support victims.

This inspection only considered how well prepared the force is to tackle chid sexual exploitation. The force has made an encouraging start in ensuring it is adequately prepared to tackle child sexual exploitation, however some of its missing persons processes mean that further work is required if the public can be confident that this preparation is sufficient.

Warwickshire Police requires improvement in tackling serious and organised crime. 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. The force needs to develop its understanding of the threats from such crime. It has only completed serious and organised crime profiles for one of its two local policing areas.

Some new and emerging OCGs are not mapped, and professional judgment is used to tackle them without a full assessment of the threat they pose. The level of involvement of local policing teams in tackling OCGs is not effective in all areas.

HMIC found limited evidence of collaborative activity with partners, although the force has made use of the media to provide information to communities about the risk of such crime.
The force has good links to other partners in law enforcement regionally and is making use of intelligence gathering opportunities through government and partner arrangements.

The force has arrangements in place to fulfil its responsibilities under the Strategic Policing Requirement. The response to some aspects, such as counter-terrorism is well established, while progress in others is more recent, such as the dedicated child sexual exploitation team funded by the police and crime commissioner.