Derbyshire PEEL 2016
Legitimacy
How legitimate is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
To what extent does the force treat all of the people it serves with fairness and respect?
Derbyshire Constabulary is outstanding at treating all the people it serves with fairness and respect. It operates to a clear and thoroughly understood set of values that are in line with the Code of Ethics, emphasising the importance of fair and respectful treatment. We found that officers and staff, at all levels, can relate to its values and that a genuinely ethical, values-based culture exists within the force.
The force seeks feedback and challenge from communities across the force area, including those with less trust and confidence in the police. It is also developing an increasing range of methods to detect issues having the greatest impact on perceptions of fair and respectful treatment.
The confidence and ethics board, chaired by the deputy chief constable and attended by senior leaders, the OPCC and the IAG, scrutinises a comprehensive range of performance information covering a wide range of public confidence and satisfaction data. There is a focus towards hate crime and any variances in the confidence or satisfaction rates reported by minority groups. Two new posts have been created within corporate communications to improve understanding of community perceptions about the force.
The force has demonstrated a strong commitment to understanding community perceptions through the long-term engagement and cohesion activity in Shirebrook. Similarly, to reflect changes in how information is accessed by the public across the county, the Digital PCSO allows the force to promote police services and safety information more quickly and to more sections of the local community.
How well does the force ensure that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully?
The force is outstanding at ensuring that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully. It operates thorough and appropriate vetting processes. All officers and staff we spoke to about vetting are aware of their status and know when to report changes in their circumstances. Vetting aftercare is carried out and trends in vetting failures are monitored. A new process reconsiders vetting failures of people with protected characteristics. Decisions about applications for business interests take into consideration a wide range of information and refusals are followed up to ensure compliance.
The force has developed a wide range of techniques to gather and develop intelligence about corruption, including sophisticated monitoring of force ICT systems, work with support groups for vulnerable members of the community and confidential reporting methods for those communities.
The force has responded positively to HMIC’s police integrity and corruption report recommendation and a comprehensive counter-corruption strategy is in place. The force has developed innovative covert techniques to look for and develop intelligence, specifically in areas of police duties that involve contact with the most vulnerable members of society.
The force has built on local experience of an officer abusing his authority for sexual gain and learned from lessons elsewhere to inform an awareness programme on appropriate behaviour.
The force publicises forthcoming misconduct hearings on its website, which includes detailed information about attending open hearings, and takes a proactive approach to sustaining public confidence during misconduct cases.
In our 2016 national overview of police legitimacy, we recommended that all forces should have started to implement a plan to achieve the capability and capacity required to seek intelligence on potential abuse of position for sexual gain. In 2017, we reviewed of the plans put in place by all forces to in response to this recommendation.
To what extent does the force treat its workforce with fairness and respect?
The force is good at treating its workforce with fairness and respect. It seeks to identify and understand the issues that impact on staff feelings of fair and respectful treatment. A whole-workforce survey happened in 2015. However, staff whom we spoke to are not aware of changes resulting from the survey.
The force demonstrates a strong commitment to the health and wellbeing of the workforce and is continually developing its understanding of the threats and risk to these.
Preventative activity to promote physical and mental wellbeing is happening and new training packages for supervisors about emotional resilience and mindfulness have been developed in co-operation with external experts.
The force has arrangements in place for all staff to receive a PDR with their supervisor every year but PDRs are not linked to a system to analyse performance or identify training needs across the workforce. Staff consider that PDRs are necessary as opposed to being valuable. The force has improved career pathways for detectives and increased provision for self-development through psychometric testing and mentoring.