Dyfed-Powys PEEL 2016

Dyfed-Powys Police requires improvement in the extent to which it treats all of the people it serves with fairness and respect. The force understands the importance of treating people with fairness and respect. Its values are based on the Code of Ethics, and the principles of fairness and respect are intrinsic to the force’s vision and values. The Code of Ethics and the vision and values are well publicised and understood by the workforce, and we noted improvements in the way the force has disseminated the Code of Ethics, including incorporating it into the officer training and leadership development programmes. The force uses a variety of opportunities to seek feedback and challenge from the people it serves. However, its focus needs to shift towards understanding the issues that have the greatest impact on public perceptions of fairness and respect. The force takes seriously public perceptions of fairness and respect and it acts on feedback and lessons learned at a neighbourhood level. However, in the absence of a communications strategy, it cannot show that it has undertaken analysis across the whole organisation to understand the effectiveness of this engagement. Despite the lack of coordinated supervision, Dyfed-Powys Police is able to demonstrate at a local level a desire to serve its communities well, and to listen to and act on feedback received.

Dyfed-Powys Police requires improvement in how well it ensures that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully. The force vets applicants to ensure that it recruits officers, staff and volunteers with high standards of ethical behaviour and regularly clarifies and reinforces what is considered to be acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. It should carry out vetting more swiftly to avoid backlogs.

The force has some understanding of threats to the integrity of the organisation and has some formalised processes in place for staff to report business interests and notifiable associations. The force has adequate monitoring software to provide digital protection but it is not used to its full capability. It has systems for anonymously reporting potential misconduct but does not yet have a full understanding of the extent to which corruption is having an impact on the organisation. It is more reactive than proactive in understanding potential corruption and needs to gain a better understanding of the extent to which officers may be abusing their authority for sexual gain. However, Dyfed-Powys Police communicates well with the public and its workforce about the outcomes of misconduct and corruption cases, and now takes positive action to improve the way it reduces risks to the organisation.

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.

Abuse of position assessment – Dyfed-Powys Police

Dyfed-Powys Police requires improvement in the extent to which it treats its workforce with fairness and respect. The force offers various ways in which members of the workforce can express opinions of fair and respectful treatment, but has done little analysis to identify and understand the areas that have the greatest impact on workforce perceptions. It recognises that it needs to be more proactive in involving the workforce in everyday activity designed to encourage fair and respectful treatment. The extent of this work is limited. The most recent staff survey was in 2012 and there was little evidence that the force had acted upon any feedback received. The force understands and values the benefits of workforce wellbeing and has several ways in which it can identify the wellbeing needs and concerns of its workforce. It takes preventative and early action to improve workforce wellbeing. The force does not have an established, fair or effective performance assessment process for its workforce. The attendance and performance team monitors staff with a grade of ‘managed performance’ to ensure that appropriate actions are taken and support is in place. However, the performance assessment training process is not as effective as it could be.