Leicestershire PEEL 2016

Leicestershire Police’s workforce clearly understands the importance of treating the public with fairness and respect. In HMIC’s 2015 legitimacy inspection, we found positive efforts by the force to ensure the use and understanding of the Code of Ethics across the workforce. In 2016, HMIC was disappointed to find some officers and staff with little or no knowledge of the code. Despite this, those we spoke to were aware of the force’s organisational values.

The force seeks feedback and challenge from the people it serves through both traditional communication and more innovative methods. It deals with any issues raised, but needs to ensure it reviews feedback more effectively and takes stronger action regarding concerns about fairness and respect. The force has good processes in place to deal with those incidents that have the potential to affect public perceptions of policing. However, it could do more to demonstrate to the public that it is taking effective action in response to feedback and learning.

Overall, the force is good at seeking feedback on public experience and perceptions of fair and respectful treatment. It could do more to analyse feedback and information such as complaint data, which would allow it to identify and prioritise action to improve the way it treats people.

Leicestershire Police conducts vetting checks on all people joining the force and complies with the latest national standards. A backlog exists for officers and staff who joined before 2012 and were not vetted in accordance with national standards, which the force is now addressing.

The force uses ‘Our Duty’, which incorporates elements of the Code of Ethics, to communicate its vision and values to all staff and the public. We found that the knowledge and understanding of both the Code of Ethics and ‘Our Duty’ is inconsistent across the force.

The force cannot understand the full nature of risks to the integrity of the organisation because the anti-corruption unit is focused on investigations rather than on identifying risks, including risks from staff abusing their authority for sexual gain, and intervening early to manage them.

The force publishes complaints and gross misconduct investigation outcomes on its external website and information on how the public can attend upcoming misconduct hearings, although these are not well publicised across its workforce.

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 – Leicestershire Police

Leicestershire Police has a clear focus on maintaining and improving the wellbeing of its workforce. It has a good understanding of what support the workforce needs and has introduced initiatives to promote and sustain physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as providing services to support staff in times of need.

We found that supervisors across the force have a comprehensive understanding of their wellbeing responsibilities towards staff. This is reflected in high take-up rates across the organisation for the support services that are available to staff.

The force has taken positive steps by introducing a new performance appraisal system. The new system is intended to record and track personal performance, identify continuous professional development opportunities and provide the basis for managing poor performance.