Surrey PEEL 2016

Surrey Police is good at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe. It is committed to keeping neighbourhood policing at the heart of its service. Specialist neighbourhood officers are rarely taken away from their core roles to carry out other functions such as policing public order or football matches.

The force is good at addressing some of its most problematic, ‘chronic and enduring’ crime and anti-social behaviour problems. It uses a structured problem-solving approach, employing a range of tactics to prevent crime and disorder. It works well with partner agencies and has a well-established and effective anti-social behaviour team. We found numerous examples of the force and its partners tackling crime and disorder effectively.

However, the force does not do enough to understand the threats facing vulnerable communities. It does not have the neighbourhood profiles which would provide much of that information. There is some good ad hoc engagement by neighbourhood officers, but the force should communicate with the public in a more structured way.

Surrey Police’s approach to investigating crime and managing offenders requires improvement. This is consistent with the findings of HMIC’s effectiveness inspections in 2014 and 2015, in which we also found that the way the force investigated offending required improvement.

Some progress has been made. Over the last 12 months there has been a reduction in the backlog of mobile phones and computers that need to be forensically examined and there has been an increase in specialist staff, and improved supervision in the safeguarding investigation units (SIUs). However, the quality of many investigations remains poor.

The force recognises that it needs to improve the standard of investigations of less serious crime and it is working hard to address this through increased training provision, employing agency staff to support officers, and mentoring. However, some frontline staff still do not have the skills to investigate some of the crimes which are allocated to them. In addition, some supervisors do not review and endorse crime investigations or they are insufficiently trained to do so. The quality of arrest handover packages between officers is also poor.

The Policing in Your Neighbourhood (PIYN) model, implemented in April 2016, has made significant changes to how the force operates. The chief constable and his team are confident the changes will result in improvements in the longer term, and this view is supported by many officers and staff.

Since our vulnerability inspection in 2015, Surrey Police has made a huge effort to improve its response to vulnerable people. The force now has a good understanding of the nature and scale of vulnerability across the force area. Officers and staff are aware of their responsibility to assess and safeguard vulnerable people at the earliest opportunity, and the initial assessment process is good. There is improved governance, partnership working and data sharing and dissemination. A missing person profile is being published and there is considerable investment in safeguarding through additional officers, staff and supervisors within specialist public protection teams. Additional training has been provided across the force to emphasise that safeguarding is not simply the role of specialist teams.

There is still room for improvement, however. The force is still unable to identify a repeat victim by name alone when the initial call is received. Also, the domestic abuse arrest rate is in line with the England and Wales rate but the force itself has seen a 10.1 percentage point fall in the 12 months to 30 June 2016 compared to the 12 months to 31 March 2016. The force needs to improve its understanding of the reasons for this and take appropriate action.

Surrey Police has a better understanding of the threats posed to its communities by serious and organised crime since our 2015 effectiveness inspection, but still has more to do. Local profiles created for each of the three divisions include a sound understanding of emerging and traditional serious and organised crime threats, but contain limited intelligence and information from partnership agencies such as health and education.

The force has improved greatly its mapping of OCGs in the last year and has a much clearer understanding of the threats and risks posed by those OCGs that cause the most harm.
Surrey Police responds well to serious and organised crime, and neighbourhood officers are used effectively to help the disruption, dismantling and investigation of OCGs. They are well-briefed and play a regular and active part in collecting intelligence about OCGs in their areas. There are effective working relationships with the anti-social behaviour team, and these relationships result in good use of ancillary orders such as criminal behaviour orders.

The force obtains specialist support from south east regional organised crime unit (SEROCU) and has carried out several successful operations to target OCGs. However, the force does not measure the impact of the activity it carries out to disrupt OCGs or share learning systematically to improve its effectiveness.

Surrey Police has good plans to mobilise in response to the threats set out in the Strategic Policing Requirement. It works well with other forces in the region when the need arises.

The force is well prepared to respond to an attack which requires an armed response. The force has recently reviewed its assessment of threat, risk and harm and this now explicitly includes the threats posed by marauding armed terrorists. To be appropriately prepared for this threat Surrey Police plans to increase its firearms capacity and capability, both as part of a national programme to increase the capability and capacity of trained firearms officers but also through local projects. The force is progressing with the implementation of these plans.