Warwickshire PEEL 2016

The manner in which Warwickshire Police prevents crime, tackles anti-social behaviour and keeps people safe requires improvement.

Community policing is the foundation of the force’s operating model. Safer neighbourhood teams generally communicate well with local people and listen to their concerns and priorities. However, the force must do more to understand the changing nature of its local communities. This would help support future planning, assist with resourcing decisions and lead to better communication with hard-to-reach communities.

Working alongside partner organisations, Warwickshire Police is committed to helping find solutions to problems in local communities. However, its problem-solving projects would benefit from better evaluation. This would help ensure the best use of resources and identify whether these tactics could be used to tackle similar problems elsewhere.

The frequency with which offenders are identified when a crime has been committed in Warwickshire is similar to that of other forces in England and Wales. Additionally, the force makes more use of facilities to conclude cases without taking offenders before the court than many forces.

The force’s initial assessment of allegations of crime is good. Call handlers accurately assess the level of harm that callers might be exposed to and the service provided generally aligns well with each caller’s individual needs.

The standard of crime investigation varies. The investigation of crime involving vulnerable victims is now the responsibility of specialist investigators in CID teams. Their investigation reports are of a good standard, in contrast with the quality of some investigations which we examined elsewhere in the force. These cases were not always supported by plans to guide investigations, and supervision was erratic. New arrangements to allocate crime for investigation appear to have contributed to this situation, although there were signs during the course of the inspection that standards are improving. However, the force needs to seek assurances that during this period of change, services to victims are not compromised.

The force has responded well to comments made by HMIC in 2015 regarding the retrieval of digital evidence to support investigations. Delays in examinations of SIM cards had delayed the conclusion of enquiries and undermined the service provided to victims. Effective measures have been put in place to rectify this.

Offender management is one of the force’s strengths, and HMIC found evidence of the force’s belief that it should be ‘everyone’s business’. There are clear signs that it is becoming part of the force’s operational activities. In particular, safer neighbourhood teams are having an increasing impact on curbing re-offending.

The force has a good understanding of the scale and nature of vulnerability in the communities it serves. It has analysed extensively areas of strategic risk and its profiles of these areas, for example child sexual exploitation and human trafficking, are both informative and influence its operational policing.

The principles of THRIVE (threat, harm, risk, investigation opportunities, vulnerability and engagement level) are now well accepted and understood. Call handlers are well trained, committed to their work and can accurately identify vulnerability at the first point of contact. This provides a strong reference point for later enquiries and aims to ensure that victims are placed at the centre of investigations.

Officers respond well to victims who need urgent help and understand their responsibilities. They make use of criminal law and put immediate measures in place to protect vulnerable people. For example, domestic violence protection notices are used to prevent abusive partners from contacting victims or returning to their homes. However, we also found examples of other incidents being downgraded without the rationale for this being recorded. This tended to occur when there were insufficient officers available to respond effectively.

The force’s new investigative model provides greater certainty that highly trained investigators will manage enquiries relating to vulnerable victims. Furthermore, the force’s harm assessment unit provides referrals to third party service providers for further support.

This inspection included a specific concentration on observations concerning domestic abuse that HMIC made in its report PEEL: Police effectiveness 2015 (vulnerability). A chief officer has responded to all of these recommendations, particularly in relation to enhanced training, which has resulted in an improved risk-assessment process that is more closely supervised. HMIC saw several examples where this renewed approach has resulted in better services for victims.

Serious and organised crime is another area where the force has responded positively to comments made in HMIC’s 2015 effectiveness inspection. Local profiles of organised crime groups have now been completed and operational activity to limit the harm they cause is both effective and conforms to national best practice guidelines.

HMIC found good examples of local partnerships supporting activity against organised crime, notably the serious and organised crime joint action group (SOCJAG) in Warwickshire. HMIC also noted that there are good processes in place to assign local resources to serious and organised crime, within the alliance and the wider West Midlands region.

The force still has more to do to assess the effects of its efforts to disrupt organised crime group activity and to discourage young people who may be tempted into criminal lifestyles. The SOCJAG is active in this area and we noted how the force is making interventions through the troubled families’ programme. However, at present this is not strategically managed by the chief officer team. In particular, safer neighbourhood teams could be more proactively involved in disrupting organised crime group activity.

Police operations to confront organised crime groups are promoted in the force’s publicity campaigns. When an investigation ends, the force considers each case to decide whether the police activity is likely to be newsworthy, and which important messages should be made public.

Warwickshire Police has a good understanding of how the national threats outlined in the Strategic Policing Requirement relate to the force area. They are central to the force’s strategic assessment of all priorities, which ensures that the force’s capabilities and capacity to address the threats are kept under constant review.

One of the national threats relates specifically to counter-terrorism. The force has studied carefully the type of attacks that took place in Paris in November 2015 and considered their implications for the command, deployment and training of armed officers. Firearms training in Warwickshire Police conforms to national standards, and police weaponry and tactics have been enhanced as a consequence of the nature of modern day terrorist attacks. The force has also deepened its collaboration agreements with its alliance partner and surrounding forces in preparation for an increase in the numbers of armed officers being urgently required.

The force has an established exercise training regime, and simulated terrorist attacks are used frequently to test the force’s ability to withstand this type of threat.