Bedfordshire PEEL 2017

Bedfordshire Police does not yet have a full understanding of current reactive demand. Its understanding of demand is developing and it recognises that it still has more to do. The force has made positive progress since 2016 in developing a new system for assessing demand. It has increased its analytical capacity, identified intelligence gaps and commissioned work to improve its assessment of current, complex and future demand. The force is working on internal demand and inefficiencies to identify improvements including the number of meetings attended. Bedfordshire continues to record high levels of anti-social behaviour compared with other forces, but the force is not clear as to the reasons why. The force is developing how it records and categorises anti-social behaviour and further work is being done on its understanding of hidden demand and emerging crime, but these areas of work are incomplete and so its understanding of demand can only be partial.

Bedfordshire Police’s approach to prioritising and filtering demand requires improvement although it has improved since our last inspection. Officers and staff have received additional training and fewer missing children are being identified as absent. However, it still does not have sufficient resources in place to respond effectively.

The force has taken positive steps to strengthen how it ensures it achieves all the benefits possible from its change projects. Members of the workforce are encouraged to make suggestions and put forward their ideas, and they are listened to by leaders.

Bedfordshire Police has a good understanding of its current workforce’s operational skills and capabilities. It understands future requirements and has plans to allocate resources appropriately. The force could benefit from a more formal understanding of the softer skills held by the workforce and from a better understanding of leadership skills, particularly below the rank of chief inspector and police staff equivalent.

The force is prioritising demand effectively and is putting the resources it has in the right place to manage the threats identified, but this is not sufficient to deal with all the demand it faces. It is developing its understanding of the cost and quality of current service levels to meet demand. The force has prioritised its resources to deal with the high level of vulnerability, but this has been at the cost of not resourcing its community policing function adequately, which affects its ability to deal with current demand efficiently. It is building its PCSO and PC community policing strength.

Bedfordshire Police has good investment plans and it is working well with other agencies to manage demand for services. It continues to develop the strong and well-established alliance, regional and seven-force collaborations. It is able to demonstrate that its collaboration with other agencies reduces cost, and increases resilience and capacity.

Bedfordshire Police has made some good progress in its assessment of emerging and likely demand for its services. It has improved its strategic assessment and recently developed a new strategic demand assessment; both of these steps are promising. However, it needs to improve the way it categorises incidents to enable better analysis of current demand and future trends. It is working hard to understand local community demand better and it is increasing resources to develop effective preventative work but recognises it has more work to do.

Leaders are being developed for the future. The collaborative approach within the alliance to recruiting and developing officers and staff should ensure greater opportunities to increase the diversity of teams and to recruit talented individuals from outside the force. Bedfordshire Police continues to face significant financial challenges, there are currently no clear plans beyond 2019/20 for how the force will continue to provide the level of policing needed, within the resources that are likely to be available.

The force has yet to be able to fully staff its new policing model, as it lacks the resources to do so. It has developed a detailed plan of how it intends to implement change up to 2019/20, but it recognises that to be viable beyond this date it will need to review its operating model again. HMICFRS remains concerned at the level of uncertainty in Bedfordshire’s plans beyond 2019/20. The chief constable and the police and crime commissioner are working closely with their counterparts in the alliance and with local partner agencies to achieve greater efficiencies. The force invests well in ICT and technology; there is good commitment for invest-to-save projects, which should increase its capacity and capability.