Warwickshire 2017

HMI's observations

Read my assessment of Warwickshire Police below.

I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of Warwickshire Police in keeping people safe and reducing crime, but the force needs to make improvements in a number of areas to provide a consistently good service.

The force has more to do to keep people safe and reduce crime effectively. Although it benefits from positive relationships with partner organisations, it needs to improve its understanding of local communities and its use of techniques to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour.

The force has a good understanding of demand, and its strategic alliance with West Mercia Police has enabled both forces to make considerable savings and achieve efficiencies. Its change programme is both ambitious and innovative.

The force needs to do more to satisfy itself that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully. However, its leaders demonstrate a growing commitment to health and wellbeing, and it has begun to develop the most talented officers and staff, and to improve individual performance.

My overall assessment is that the force’s performance has declined since last year.

Warwickshire Police has been assessed as requiring improvement in respect of how effective it is at keeping people safe and reducing crime. This contrasts with last year’s assessment, when we judged the force to be good.

Read more about Effectiveness

The force has not responded well enough to our previous recommendations. The use of structured problem-solving techniques to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour is not widespread within neighbourhood teams and the force’s understanding of its communities is insufficiently advanced. This means its response to problems is not always based on feedback from local communities and it does not evaluate its use of tactics and interventions to improve its service to the public.

Warwickshire Police’s workforce displays a strong understanding of the signs of vulnerability. It investigates crimes involving vulnerable people well. The scheduled replacement of outdated ICT systems in the control room is anticipated to improve how the force recognises and responds to the needs of vulnerable people when they first contact the force.

The force’s approach to serious and organised crime requires improvement. The force works well with other organisations to increase its understanding of the risks posed by organised crime groups (OCGs); however, its processes for scrutinising the use of tactics and interventions are under developed. The force knows it must ensure that the prevention of serious and organised crime is based on a comprehensive understanding of the threats posed by this type of criminality. Constructive arrangements with partner organisations (such as local authorities, or health and education services) mean the force works effectively in the prevention of organised crime. In particular, joint schemes to help people who are becoming involved in this sort of crime work well.

Warwickshire Police has the necessary arrangements in place to ensure that it can fulfil its national policing responsibilities, and to respond to an attack requiring an armed response.

View the five questions for effectiveness

Warwickshire Police is judged to be good in the efficiency with which it keeps people safe and reduces crime. Our overall judgment this year is the same as last year. The force is judged to be good in its understanding of demand; its use of resources to manage demand is assessed to be good; and its planning for future demand is also judged to be good.

Read more about Efficiency

Warwickshire Police has a good understanding of current and likely future demand and continually assesses its ability to respond effectively. Its strategic alliance with West Mercia Police is a strength that has enabled both forces to make considerable savings. Forthcoming developments include the introduction of new control rooms, supported by advances in technology that include new command and control, intelligence and mobile data systems. These developments are timely, because the force is experiencing operational pressures within its control rooms, leading to inefficient processes for call-handling and crime management. The force is refining its new investigative model to improve how it manages crimes and transfer of investigations to officers with the right skills.

The force’s change programme is subject to firm governance, increasing the likelihood of benefits being realised and avoiding unintended consequences. The force exposes itself to external scrutiny to provide further validation and it engages with its workforce well, allowing officers and staff to influence future changes. There is a strong commitment to leadership development and the force’s new approach to talent management offers a good opportunity to identify and develop the most talented members of its workforce. Across the strategic alliance, there are mature arrangements in place to support partnership work and its change programme is ambitious and innovative.

View the three questions for efficiency

Warwickshire Police is judged as requiring improvement in how legitimately it keeps people safe and reduces crime. For the areas of legitimacy we looked at this year, our overall judgment is less positive than last year when we assessed the force as good. The force requires improvement in some aspects of treating all the people it serves with fairness and respect; it requires improvement in ensuring its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully; and it requires improvement in some aspects of treating its workforce with fairness and respect.

Read more about Legitimacy

Warwickshire Police is judged as requiring improvement in respect of how legitimately it keeps people safe and reduces crime. Although leaders clearly demonstrate that they understand and value the benefits of procedural justice, they need to provide the workforce with training so that the force acts fairly, treats people with respect and communicates effectively. The force scrutinises its use of stop and search powers well, but must improve its understanding of how its officers and staff use force. Reassuringly, the force encourages external scrutiny from different groups and acts on their feedback, but it would benefit from involving young people more.

Warwickshire Police takes steps to ensure that its workforce makes decisions that are ethical. Its internal ethics committee is a new development that will provide officers and staff with opportunities to raise ethical questions and allow for learning to be passed on. The force needs to improve its handling of complaints and misconduct cases, including how it supports and communicates with complainants, witnesses and those subject to investigation. It needs to be consistent in handling cases that involve discrimination and it could do more to promote access to the complaints system for people who need extra assistance.

The force requires improvement in some aspects of treating its workforce with fairness and respect. Although it understands the importance of addressing potential disproportionality in the recruitment, retention and progression of officers and staff with protected characteristics (such as age, gender or sexuality), it does not monitor disproportionality in their treatment if they are subjected to complaint or misconduct investigations. Positively, leaders demonstrate a growing commitment to health and wellbeing, particularly support for mental health, and this is recognised by the workforce. The force is also working to improve how it manages and develops individual performance, but many of its initiatives are recent and their benefits cannot yet be determined. The introduction of continuing professional development provides Warwickshire Police with the ability to identify leadership potential throughout its workforce; its leadership selection process is fair and open, and the workforce perceives it to be fair.

View the three questions for legitimacy

In addition to the three core PEEL pillars, HMICFRS carries out inspections of a wide range of policing activity throughout the year. Some of these are conducted alongside the PEEL inspections; others are joint inspections.

Findings from these inspections are published separately to the main PEEL reports, but are taken into account when producing the rounded assessment of each force's performance.

Abuse of position assessment – Warwickshire Police – published on 5 October 2017

View other reports

Key facts – 2019/20

Force Area

764 square miles

Population

0.584m people

7% local 10 yr change

Workforce

91% frontline police officers

92% national level

3.14 per 1000 population

3.69 national level

3% 10yr change in local workforce

5% 10yr national change

Victim-based crimes

0.05 per person

0.06 national level

7% Local 5 year trend

9% National 5 year trend

Cost

52p per person per day local

59p per person per day national

Warwickshire 2017

HMI's observations

Effectiveness

How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Efficiency

How efficient is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Legitimacy

How legitimate is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Other inspections

How well has the force performed in our other inspections?