West Yorkshire PEEL 2017

West Yorkshire Police is good at preventing crime and tackling anti-social behaviour. It is undertaking a neighbourhood policing review in response to our 2016 inspection. The force’s approach to neighbourhood policing focuses on crime prevention. It:

• uses targeted patrols with the aim of preventing crime, focusing resources on areas of high crime; and
• trains officers and staff to apply the principles of problem-solving for crime prevention.

The force has a good understanding of its communities and the threats they face. It seeks to understand threat levels and identify risks, concerns and crime trends by:

• analysing police and partner data;
• attending public meetings; and
• working with partner agencies.

There is a good understanding of local communities through the compilation of comprehensive community profiles. These profiles include information on organised crime groups, important individual networks, offenders of note and areas of high demand.

The force is using a new model for problem solving and is developing a partnership approach to early intervention. It attends local partner meetings that promote effective collaboration, exchange of intelligence and setting of joint goals.

West Yorkshire Police effectively uses legal powers, such as criminal behaviour orders. However, it would benefit from disseminating effective practice routinely throughout the five policing districts and to the organisations it works with, to improve prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour.

West Yorkshire Police’s approach to investigating crime and reducing re-offending requires improvement. Different deployment and crime allocation processes in the five policing districts cause delays in responding to calls and in conducting comprehensive risk assessments for victims.

The quality of the force’s initial investigative response and handover of work between teams is a cause of concern. It needs to:

• improve its response and allocation of resources to incidents not requiring an immediate response;
• improve the handover process and its supervision to ensure investigators receive complete and high-quality information; and
• provide appropriate training and support to all those carrying out investigations, including frontline officers retrieving forensic evidence from crime scenes.

Investigations of more serious and complex cases are generally good. However, a lack of officers with detective skills and experience negatively affects the quality and supervision of low-level crime investigations.

The force should:

• develop a policy outlining minimum investigative standards, and roles and responsibilities of officers and supervisors; and
• ensure regular and active supervision of investigations to improve quality and progress.

It provides a good service to victims and has strong, supervised processes for keeping them updated on investigation progress.

The force needs to improve its procedures for tracking down individuals who are wanted for offences, to ensure they are arrested promptly and are prevented from causing further harm. However, it works well with partner organisations, such as the prison and probation services, to reduce re-offending by known offenders.

West Yorkshire Police is generally good at protecting vulnerable people and supporting victims. The force:

• identifies vulnerability routinely at the first point of contact;
• works closely with other organisations to understand community threats and risk; and
• has policies that provide clear guidance for safeguarding children, young people and adults.

Its initial response to incidents involving vulnerable people, particularly victims of domestic abuse, is generally good.

The force has a good understanding of the vulnerability in its area that involves mental health. However, operating practices and support for people experiencing mental health issues vary widely throughout the five policing districts.

The force should ensure that crimes involving vulnerable people are allocated to officers and staff with the appropriate skills and training, and that investigations are supervised effectively.

It also needs to improve the capability and capacity of its safeguarding units. The force should ensure that workloads are manageable and that adequate welfare and support is available.

The force is adequately prepared to manage the risk posed by dangerous and sexual offenders. It has clear management plans and a formal risk assessment procedure. The force is committed to working with a range of partner organisations to protect vulnerable people and has effective multi-agency arrangements to exchange information.

This question was not inspected in 2017. The grade and findings from last year’s inspection still stand.

National threats often require forces to work together, across force boundaries. These threats include terrorism, large-scale disorder and civil emergencies. We examined the capabilities in place to respond to these threats, in particular a firearms attack.

Most positively, the force:

• works with other forces to ensure there are sufficient staff and officers with specialist skills to respond to national threats;
• tests its skills in training exercises; and
• carefully analyses training and testing exercises to improve its response to national threats.

However, the force should set out its understanding of the criminal use of firearms in a threat assessment that is specific to the West Yorkshire area.