Wendy Williams CBE

HM Inspector of Constabulary and HM Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services
Wendy Williams CBE

Wendy WilliamsBiography

Wendy Williams CBE, a solicitor, was a partner in a defence firm before joining HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI). In 2003 she joined the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as the Legal Director of the CPS London North Sector before becoming the Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Northumbria and the North East Region.

In 2015, Wendy was appointed as HM Inspector at HMIC (now HMICFRS) and has responsibility for 13 police forces across Wales and the West of England and 11 fire and rescue services in the West of England.

Wendy is the Senior Responsible Officer for HMICFRS’s Criminal Justice Joint Inspections portfolio and the rolling programme of custody inspections, which involves working with other criminal justice inspectorates, such as HM Inspectorate of Probation, HMCPSI, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and the equivalent Welsh inspectorates, across a range of criminal justice issues.

Wendy is committed to improving the criminal justice response to vulnerable people and has published a number of reports highlighting areas of concern such as: rape, child protection, the police response to honour-based violence, missing children, harassment and stalking, modern slavery and human trafficking, as well as a joint inspection of the disclosure of unused material.

Wendy Williams is the author of the independent Windrush Lessons Learned Review into the Home Office and its handling of events leading up to what became known as the Windrush scandal. This was presented to Parliament in 2020. More recently, the Home Secretary invited Wendy back to consider the progress made by the department in implementing her 30 recommendations, and her Windrush Lessons Learned Review Progress Update was published in 2022.

In 2020, she was appointed as a Non-executive Director of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. In 2023, Wendy joined the Advisory Board for the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, as well as the Oxford and Cambridge Universities’ Close the Gap Advisory Board. She was also appointed as a Commissioner for the Institute for Government’s Commission on the centre of government.

National role

Wendy Williams is the senior responsible owner of:

Regional role for police forces

Wendy Williams is His Majesty’s Inspector of the Constabulary for the Wales and Western Region and deals with the following forces:

Regional role for fire & rescue services

Wendy Williams is His Majesty’s Inspector of the Fire & Rescue Services for the following fire & rescue services: