Serious and organised crime
Part of: Large-scale policing Protecting people from violence and abuse
Regional organised crime units (ROCUs) should lead the regional response to serious and organised crime (SOC). Police forces should work closely with ROCUs to coordinate the regional response against the highest harm SOC threats.
There are nine ROCUs across England and Wales. There is a separate collaborative arrangement for the London region incorporating the Metropolitan Police Service, City of London Police and the British Transport Police. We tailor our inspection of the London region, to consider this different arrangement.
2022/23 inspections
In the 2021/22 reporting year, we changed our PEEL inspection programme to ensure that we inspect the regional response to SOC. Previously, we inspected and graded the 43 forces across England and Wales. We now inspect and grade all forces and ROCUs. This approach improves our understanding of how forces and ROCUs work together to tackle SOC. We judge forces against the PEEL assessment framework.
Inspections are scheduled so that regional forces and their ROCU are inspected together. Our findings for each region are reported in a single SOC inspection report which will be added to this page.
Reports
An inspection of the north-west regional response to serious and organised crime – 10 November 2023
This inspection examined how well police forces tackle serious and organised crime in Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales.
An inspection of the London regional response to serious and organised crime – 19 May 2023
An inspection of the eastern regional response to serious and organised crime – 19 May 2023
An inspection of the east midlands regional response to serious and organised crime – 2 March 2023
This inspection examined how well police forces tackle serious and organised crime in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire.
An inspection of the north-east regional response to serious and organised crime – 7 December 2022
This inspection examined how well police forces tackle serious and organised crime in Cleveland, Durham, and Northumbria.
Pre-PEEL reports
Regional Organised Crime Units – An inspection of the effectiveness of the Regional Organised Crime Units – February 2021
In this inspection, we examined how effectively and efficiently ROCUs tackle the threat from SOC.
Regional organised crime units – A review of capability and effectiveness – December 2015
This report examined the capabilities and effectiveness of ROCUs in tackling serious and organised crime.