City of London PEEL 2014

The City of London Police has a good understanding of organisational priorities and the flexibility within the workforce to support them. Supervision is intrusive and supportive.

Gaining an understanding of the three key communities (residential, business and transient) has resulted in good engagement and positive relationships in the City.

The force has a flexible operating model. For example, the infrastructure to support counter-terrorism e.g., automatic number plate recognition and the ‘ring of steel’ is also used in crime campaigns to track down travelling criminals.

The leaders of the organisation provide a clear message about the need for strong support for victims. This is reinforced with strong supervision and remedial action if standards are not met.

A good range of investigative techniques is used from the moment a crime has been committed and throughout the investigation e.g., CCTV and Oyster card usage.

The force has a culture of organisational learning and improvement, e.g., the introduction of an innovative procedure to identify calls made to and from mobile phones owned by criminals. This has speeded up investigations and brought offenders to justice more quickly.

Victim care is of a higher standard in specialist investigative units than in non-specialist units. More support should be made available to officers in non-specialist roles to ensure that they too are equipped to provide a first-class service.

The programme to tackle the most persistent offenders, called ‘integrated offender management’, would benefit from firmer governance. The City of London Police has put measures in place to address this.

Engagement with the residential, business and transient communities ensures that all interests are reflected in the style of policing in the City of London.

The City of London Police has developed mature partnership structures to support victims, target offenders and improve locations that are susceptible to anti-social behaviour being committed.

Daily reviews of repeat and vulnerable victims are subject to strong governance and there is the ability to provide victims with necessary support.

Anti-social behaviour is a strategic priority for the force and is included within the policing plan.

The domestic abuse inspection found that many of the domestic abuse incidents reported related to victims and offenders who resided outside the force area, with almost half of all reported incidents occurring on the street. The information that was recorded and passed to other policing organisations as part of any safeguarding plans was informative and of a high standard.

The crime inspection found evidence that the City of London Police had made progress in improving its response to domestic abuse. The inspection also reviewed the City of London Police’s domestic abuse action plan and found the force had provided a plan that outlined activity in line with the agreed national priorities for forces to improve their response to domestic abuse. The plan cross-referenced action to the areas of concern raised in HMIC inspections.

The crime inspection found that the force had to balance local demand against national responsibilities in relation to economic crime. As national lead force for fraud, the Economic Crime Directorate (ECD) provided the reporting mechanisms for fraud and online crime for all UK forces. The inspection found that the force adopted the same thorough assessment processes to identify those who were vulnerable or repeat victims of fraud. The ECD had a strong relationship with the National Crime Agency and used its specialist knowledge of economic crime to disrupt and dismantle organised crime groups.

The value for money inspection found that the force had recently secured funds to target organised criminals from Eastern Europe and was also seeking funds from the European Union this year. The inspection found that, in addition to providing policing to the City of London, the force also played an important national role in co-ordinating the country’s response to economic crime and fraud.

The Strategic Policing Requirement inspection found that the commissioner understood his role as specified in the Strategic Policing Requirement. The City of London Police had assessed the scale and nature of the terrorism, civil emergency, serious organised crime and public disorder threats but not that of a large-scale cyber incident. In relation to the public order threat, the City of London Police is able to provide the resources necessary to fulfil its contribution to the national requirement. We found that the City of London Police had, or had access to through collaboration with other forces regionally, the necessary capability to tackle terrorism, civil emergency, serious organised crime and public disorder but not a large-scale cyber incident.

HMIC found that interoperability between the City of London Police, the Metropolitan Police Service and other emergency services to provide London’s public order and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) capability was effective.

In the City of London Police we found that connectivity with other forces was effective for responding to terrorism, civil emergency, serious organised crime and public disorder but not large-scale cyber incidents.