In making this first PEEL Assessment of Greater Manchester I have taken into account the challenges to policing in this area.
The population of Greater Manchester is swelled by a large number of students, as well as a large amount of people commuting into the area on a daily basis. A large element of Greater Manchester’s policing services is concerned with protecting people from serious harm, including sex offences, child sexual exploitation and organised crime.
I have been encouraged that partnership working, early intervention, and the management of offenders are strengths for the force. The force is aiming to develop a consistent model and approach to reduce crime and prevent offending, and is changing to a fully-integrated neighbourhood-based way of working to engage with communities.
The force understands its demands and uses this information to make decisions on how resources are, or will be, allocated. Its continuous evaluation of harm, opportunity and threat on all levels is a strength.
The force has made a long-term commitment to work in a much closer and more integrated way with partners as part of ‘Programme Challenger’. This will be as part of a co-ordinated multi-agency response to tackle complex serious organised criminality, safeguard people and address complex dependency, with a focus on reducing demand for all public service partners in the long term. I regard this approach as innovative.
The force has made excellent progress in challenging financial circumstances. It is achieving the required savings today and has innovative plans to manage future austerity with public sector partners to achieve the savings required.
I do have concerns about how the force investigates offending, and in particular, the inconsistencies that exist in the supervision of investigations and in investigation plans.
As reported earlier in 2014, HMIC has concerns about the force’s response to victims of domestic abuse. The domestic abuse inspection found significant concerns about the ability of Greater Manchester to deal consistently and appropriately with victims of domestic abuse, and found serious weaknesses in the processes and systems in place to manage the risk to victims. The reinspection in this area, which will be published shortly, recognises the progress that the force has subsequently made.
I was concerned by some of the findings of the police integrity and corruption inspection that found there was a need to develop training, check understanding and ensure unprofessional behaviour is challenged by all members of the force.
I also have serious concerns about the force’s approach to crime-recording, which is not as accurate as it should be.
Our intention is to examine leadership specifically as part of future PEEL Assessments, once criteria have been established. This will allow us to take account of the College of Policing review of leadership that is currently underway.
In common with other forces, there is a need to develop a better understanding of the changing demands for police services.
Over the past 12 months, there have been a number of inspections made of Greater Manchester that have suggested a number of recurrent issues, particularly in relation to limited training provision across the force for staff in some frontline policing roles. However, I recognise training for staff on identifying vulnerability and safeguarding domestic abuse victims has been prioritised.
I am interested to see how the force responds to the areas HMIC has identified for improvement over the next 12 months. In particular:
- addressing the recommendations from the crime data integrity inspection report; and
- how the force will manage to reduce demand for service as it further develops how its core policing services will be delivered.
