This year, for the first time, we have assessed leadership across the force. The assessment has led to a narrative rather than graded judgment, which is summarised below.
Read more about my assessment of Warwickshire Police’s performance this year, including where I would like to see improvements next year.
I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of Warwickshire Police in keeping people safe and reducing crime, but there are areas in need of improvement in order to provide a consistently good service.
The force is good at preventing crime and anti-social behaviour and works well with partner agencies. The investigations undertaken by the force are high quality and well supervised. I am pleased to see the force is addressing all of the issues raised in HMIC’s domestic abuse inspection in 2014 and that the service to victims is improving. However, I remain concerned about the way in which the force assesses the risk faced by domestic abuse victims. I am similarly concerned by the way the force assesses and responds to risks faced by missing children. The understanding of, and response to, serious and organised crime is also in need of improvement.
I am impressed by the added resilience of the services provided to the communities of Warwickshire and West Mercia by the alliance with West Mercia Police. The alliance is a major contributor to Warwickshire Police being well prepared to face its future financial challenges. I am reassured by the comprehensive analysis of the changing nature of demands for services that is underway to develop options for a future shared operating model.
Notwithstanding the concerns that I have about the force’s performance, I welcome the way in which the force has acknowledged and responded to the issues we have raised.
Description of force area
Warwickshire Police provides policing services to the county of Warwickshire. Warwickshire is generally affluent. Around 0.6 million people mainly live in the urban centres which include the towns of Warwick, Nuneaton and Rugby. The resident population is increased by university students and the large numbers who visit or travel through the area each year. The transport infrastructure includes major rail stations.
The proportion of areas in Warwickshire that are predicted to present a very high challenge to the police is broadly in line with the national average. These are characterised by social deprivation or a concentration of commercial premises (including licensed premises), and in some cases both.
Working arrangements
The alliance with West Mercia Police is the most extensive collaboration between forces in England and Wales. All resources below the level of chief constable and deputy chief constable are shared between both forces, with any savings being shared proportionately.
Effectiveness
In our effectiveness inspection, we judged Warwickshire Police to require improvement in the way in which it keeps people safe and reduces crime. The force is good at preventing crime and anti-social behaviour, most notably by working effectively with partner agencies. The force investigates crime well and the standard of supervision is a strength. The way in which the force assesses the risk faced by domestic abuse victims and missing children requires improvement. Improvement is also required in how the force understands and responds to serious and organised crime. This is the first year HMIC has graded forces on their overall effectiveness so a year-on-year comparison is not possible.
Efficiency
Warwickshire Police is well prepared to face its future financial challenges. It has achieved notable increases in efficiency and improved resilience through its alliance with West Mercia Police, which has allowed it to minimise the impact of reductions in spending on frontline policing. It has also achieved more savings than required over the last spending review period. In last year’s value for money inspection, which considered how forces had met the challenge of the previous spending review period, Warwickshire was also judged to be good.
Legitimacy
Warwickshire Police is developing an ethical culture. However it has more to do to provide sufficient wellbeing and welfare support for its workforce, and to ensure that complaints and misconduct are properly assessed and free of bias.
The force understands the people it serves, but should improve the way that it communicates its engagement strategy to the workforce. The force is not complying with many features of the Best Use of Stop and Search scheme and HMIC has a number of concerns about how Warwickshire Police conducts and records instances of stop and search. The majority of Taser by officers across the force is fair and appropriate.
This is the first time HMIC has graded forces on their legitimacy, so no year-on-year comparison is possible.
Leadership
Warwickshire Police has clearly communicated its expectations of leaders. The force has worked well with West Mercia Police to create a single vision for the alliance between the forces, which focuses on protecting people from harm. This vision has been both embraced and implemented by both chief officer teams.
We found that the workforce has a good understanding of the force’s expectations, priorities and plans for the future. The force had not agreed details of its future workforce model, for some understandable reasons, but it could have done more to address staff and officers’ concerns about job security. The force could also do more to ensure that it is identifying and developing talent, and should implement a more structured leadership programme to provide better training and development.
Insights from other inspections
HMIC undertakes other inspections in addition to the PEEL programme. Since the last PEEL assessment there have been four reports published on inspections that included Warwickshire Police. More detail on some of these inspections can be found under the Other inspections section.
Looking ahead to PEEL 2016
In the year ahead, I will be interested to see how the force responds to this assessment, along with the cause of concern and areas for improvement that HMIC has identified in the last year.
I will be particularly interested to see:
- improvements in the assessment of risk to victims of domestic abuse and missing and absent children, especially children in care;
- improvements in how the force responds to persistent missing children, especially children in care;
- compliance with Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme;
- the outcome of the analysis of demands for services; and
- how the force uses its analysis of demand in developing a new joint operating model with its alliance partner, West Mercia Police.
In May 2016, like the majority of forces in England and Wales, the force will see the second elections for its police and crime commissioner.
