Lincolnshire Police has been assessed as good in respect of its effectiveness at keeping people safe and reducing crime. Our overall judgment is an improvement on last year, when we judged the force to require improvement. The force has an effective approach to preventing crime, keeping people safe and tackling anti-social behaviour and serious and organised crime. It generally conducts investigations to a good standard, although it still needs to improve the service it provides to vulnerable people.
Lincolnshire Police is good at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe. Neighbourhood teams are well led, and are briefed and assigned tasks on a daily basis. The staff in these teams are not re-assigned to other tasks outside their area, and so work with other organisations at a local level is effective. They have a good understanding of their communities. The force makes good use of Facebook, Twitter and LincsAlert to engage with the public. Local policing priorities are set mainly by panels of community members.
It continues to work well with other organisations to tackle anti-social behaviour. There are established monthly anti-social behaviour risk conferences along with weekly practitioner meetings between neighbourhood teams and key organisations, including the local authority and housing associations.
The force has made good progress in developing an evidence-based approach to providing services and it is making better use of effective tactics. However, the force’s analytical capacity and its ability to process intelligence and continually improve its approach to the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour are growing challenges.
Lincolnshire Police’s effectiveness at investigating crime and reducing re-offending is good. The quality of some investigations still needs to improve, but effective leadership and processes are raising standards.
Control room staff assess calls based on the level of threat, harm, risk and vulnerability faced by the victim, rather than simply by the type of incident. Most calls are attended within acceptable timeframes for the victims. The standards of initial investigations are good and important initial enquiries are generally completed well. Crimes are allocated to officers with appropriate skills. The force has substantially reduced the backlog of computers and telephones waiting for digital examination.
The force has a scheme that is equivalent to the integrated offender management scheme, which is good and growing. The scheme actively manages those offenders who pose a risk to the public. The force is adequately prepared to manage the risk posed by dangerous and sexual offenders.
However, when offenders are not immediately arrested, there is no force-level oversight of cases where there is a named suspect and no prioritised process to ensure that those offenders who cause the most harm are captured and dealt with quickly.
The force has invested in training for all staff whose role involves victim contact to keep victims at the centre of investigations. Victims are provided with a satisfactory service, including special measures, updates and victim personal statements.
Lincolnshire Police’s effectiveness at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm and supporting victims requires improvement. The force does not have a good understanding of the nature and scale of vulnerability because it lacks enough analysts, the IT systems cannot record vulnerability and domestic abuse is not always recorded accurately.
The force is generally good at identifying people who are vulnerable through their age, disability, or because they have been subjected to repeated offences, or are at high risk of abuse, for example at initial contact and often responds well in meeting the needs of victims who are vulnerable. However, officers attending domestic abuse incidents are not always recording how children are affected and there is still an inconsistent approach to managing risk for missing and absent children. Not all frontline staff know how to identify and respond to possible child sexual exploitation.
Lincolnshire Police is good at tackling serious and organised crime. It assigns competent lead responsible officers to manage all mapped organised crime groups and works positively with a range of other organisations on gathering information and problem-solving. The force has a good understanding of the threats posed by serious and organised crime. There is good exchange of information at neighbourhood level between the police and other organisations, such as licensing teams, HM Revenue and Customs, Trading Standards and local authority staff.
Neighbourhood and response teams have a good awareness of the organised crime groups operating in their areas and are involved in intelligence-gathering and, where appropriate, disruption activity. Successful operations that dismantle organised crime groups are well publicised, using both the media and social networking. Neighbourhood policing teams help to spread messages, providing reassurance.
The force is developing its approach to managing serious and organised criminals to prevent them from re-offending and continues to deter people from becoming involved in crime, particularly through initiatives to support families.
Lincolnshire Police has assessed the threats identified in the Strategic Policing Requirement (PDF document), although its analysis of cyber-crime and child abuse is more limited. It regularly exercises and tests its public order, firearms and civil emergencies response with other forces in the region and with organisations such as the military and the fire and ambulance services. The force shares lessons learned with the local resilience forum and also at regional and national level meetings. It has prepared business continuity plans in case of major disruption to services.
The force is part of the East Midlands operational support services collaboration, which has adequately assessed the threat of an attack requiring an armed response. Plans are in place to increase the force’s firearms capability by March 2017.
