North Yorkshire PEEL 2016

North Yorkshire Police is good at treating all of the people it serves with fairness and respect.

The force has openly stated its values of courage, compassion and inspiration, which are underpinned by the Code of Ethics. We found that the force values and the Code of Ethics were widely understood across the force.

The force uses a wide variety of methods to seek feedback and identify the issues of greatest concern to the public, including formal surveys, targeted initiatives and online sources such as the force’s website and social media.

Initiatives such as the rural taskforce and the roads policing team demonstrate that the force acts on feedback and learning to improve the service it provides.

North Yorkshire Police is good at ensuring that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully.

The force has comprehensive vetting arrangements in place for new officers, staff, volunteers and contractors, which are compliant with national guidance. The force regularly clarifies and continues to reinforce standards of acceptable behaviour, using a variety of methods. The force has policies and procedures in relation to business interests, notifiable associations and gifts and hospitality.

The force has governance structures in place to identify and manage individual and organisational risks. Annual reports are provided to the chief officer team and the police and crime commissioner on corruption and misconduct matters, including analysis of trends. During 2015/16, the force reported conducting 276 random drugs tests, which included the chief officer team, with no positive results. Officers and staff across the force recognise that the abuse of authority for sexual gain is completely unacceptable and seriously undermines the confidence of the public.

The force publishes the outcome of gross misconduct cases and it also provides comprehensive details of all gifts and hospitality offered, accepted, refused or donated to charity. The force makes the outcomes of complaint and misconduct cases available to its workforce in the form of a bi-monthly organisational learning bulletin.

In our 2016 national overview of police legitimacy, we recommended that all forces should have started to implement a plan to achieve the capability and capacity required to seek intelligence on potential abuse of position for sexual gain. In 2017, we reviewed of the plans put in place by all forces to in response to this recommendation.

Abuse of position assessment – North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire Police treats its officers and staff with fairness and respect.

The force uses a range of methods to identify and understand what affects the workforce’s perceptions of fair and respectful treatment. The people strategy prioritises valuing, managing and developing people. The force monitors and analyses data in respect of complaints, compliments, misconduct, grievances and diversity.

The force recognises the value of workforce wellbeing and commissioned an independent wellbeing survey in 2014. The force has responded well to the findings of the survey, although we found that some members of the workforce were unaware of these efforts. The force monitors levels of overtime, sickness, injuries on duty and other personnel data and focus groups have been held with the workforce to identify wellbeing problems.

The force introduced a new PDR system in April 2016, which is aligned with national guidance. At this early stage, it is not possible to assess the impact of the new system.