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Greater Manchester PEEL 2017

Effectiveness

How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Last updated 22/03/2018
Requires improvement

Greater Manchester Police requires improvement at keeping people safe and reducing crime. Although the force has made progress in some areas since 2016, its approach to protecting vulnerable people has deteriorated. This is the main reason for our overall judgment moving from good to requires improvement.

Demand on resources is high with a significant increase in crime recording since the last inspection. Further action is therefore needed to ensure timely attendance, safeguarding of victims and evidence recovery at incidents involving vulnerable people. As such Greater Manchester Police needs to improve the way it investigates crime and how it protects those victims who are vulnerable.

The force has effective processes in place to assess the risk within incidents and crimes at initial contact in its control room. These identify those people who are vulnerable or have been repeat victims of crime and domestic abuse. However, once the level of risk and appropriate graded response has been decided, the force has difficulty at times in allocating resources to attend those calls and meet that demand. This has an adverse impact on the initial investigation of crime, obtaining evidence at the scene, the potential for arresting offenders and safeguarding victims of crime. This means that victims are not always receiving the best service from the police and is a cause of concern for HMICFRS. Once officers are in attendance at incidents and crimes, the service to the public and safeguarding of victims improves.

The force also needs to improve the quality of its investigations, particularly for non- complex offences, increasing the active supervision of investigations and ensuring that appropriate lines of enquiry and evidential opportunities are taken to improve the outcomes of those investigations for victims of crime. The quality of investigations into serious or complex offences is better, with appropriate oversight and victim care. The force has effective processes to apprehend offenders and manage those who are most at risk of re-offending.

The force has effective partnership working with other organisations, such as local authorities or mental health services. As a result of this, it is able to maintain continuing support and longer-term safeguarding for the people who have been identified as most vulnerable.

Greater Manchester Police has the necessary arrangements in place to fulfil its national responsibilities, and to respond to an attack requiring an armed response.

Questions for Effectiveness

2

How effective is the force at investigating crime and reducing re-offending?

Requires improvement

Greater Manchester Police requires improvement at investigating crime and reducing re-offending.

The force:

  • has effective processes in place to manage offenders who pose a risk to the public; and
  • is improving the quality of its investigations of lower-level offences.

However, the force needs to ensure that there is regular and active supervision of investigations to improve quality and progress.

The force also:

  • conducts investigations of inconsistent quality, partly due to a shortage of detectives; and
  • sometimes fails to bring offenders to justice as effectively as it should.

Areas for improvement

  • The force should take steps to ensure that all available evidence is recorded at scenes of crime.
  • The force should ensure that there is regular and active supervision of investigations to improve quality and progress.

3

How effective is the force at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims?

Requires improvement

Greater Manchester Police requires improvement at protecting vulnerable people and supporting victims.

The force is effective at:

  • identifying vulnerable people;
  • carrying out the initial risk assessment and referring victims and vulnerable people to other organisations;
  • using legal powers to protect vulnerable victims; and
  • working with partner organisations to provide longer-term safeguarding arrangements for vulnerable people and victims of crime.

However, the force:

  • routinely fails to attend incidents within an appropriate timescale;
  • needs to improve the quality of investigations in cases involving vulnerable people; and
  • should seek to improve the way it obtains feedback from vulnerable victims and uses this to improve the services it provides.

The force’s failure to respond appropriately to some people who are vulnerable is a cause of concern for HMICFRS.

The force is aware of its failure to provide a consistent and effective response to vulnerable victims and has plans in place to improve its attendance times.

Cause of concern

Greater Manchester Police is failing to respond appropriately to some people who are vulnerable and at risk. This means that early opportunities to safeguard victims and secure evidence at the scene are being missed, and victims are being put at risk.

Recommendations

  • The force should improve its understanding of demand for its services and take appropriate action to ensure demand is managed more effectively.
  • The force should improve its ability to respond appropriately to calls for service and improve the initial investigative response it provides to all vulnerable victims.

Areas for improvement

  • The force should implement a process to obtain feedback from victims of domestic abuse.

5

How effective are the force’s specialist capabilities?

Ungraded

National threats often require forces to work together, across force boundaries. These threats include terrorism, large-scale disorder and civil emergencies. We examined the capabilities in place to respond to these threats, in particular a firearms attack.

Most positively, the force:

  • works with other forces to ensure sufficient staff and officers with specialist skills respond to national threats;
  • tests its skills and capabilities in training exercises;
  • has established a joint communications centre, with other emergency services and other organisations, to improve its response to major incidents; and
  • has developed an adequate understanding of the threat that the public face from an armed attack.

However, the force needs to:

  • set out its understanding of the criminal use of firearms in a threat assessment that is specific to the Greater Manchester area.