Lincolnshire PEEL 2017
Effectiveness
How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
How effective is the force at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe?
This question was not inspected in 2017. The grade and findings from last year’s inspection still stand.
How effective is the force at investigating crime and reducing re-offending?
Lincolnshire Police investigates crime well. The force manages initial investigations well and its response to incidents is almost always appropriate. The quality of handovers is good. It handles a growing proportion of crime reports received over the telephone effectively. It prosecutes cases of fraud successfully.
The force allocates crime cases to appropriately qualified officers following the initial investigation. It is also making progress on dealing with the principal remaining areas of concern identified in our 2016 inspection.
The force is continuing to reduce the turnaround time for examination of phones, computers and other electronic devices.
It maintains good contact with victims during investigations, and does not cut short investigations even when victims withdraw co-operation.
Lincolnshire Police is also developing its understanding of re-offending and is making progress prioritising offenders who have not been arrested immediately, in line with recommendations from our 2016 inspection.
A clearer process, that tallies the number of wanted offenders from the Police National Computer, would improve the force’s apprehension of suspects.
Areas for improvement
- The force should reduce the backlog of intelligence submissions awaiting evaluation and analysis, to ensure it identifies and acts quickly on all important information.
- The force should improve the consistency of supervisory direction and guidance in investigations, and ensure that those cases involving wanted persons, circulated on the police national computer, receive regular supervisory oversight.
How effective is the force at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims?
Lincolnshire Police requires improvement at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims. It has a clear definition of vulnerability, which it communicates well to staff. Call handlers identify vulnerability and risk well. Officers’ initial responses at incidents, identifying those who are vulnerable, are good. They make appropriate safeguarding decisions and referrals to other agencies. Supervision of safeguarding actions is also good.
Officers attending domestic abuse incidents routinely check on the safety of children. The force meets frequently with partner organisations to identify children at risk from sexual exploitation.
The force has achieved good results through its partnership working, including a reduction in the number of people held in police custody under section 136 of the Mental Health Act.
The force has recruited more analysts to help understand patterns of offending, such as links between child sexual exploitation and missing children. However, it needs to improve its use of intelligence and risk assessments when a young person is first reported absent or missing.
Investigations of crimes involving vulnerable people also need to improve. In the force’s specialist team, dedicated to investigating rape and other serious sexual assaults, we found continuing unacceptable delays in forensic examiner attendance to sexual offence victims. We also found that high demand is placing a strain on:
- officers’ capacity, causing investigations to progress slowly; and
- paedophile and online investigation teams.
More positively, all high-risk domestic abuse cases are referred to multi-agency risk assessment conferences; which are working well.
Areas for improvement
- The force should review its absent and missing children procedures in the control room to ensure that it is undertaking appropriate actions to understand and reduce the risk to children categorised as missing and absent.
- The force should review the level of demand within its high risk departments and ensure that cases are investigated to a high standard by qualified detectives and that workloads are manageable to meet the needs of victims.
- The force should continue to review its contractual arrangements to ensure that adequate performance measures are in place to ensure victims of rape and sexual assault are examined more quickly.
- The force should review the demand and subsequent backlog in the paedophile and online investigation team and ensure that children are adequately protected.
- The force should ensure that all specialist staff have the right training and have the opportunity for continuing professional development, so they can fulfil their investigative and safeguarding responsibilities well.
How effective is the force at tackling serious and organised crime?
This question was not inspected in 2017. The grade and findings from last year’s inspection still stand.
How effective are the force’s specialist capabilities?
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 enough trained staff and officers are available to respond to national threats;
- tests its skills in training exercises;
- has developed a good understanding of the threat to the public from an armed attack; and
- has fulfilled its commitment to a national programme to increase armed policing in England and Wales.