Cleveland PEEL 2018

Cleveland Police doesn’t treat the public fairly enough. It doesn’t adequately understand or value the benefits of engaging with the community. And it doesn’t place enough importance on procedural justice and treating people with fairness and respect.

The force doesn’t encourage a culture that values engagement with the public. It doesn’t use its communication channels effectively. This means it isn’t giving local people the opportunity to voice their needs, concerns and preferences. It isn’t open about the decisions and actions it takes. But it has successfully engaged young people and volunteers in policing.

The force doesn’t treat its communities with enough respect. It experiences higher levels of complaints from the public than most other forces. It has been trying to improve this through raising the awareness of frontline staff about their professional behaviour. There is an inconsistent understanding of unconscious bias across the workforce. We found examples of unconscious bias and inappropriate language used between colleagues, and we are concerned that this will influence how staff treat members of the public.

Cleveland Police isn’t good enough at monitoring the way it uses force. It therefore doesn’t understand if its use is fair and appropriate. It doesn’t monitor a comprehensive dataset effectively. It is poor at using external scrutiny to seek the views of the public and consider what improvements it can make. Without this understanding, it doesn’t know where it needs to improve.

While the force has low numbers of stop and search encounters, it understands how the powers are used. But it hasn’t sufficiently improved how it records its use of these powers.

Cleveland Police has required improvement in this area throughout all our PEEL inspections since 2015. It hasn’t made adequate progress in this four-year period.

Cleveland Police isn’t adequately maintaining an ethical culture. Many senior leaders (superintending and chief officer ranks, and senior police staff managers) aren’t acting as positive ethical role models. There are too many examples of these leaders:

• not taking responsibility;
• not acting with honesty, integrity and competence;
• opposing constructive challenge; and
• apportioning blame.

This behaviour is having a profoundly negative impact on the force’s ability to be effective and efficient in what it does. It concerns us that the chief constable is unable to trust the information he receives from within the force. Some of the reported information is inaccurate and a misrepresentation of the force. The force has developed a new set of values and behaviours, but officers and staff aren’t yet demonstrating them consistently.

The force needs to improve how it tackles corruption within its workforce. While we recognise the improvements it has made in this area, there is still more to do. The force isn’t sufficiently managing the internal risk to identify those people who are most susceptible to corruption. There isn’t enough capability within the force’s counter-corruption unit (CCU) to monitor all force systems. The force recognises abuse of position for a sexual purpose as a serious corruption issue. But it needs to improve its links with organisations that support vulnerable people.

Cleveland Police has required improvement in this area throughout all our PEEL inspections since 2015. It hasn’t made adequate progress in this four-year period and, although it put new arrangements in place, it then abandoned them.

Cleveland Police doesn’t fully understand the concerns its people have about fairness at work. It doesn’t consistently treat its people fairly. We are concerned that, when officers and staff are treated unfairly, this might affect how they treat members of the public.

The force has limited ways in which it seeks feedback about fair treatment. Most officers and staff are happy to voice their concerns but don’t feel the force listens to them. The force isn’t good enough at telling the workforce what action it has taken as a result of their feedback. There is no mechanism for workforce to challenge what the force does, which means that their voice isn’t always heard at the right time.

Cleveland Police needs to improve its understanding of wellbeing to inform the way it cares for its people. It has prioritised its wellbeing strategy, re-established its governance arrangements and extended its wellbeing services. But it hasn’t communicated this effectively and the workforce isn’t yet fully aware or seeing the benefits. The force doesn’t have a good enough understanding of the risks and threats to the wellbeing of its workforce. And it isn’t always meeting its basic duty of care for its people.

The force doesn’t manage the individual performance or development of its people effectively. It doesn’t have anything in place to allow it to understand performance across the workforce. Supervisors don’t effectively identify and manage poor performance. The force has limited ways of identifying potential talent within its workforce. Too many officers and staff don’t perceive the promotion processes to be fair.

Cleveland Police has required improvement in this area throughout all our PEEL inspections since 2015. It hasn’t made adequate progress in this four-year period and, although it put new arrangements in place, it then stopped them.