Cleveland PEEL 2018

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the force’s performance in this area.

Treating people fairly and respectfully

Cleveland Police doesn’t value the benefits of engaging with communities, procedural justice and treating people with fairness and respect. It isn’t being open in the decisions and actions it takes and it doesn’t give members of the community the opportunity to voice their concerns. The force had previously communicated the importance of fairness and respect through its ‘Everyone Matters’ programme. However, this stopped in 2018 because there was insufficient leadership and accountability for it to become established practice.

Leaders aren’t considering the importance of treating the public with respect when making force-level decisions. They don’t consult the public about what they want from their police service or use this information to guide the force’s priorities. While the force did talk to local councillors about changes in the service provided, it didn’t inform its communities. This means that in some areas local communities are experiencing a reduced service without understanding why.

Cleveland Police doesn’t foster a culture that values communication with the local community. It isn’t trying to find out the needs, preferences and concerns of those communities that traditionally interact less often with, or have lower confidence in, the police. It has an engagement strategy that the workforce doesn’t widely understand or apply. The workforce also doesn’t use the various force communication channels effectively to engage with the public. Officers and staff rely on social media channels to broadcast messages, but don’t use them to invite feedback. The force also doesn’t use its website to engage with the public and it is neither maintaining nor developing the site – it is waiting to adopt a national approach for the single online home. However, the force is successfully developing its approach to youth engagement.

The Everyone Matters programme previously guided the force’s approach to treating people with fairness and respect. This focused on ‘serving our communities’ and included themes such as engagement and addressing barriers to engagement. However, this has now stopped. The OPCC will be re-launching it, but with a focus on equality, diversity and inclusion rather than broader engagement with communities.

Force policies and procedures clearly explain the importance of fair decision making and respectful treatment, particularly during interactions with the public. Frontline officers and staff understand the importance of this. However, the force doesn’t consistently demonstrate it in how it interacts with its communities, although it is starting to improve.

The force experiences higher levels of complaints than other forces. It had 525 complaint allegations in the 12 months to December 2018, which is significantly higher than other forces. This equates to 460 allegations per 1,000 officers in Cleveland, compared with the England and Wales average of 271. The main complaints are incivility, impoliteness and intolerance, lack of fairness and impartiality, oppressive conduct or harassment, and discriminatory behaviour. The force acknowledges this problem. Its directorate of standards and ethics has been communicating to the workforce about professional and ethical behaviour, and levels of complaints are starting to reduce.

The workforce doesn’t have a consistent understanding of unconscious bias. While we found that frontline officers mostly understand it, this wasn’t always the case for PCSOs and control room staff who are the first contact with the public. They haven’t had the necessary training. We heard some examples of unconscious bias when dealing with calls. We also found members of the workforce using inappropriate language when speaking to colleagues. We are concerned that this will influence how staff treat members of the public. The examples we were told about show a lack of respect for diversity. Members of the workforce were keen to bring this to our attention during the inspection.

The force provides some role-specific communications skills training to officers and staff. The force’s training in stop and search and personal safety includes how to interact with people in a professional way. However, call handlers and other staff in the force’s control room haven’t received training since their induction. The force plans to introduce short training sessions addressing continuing professional development. One of these sessions will focus on communication.

The force involves some local people in crime prevention, both through problem-solving activity and more formal volunteering. The force has increased its number of volunteers. It has a ‘citizens in policing’ programme through which it works with volunteers, special constables and police cadets.

Using force

Cleveland Police doesn’t understand well enough whether its use of force is fair and appropriate. The force is recording data on use of force and complies with most of the national recording requirement. It has provided training and guidance to the workforce on how to use force fairly and appropriately. During 2018 and 2019, it hasn’t effectively monitored its use of force. Force performance meetings don’t receive this information often enough and the meetings that were dedicated to monitoring use of force information stopped in 2018. The force doesn’t monitor other sources of information to help it improve, such as body-worn video camera and custody footage, Taser and firearm records, and complaints.

The force doesn’t adequately use external scrutiny arrangements to seek the public’s views and consider what improvements it can make. It should report use of force data and information to the OPCC’s strategic independent advisory group (SIAG) on a six-monthly basis. However, in the seven months prior to inspection, the SIAG hadn’t received any reports from the force. The only time the force has presented information to the SIAG was in October 2018, when it gave an initial presentation to explain what use of force is and what data it collects. The force has no other external scrutiny from people who might have less confidence and trust in the police, or by young people.

Using stop and search powers

Cleveland Police understands how it uses stop and search powers but hasn’t sufficiently improved its recording of the grounds for searches.

The force has appointed a new lead for stop and search who has made some changes. They have introduced a two-day training course, which provides guidance to officers and staff on how to use stop and search fairly and with respect. This training is in line with the guidance provided by the College of Policing. The force circulates a monthly stop and search newsletter that includes lessons learned. It provides officers with examples of stop and searches using videos on the intranet site. The force has seen a decline in the use of stop and search and officers told us they don’t have the time to carry it out. The force has had no complaints resulting from stop and search for two years.

We reviewed a representative sample of 337 stop and search records to assess the reasonableness of the recorded grounds. We found that 79 percent or those records contained reasonable grounds. Our assessment is based on the grounds recorded by the searching officer and not the grounds that existed at the time of the search.

Although the force has shown some improvement in its recording of reasonable grounds, it hasn’t made enough progress. The force has been trying to improve since 2016. Supervisors review and quality check all stop and search forms and a dedicated sergeant completes a secondary review. The sergeant gives officers monthly feedback about good and poor examples of form completion.

The force analyses and scrutinises its data to understand how it uses its powers. It understands that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people are slightly more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. This is one of the lowest rates of disproportionality nationally. The force analyses ward-level data so that it can understand any differences. It knows whether an officer finds the item searched for and it also reports its positive outcome rate.

In our 2017 legitimacy report, we recommended that all forces should:

• monitor and analyse comprehensive stop and search data to understand reasons for disparities;
• take action on those; and
• publish the analysis and the action by July 2018.

We found that the force has complied with some aspects of this recommendation. The force monitors the find rate and breaks this down into search types. But this doesn’t include separate identification of possession-only drug searches and supply-type drug searches. Nor does it break this down further by ethnicity. It also isn’t clear that the force monitors enough data to identify the prevalence of possession-only drug searches or the extent to which these align with local or force-level priorities.

We reviewed the force’s website and found no obvious mention of analysis it had carried out to understand and explain reasons for disparities, or any subsequent action taken.

There is no regular external scrutiny of the force’s use of stop and search powers. Since 2017, the force has made attempts at having a youth scrutiny panel for stop and search. However, its success has been varied, which has meant that there has been no consistent approach. Just prior to our inspection, the force had re-formed this panel. There is no other external scrutiny of stop and search powers. The force has plans to include the scrutiny of BAME stop and search encounters through its district independent advisory groups, but this isn’t yet in place.

The force doesn’t scrutinise the use of body-worn video cameras.

The force doesn’t communicate to the public what action it takes to change its policies and practice as a result of scrutiny and challenge.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the force’s performance in this area.

Maintaining an ethical culture

The force doesn’t have a structured approach to ensure that officers and staff apply the Code of Ethics consistently. There is no clear lead for ethics in the force. It previously used the Everyone Matters programme to communicate ethical issues, but this has stopped and only pockets of work continued during 2018.

Many senior leaders aren’t acting as ethical role models and aren’t taking responsibility for areas within their control. We found examples where senior leaders knew things were happening that put vulnerable victims at risk but were not taking action. They have made changes to processes without considering the risk or the effect on victims. Force leaders blame others – including the force’s private providers – for their own failings. Some of the comments we heard from the wider workforce include:

“Directionless, rudderless and clueless.”

“We are being given no clear direction. No-one seems to have a clue what we are doing.”

“Senior leaders are basically missing.”

It concerns us that the chief constable is unable to trust the information he receives. We tried to find evidence to support the statements senior leaders made during inspection, using the force’s own documents, including its force management statement, performance reporting and force plans. Many of the statements made were incorrect. Not only were senior leaders unable to provide evidence to support some of the things they claimed were happening, but we found evidence to the contrary. This reported information is misrepresenting the force’s position.

The force attempts to communicate and reinforce the behaviour it expects, but it does so in an ad hoc way. It has given presentations to frontline staff about the Code of Ethics and it (the code) is presented in some training sessions. The force has a new set of values and behaviours – which the workforce helped to develop – which align to the competency values framework. However, the workforce isn’t consistently demonstrating these behaviours and the force isn’t consistently holding individuals to account through performance management discussions.

Complaints from the public about officers’ behaviour are starting to reduce in number. There are signs that the wider workforce, including frontline officers and staff, understand what is right and wrong. The force is starting to learn lessons from reviewing complaint and misconduct investigations, and is communicating these lessons through emails and its internal webpages. Officers and staff we spoke to told us they now have more confidence in the force’s directorate for standards and ethics, and are prepared to report colleagues who act in inappropriate or corrupt ways.

The force has an established internal ethics committee, which considers ethical dilemmas raised by the workforce, but this hadn’t met for nine months. Officers and staff are submitting issues to this meeting for consideration but these are still waiting to be discussed. The force is also sifting out some of the dilemmas, with no established criteria for doing so. It doesn’t prioritise this forum as a way of addressing workforce concerns. The OPCC also has an ethics panel to provide an external view. However, we weren’t able to review its effectiveness during our inspection.

The workforce can readily access force policies that have been subject to an equality impact assessment. The force doesn’t assess policies against the Code of Ethics, but when a new policy is written the force circulates it to ethics committee members to ask if there are any concerns.

Cleveland Police complies with the national Vetting Code of Practice and authorised professional practice. In our 2017 national report, we recommended that all members of the workforce should have received at least the lowest level of vetting by December 2018. The force has achieved this and has vetted all staff recruited prior to 2006. The force doesn’t monitor vetting decisions to identify any differences in how people are treated, or consider mitigating actions. However, it has recently set up a process to collect the necessary data.

Tackling corruption

The force needs to improve how it tackles corruption within its workforce. While we recognise the improvements it has made so far, it still has more to do.

The force has a strategic threat assessment and control strategy. During our pre-inspection work, we found that its assessment of counter-corruption lacked detailed analysis of a wide range of data and information. The threats identified don’t align to national corruption categories. The assessment includes some comparison between local and national threats – and brief analysis of worker type, role and length of service – but it doesn’t refer to profiling corrupt employees, identifying locations within the force where corruption is more prevalent, or understanding external corruptors. The force is refreshing this assessment and addressing the issues identified.

The force isn’t identifying well enough those people who are most at risk of corruption. It doesn’t make good use of the information it holds to inform any assessment of risk. The people intelligence board is no longer in place to be able to identify the early warning signs, although the force is considering restarting these meetings. It has employed additional analysts to draw information from force data, and is considering devising a risk matrix to identify and assess those employees most at risk of corruption.

Members of the workforce and the public can report potential misconduct to the force via an anonymous email system and an anonymous reporting line. Most of the workforce have confidence in doing this. The force acts promptly on this intelligence. Of the 57 items of corruption intelligence we reviewed, 14 required further work. We also found examples of investigators restricting the parameters of the investigation and ignoring the possibility of other risks. Of these cases, the force should have referred six to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) but it had only referred five. Together with the IOPC, the force has reviewed all previous referrals to make sure they were appropriate.

The force has enough people working within its CCU but needs to improve the capability of these investigators and managers. The CCU doesn’t do any proactive monitoring, which means that the force can’t intervene early to prevent corruption. The force has invested in monitoring software, but staff were trained so long ago that they are no longer confident in using it. The software also has some limitations because it can’t monitor all the force’s IT systems. The CCU doesn’t proactively review conditions imposed on members of the workforce, such as refusals for secondary employment or inappropriate associations. This means that the force doesn’t know whether people are breaching these conditions. Members of the workforce record all gifts and hospitality, but some of the gifts accepted don’t adhere to the force policy: for example, bottles of alcohol.

The force needs to improve its links with those organisations that support vulnerable people, to encourage them to report inappropriate behaviour by officers and staff. It initially contacted some organisations to provide information about what to do if they had concerns about officers or staff, but it didn’t continue this approach. During our inspection, we found that this has started again. The force should develop a broader range of links with organisations such as sex worker support groups and alcohol support agencies.

Cleveland Police recognises abuse of position for a sexual purpose as serious corruption. This is included in the force’s draft assessment. It recognises this as the main corruption threat facing the force. However, it hasn’t fully completed our 2016 recommendation for all forces to implement a plan to achieve the capability and capacity required to seek intelligence on potential abuse of authority for a sexual purpose. This is because its proactive monitoring isn’t yet in place and it only reactively investigates reports of abuse of authority. The force has raised the awareness of abuse of position through a range of communications including briefings and roadshows. The majority of the workforce have completed online training. The force has provided guidance to supervisors and managers, describing the warning signs to look for.

We set out our detailed findings below. These are the basis for our judgment of the force’s performance in this area.

Improving fairness at work

Cleveland Police doesn’t consistently understand the concerns its people have about fairness at work.

The workforce completed a survey in July 2018, which had a good response rate. However, the force’s other engagement activities have been limited and officers and staff describe them as ‘high-level communication’. This includes the work the force did to develop its behaviours and the launch of its new ideas portal called ‘Let’s innovate’. The launch of ‘Let’s innovate’ coincided with the removal of ‘Ask the Exec’, which had been the force’s route for raising concerns or seeking answers. There has been an increase in the number of concerns raised about fair treatment through the force’s anonymous email system. Most officers and staff are happy to voice their concerns, but there are now no formal routes to do so and the force doesn’t always listen. 

The force isn’t good enough at communicating what action it takes in response to feedback and challenge about fairness at work. It has made several changes in response to feedback but hasn’t communicated these well to the workforce. These include:

• updating its flexible working policy and practice, its pregnancy and maternity policy and its flexi-time policy; and
• improving its range of wellbeing services.

However, most people told us they didn’t know what had happened as a result of their feedback.

Leaders don’t use any of the formal meeting structures to seek the workforce’s views on issues of fairness. None of the force meetings include representation from the staff networks. The staff equality forum is no longer in place, although the force told us it will be re-launched. The force intended to start an equality and diversity and inclusion meeting, but this hasn’t happened. The OPCC has now taken responsibility for it and drafted a new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy.

The force has a clear, well-publicised and well-known grievance procedure. However, most of the workforce don’t perceive this to be fair because of the time it takes the force to resolve the grievances. Our pre-inspection review found that the force has a good system for recording and managing grievances, but that it could improve how it deals with informal cases. In seven of the ten cases we reviewed, it took too long to resolve the grievances – some cases lasted over 12 months. We heard mixed views from staff and officers about their confidence in using the grievance process, and too many people perceive it negatively. People told us:

“It’s seen as a way of getting what you want.”

“A precursor to an employment tribunal or pay-out.”

“It’s used for money making.”

The force is resolving more grievances informally. Supervisors are starting to do these themselves, supported by employee relations officers. This works well.

Some of the more recent redeployments within the force have gone well and haven’t resulted in grievances. When the force moved neighbourhood officers into response officer roles, it communicated these changes effectively and officers felt listened to.

The force doesn’t have effective arrangements for monitoring and scrutinising workforce information. It has an annual people report, which includes a range of data, but it isn’t analysing this data frequently enough to identify issues of fairness. It doesn’t frequently monitor disparities in recruitment, retention and promotion.

Supporting workforce wellbeing

In 2017, we reported that the force needed to put measures in place to understand and address the wellbeing concerns of the workforce. While the force has made progress in improving its wellbeing services for staff and officers, it doesn’t sufficiently understand and monitor its wellbeing information. This means that it can’t fully understand and act on the wellbeing needs of the workforce.

The force has recently launched a wellbeing strategy. This aligns to the Home Office policy paper, A common goal for police wellbeing 2021, and focuses on psychological, physical and social wellbeing. The force takes account of national guidance and good practice, and has gained the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework accreditation. It continues to work towards the Better Health at Work award. It has re-launched its wellbeing services under the heading ‘Your wellbeing matters’, but many officers and staff aren’t aware of it. Leaders don’t play a positive role in raising the awareness of wellbeing needs and provision.

The force doesn’t fully understand the greatest threats to wellbeing. It doesn’t sufficiently monitor its workforce data and information, and it has no wider evidence about wellbeing to identify the greatest threats and risks. The people and culture board oversees wellbeing but it doesn’t receive enough information to make effective decisions.

Cleveland Police experiences high levels of sickness absence. In April 2019, the number of working days lost was 12.24 per officer and 9.95 per member of police staff. A high proportion of this sickness is stress-related. The force has changed its processes to improve the management of those people who are absent from work. Its employee relations officers started in September 2018 to help supervisors manage sickness absence. Since then, the force has started to see a reduction in police officer absence, although staff absence is still increasing.

Members of the workforce made the following comments about wellbeing:

“Sickness is still an issue and not getting any better.”

“Sergeants are feeling the pressure – relentless.”

“We feel like numbers on page since the last restructure.”

“Officers are working rest days at the expense of their families and personal wellbeing and the force is in turmoil.”

“Annual leave is a problem – it can be an issue getting leave approved.”

“(The force is) rearranging officers’ working patterns at short notice, with massive impact on their wellbeing and welfare for them and their families.”

The force has invested in a people services team, which includes the force’s occupational health service. However, it can’t yet meet all its demand because it hasn’t yet recruited all the staff required. Referrals to occupational health have to come through line managers. There is also no self-referral process for those people who don’t wish to discuss their wellbeing with their line manager.

Cleveland Police doesn’t consistently take early action to support its people. Supervisors consider wellbeing as part of their line management responsibilities but aren’t consistently having conversations with their staff to help with early intervention. They tend to rely on spotting the obvious signs that someone needs help, based on their own experience. The force has provided mental health awareness sessions to newly promoted supervisors and probationers, and it has mental health blue light champions available to support staff. However, it provides no other training or awareness sessions.

Senior leaders and managers are missing opportunities to consider the duty of care they have for their people. For example, a recent debrief session following a traumatic incident failed to give consideration to the wellbeing of the officers themselves. No-one asked if they were okay or considered referring them for counselling. The force has no specialised support available for those managing incidents involving trauma risk. However, the force has introduced preventative measures to improve wellbeing. A welfare officer goes through the daily incident list and, when necessary, contacts officers attending to ask if they need support.

The force doesn’t effectively manage its use of temporary and acting positions. Although it has started to make improvements, this remains a problem because of the effect it has on wellbeing. The force doesn’t give enough consideration to the potential financial effect when these people’s salaries reduce after they have been temporarily promoted for years. It also doesn’t adequately consider the effect that short-term acting positions can have on existing workloads.

Managing performance and development of officers and staff

Cleveland Police doesn’t manage the individual performance or development of its people. It put its previous process on hold while it developed a new electronic system. Some of the workforce haven’t had their capability or competence assessed for over four years. This means that the force can’t easily identify poor performance or deal with it. The force had started to roll out its new system during our inspection.

In the absence of a performance management process, the force has no way of identifying talented members of its workforce who have the potential to become future leaders. Instead, it offers its people the opportunity to complete a development programme if they would like to become supervisors. There is only a small cohort of people on this programme because of limited interest.

Too many officers and staff don’t consider the force’s promotion processes to be fair. The force gives promotion candidates relevant information through briefings and presentations ahead of the process. But we heard the following comments about its recent sergeant-to-inspector promotion process:

“The recent promotion processes have been completely [messed] up. People have been told that they have been promoted and then told they haven’t.”

“The way HR [human resources] have told people that they are no longer being promoted is a disgrace. People are going back to a lot of temporary positions. Morale is low at the moment.”

“HR don’t seem to understand that moving people between departments undermines the relationships that people have built up with partners.”

The force didn’t communicate how many inspector vacancies were available when it ran its recent sergeant-to-inspector promotion process, because it didn’t have this information. This meant that it was unable to promote all the successful candidates. Those it placed on a waiting list may have to start the process again if an inspector’s post doesn’t become available within 18 months. There is no independent or external involvement in the force’s promotion process to ensure impartiality. It no longer uses the College of Policing’s assessment centre to help with its promotion processes.

The force hasn’t identified the potential barriers that prevent the workforce from applying for promotion. But it has identified barriers that prevent people applying to join the workforce. It has encouraged people from a range of communities to apply for jobs in the force by using social media and visiting universities, mosques, churches and temples. It received 1,500 expressions of interest in working for Cleveland Police. Over 100 of these people were invited to attend positive action workshops run by the force, providing information about becoming a police officer. Forty-four of these people applied to join the force.