Hampshire PEEL 2018
Legitimacy
How legitimately does the force treat the public and its workforce?
To what extent does the force treat all of the people it serves with fairness and respect?
This question was not subject to detailed inspection in 2018/19, and our judgment from the 2017 legitimacy inspection has been carried over.
However, there is an area for improvement identified from this inspection:
- The force should identify and put in place training provision for independent advisory group (IAG) members designed to ensure that they have all the relevant knowledge required to perform their role.
During our fieldwork we investigated the progress the force has made in this area for improvement.
Since our last inspection there have been several training events for members of the IAG. Members are now more aware of features such as the use of force, stop and search and critical incidents. This is positive since these are the areas of police activity that IAG members are likely to give an independent perspective on.
We also reviewed a representative sample of 122 stop and search records to assess the reasonableness of the recorded grounds. We found that 84 percent had 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.
In our 2017 national 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.
The force has complied with some of this recommendation. But it doesn’t identify the extent to which find rates (the rate at which officers find what they are looking for) differ for people from different ethnic backgrounds and for different types of searches (including separate identification of find rates for drug possession and supply-type offences). It isn’t clear that the force monitors enough data to identify the prevalence of possession-only drug searches or how far they align with local or force-level priorities. The force has plans to develop richer data sets, in pursuance of our 2017 recommendation, which have been delayed due to technical difficulties with some elements of its stop and search ICT programme.
We reviewed the force’s website and found no clear mention of analysis it had done to understand and explain disparities, or any subsequent action taken.
How well does the force ensure that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully?
Hampshire Constabulary is clearly committed to behaving ethically and lawfully, led by the chief officers. The values in the code of ethics form part of the force’s vision, and all policies and process align to the code.
Standards of acceptable behaviour are well known by the workforce, who believe the force has got better at learning from mistakes. The force’s ethics committee needs greater publicity. Staff we spoke to weren’t aware of any way to explore ethical dilemmas in the workplace, except by talking to their supervisors.
All officers and staff are vetted to the new vetting code of practice and Authorised Professional Practice. New vetting requests are processed quickly and efficiently, and the force can identify any disparities in its decision making.
The force has an effective counter-corruption strategy. Members of the workforce know they can report wrongdoing in confidence and know how to do it.
The force makes good use of the information it holds on its workforce to identify people at risk of corruption. This means it can intervene early. It also monitors whether officers and staff comply with decisions about notifiable associations or business interests.
The force hasn’t addressed well enough all recommendations about abuse of authority for a sexual purpose from our 2016 national report. Not all supervisors and officers know enough about this subject. Arrangements with external agencies for spotting signs of this behaviour in police officers aren’t yet effective.
At the time of our inspection, software to help monitor the force’s IT systems in real time had been purchased, and this will be installed and brought into use by autumn 2019.
Areas for improvement
- The force should take steps to make sure that the work of the ethics committee is more widely known, and that officers and staff are aware of how to raise ethical issues within the force.
- The force should ensure that it builds more effective relationships with the individuals and organisations that support and work with vulnerable people.
- The force should improve its workforce’s knowledge and understanding of the abuse of position for a sexual purpose.
To what extent does the force treat its workforce with fairness and respect?
This question was not subject to detailed inspection in 2018/19, and our judgment from the 2017 legitimacy inspection has been carried over.
However, there were two areas for improvement identified from this inspection:
- The force should ensure that it has effective systems in place and monitors these as to how well and consistently its performance development review (PDR) system is used across the force.
- The force should review how high potential members of the workforce are selected to ensure it is consistently fair and objective.
During our fieldwork this year we checked what progress the force has made in these areas for improvement.
It has made good progress in both. A new PDR system has been introduced that is linked to the force’s approach to conducting regular one-to-one interviews between supervisors and their workforce. It is a simple one-page document that supports the PDR interview areas by checking personal wellbeing, goals, acceptable behaviour and essential training. The proportion of staff with an up-to-date PDR is 70 percent.
Improvements in how high-potential members of the workforce are selected are described earlier in this report. All routes into the talent pool are open and accessible to all qualifying staff.