South Wales 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?
South Wales Police is good at treating the public fairly.
The workforce recognises the importance of working closely with communities, and leaders are committed to treating the public with fairness and respect.
The force actively works with its communities in a range of ways, including regular neighbourhood policing meetings and other public events. The force raises awareness among children about a range of issues through the All Wales School Liaison Core Programme (AWSLCP).
The workforce understands the importance of treating people with fairness and respect. Operational officers and staff had received some training on unconscious bias. Further workforce training is planned.
South Wales Police is good at using stop and search powers. The force trains its workforce on the ethical use of stop and search tactics. Officers have a good level of understanding of their obligation to apply these powers lawfully and ethically.
The force gives training and guidance on the use of force. Those who use force understand how to apply it fairly. However, the force needs to improve the extent to which it understands the use of force. It would benefit from identifying trends in the data it collects and making sure that all officers receive feedback about their use of force.
The force would also benefit from receiving more challenge and feedback from external scrutiny groups about its use of force and stop and search powers.
Areas for improvement
- The force should ensure that appropriate members of its workforce receive training in, and understand, unconscious bias.
- The force should ensure that it monitors a comprehensive set of data to enhance its understanding of fair and effective use of force.
How well does the force ensure that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully?
South Wales Police is good at developing and upholding an ethical culture.
The force has clear processes for promoting ethical decision-making, including a variety of training courses. All force policies include equality impact assessments. The force has an independent ethics committee and is a member of both regional and national ethics committees.
The workforce has a good understanding of ethics. It gains its understanding from a range of internal sources, including the force’s intranet.
The force has achieved our 2016 recommendation on vetting. It should routinely monitor vetting decisions to identify potential disparities in under-represented groups such as BAME people.
The force complies with its obligations to give details to the College of Policing for the barred and advisory lists. It also publicises the outcomes of misconduct investigations.
The force is good at identifying and managing corruption risks. It has a local strategic counter-corruption threat assessment and plans to develop an overarching control strategy. It uses employee information to identify those at risk of corruption and is appropriate in the use of early interventions.
The workforce has a good understanding of integrity policies. Generally, staff understand the need to declare gifts and hospitality.
Areas for improvement
- The force should monitor its vetting decisions to identify disparities and disproportionality (e.g. BAME groups), and act to reduce them where appropriate.
- The force should ensure it has both a counter-corruption strategic threat assessment and a control strategy to enable it to understand and manage the risks that corruption poses to the organisation.
- The force should ensure that its counter-corruption unit (CCU) can fully monitor all its computer systems, including mobile data, to proactively identify data breaches, protect the force’s data and identify computer misuse.
To what extent does the force treat its workforce with fairness and respect?
South Wales Police is good at treating its workforce fairly, and at supporting workforce wellbeing.
The force seeks to ensure fairness at work. Chief officers are open to feedback and will try to address problems. The force’s CALG also considers workforce feedback to identify and resolve any workforce concerns.
The force needs to address issues surrounding its grievance processes. Principally, it needs to deal with grievances in a prompt and efficient manner, and in accordance with its own guidelines. Currently, the workforce lacks confidence in the grievance procedure.
The equality and human rights board oversees several important areas of performance.
The force has conducted a BAME impact review of external selection processes, which has seen an increase in BAME applicants.
The force monitors grievances, complaints and misconduct information to identify problems in relation to perceptions of fairness and respect.
The force is good at supporting workforce wellbeing and this is a clear priority for its leaders. The force has a health and wellbeing delivery plan, which is informed by workforce feedback. The force has also implemented a wellbeing project to improve the attendance of officers and staff.
The occupational health unit is resourced sufficiently to meet the force’s needs. Staff in posts that are deemed to be high risk receive yearly psychological and wellbeing screening.
The force needs to improve the management, performance and development of its officers and staff.
Areas for improvement
- The force should ensure that its grievance procedures are conducted in a timely way and are perceived by the workforce to be fair.
- The force should ensure it has effective systems, processes and guidance in place to manage individual performance in a way that is valued by
the workforce.