2017 PEEL assessment
PEEL 2017 questions
A new set of questions was developed for PEEL 2017, building on previous rounds of PEEL. In addition to the core themes of effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy, we also assessed forces on their leadership. However, the leadership element has been woven into questions on each of the core themes, rather than being inspected as a separate question set as in PEEL 2016.
Each force in England and Wales was assessed against each of these questions during two inspections:
- the spring inspection, running from April to July 2017, inspected on questions relating to efficiency and legitimacy, including the leadership element; and
- the autumn inspection, running from September to November 2017, inspected on questions relating to effectiveness including the leadership element.
The questions are listed below.
Effectiveness
Definition: an effective force is one that keeps people safe and reduces crime.
Headline question
How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
| Core question | Diagnostic |
|---|---|
| How effective is the force at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe? | How effectively does the force understand the communities it serves?
How effectively do force actions and activities help to prevent crime and tackle anti-social behaviour? |
| How effective is the force at investigating crime and reducing re-offending? | How effective is the force’s initial investigative response?
How effectively does the force investigate crime? How effectively does the force catch criminals? |
| How effective is the force at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims? | How effectively does the force identify those who are vulnerable and assess their level of risk and need?
How effectively does the force initially respond to vulnerable victims? How effectively does the force investigate offences involving vulnerable victims and work with external partners to keep victims safe? |
| How effective is the force at tackling serious and organised crime? | How effectively does the force understand the threat and risk posed by serious and organised crime?
How effectively does the force respond to serious and organised crime? How effectively does the force prevent serious and organised crime? |
| How effective are the force’s specialist capabilities? | How effective are the force’s arrangements for ensuring that it can respond to national threats?
How effective is the force’s armed policing capability? |
Efficiency
Definition: an efficient force maximises the outcomes from its available resources.
Headline question
How efficient are the police at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
| Core question | Diagnostic |
|---|---|
| How well does the force understand demand? | How well does the force understand current demand?
How well does the force understand things that affect demand? |
| How well does the force use its resources? | How well does the force understand the capability of its workforce?
How well does the force understand the capability of its leaders? How well does the force allocate resources? How well does the force work with others? |
| How well is the force planning for the future? | How well does the force predict likely future demand?
How well is the force planning for the future, in terms of workforce? How well does the force plan for likely future demand? |
Legitimacy
Definition: a police force is legitimate if it has the consent of the public, and those working in the force consistently behave in a way that is fair, reasonable, effective and lawful, which generates the trust and co-operation of the public.
Headline question
How legitimate is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
| Core question | Diagnostic |
|---|---|
| To what extent does the force treat all the people it serves with fairness and respect? | To what extent does the force understand the importance of treating the people it serves with fairness and respect?
How well does the force understand potential future demand for its services? How well does the force understand the extent to which its workforce treats members of the public with fairness and respect? How fairly does the force use stop and search powers? |
| How well does the force ensure its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully? | How well does the force develop and maintain an ethical culture?
How accessible is the complaints system to all members of the public? How well does the force identify and investigate potential discrimination by its officers and staff? |
| To what extent does the force treat its workforce with fairness and respect? | How well does the force identify and act to improve fairness at work?
How well does the force support the wellbeing of its workforce? How fairly and effectively does the force manage and develop both individual performance of its officers and staff and its selection processes? |
How PEEL was inspected in 2017
Effectiveness
To reach a judgment on the extent to which each force is effective in keeping people safe and reducing crime, HMICFRS assesses forces against five core questions.
Risk-based inspections
In 2017, HMICFRS adopted a risk-based approach to PEEL effectiveness inspections from autumn 2017. This means that some forces were not assessed in one or more of the five areas of the effectiveness assessment. For those forces which were not re-assessed, judgments are ‘carried over’ from 2016.
In deciding which areas to re-assess and which judgments to carry over, HMICFRS considered:
- graded judgments for previous effectiveness inspections;
- causes of concern and areas for improvement identified in each force;
- major changes to the scope of the inspection or the standards applied; and
- a range of contextual data relevant to each part of the assessment.
All forces were assessed on how they protect vulnerable people and of their specialist capabilities.
Inspection methods
HMICFRS uses the following methods as part of its inspections:
- Analysis of force data and documents
- Reviews of investigation files
- Observation of operational practice, for example call centres and management meetings
- Surveys of police officers, staff and members of the public
- Interviews and focus groups with officers, staff and partner organisations
- Unannounced visits to police stations
Inspection teams analyse and interpret evidence from all of these sources in order to arrive at graded judgments. These are moderated subsequently to ensure national consistency and fairness.
Efficiency
To reach a judgment on the extent of each force’s efficiency, HMICFRS collected data and documentation from forces, reviewed force websites, interviewed senior officers and held focus groups with officers and staff from all grades and ranks. Also, we made unannounced visits to police stations to talk to frontline officers and staff about their work.
Our efficiency inspections again focused on the way in which forces understand the demand they are facing or will face, how they are currently meeting that demand and how they are planning to meet future challenges. To assess this, we looked at three core questions.
Forces were assessed against these questions between April and August 2017.
Legitimacy
After consultation with the public, forces, Government, the voluntary sector and other interested parties, in this iteration of PEEL legitimacy we looked at three core questions.
To reach a judgment on the extent to which a force acts legitimately, HMICFRS considered a range of data and documents submitted by the 43 Home Office-funded forces in England and Wales, and carried out file reviews and fieldwork in each force.
During fieldwork, inspectors interviewed senior officers and staff responsible for stop and search, complaints handling and investigation, wellbeing and performance among others, and held focus groups with a range of officers and staff. We also made unannounced visits to police stations to talk to frontline officers and staff about their work.
Forces were assessed against these questions between April and August 2017.
Leadership
A thematic overview of findings relating to Leadership from across PEEL was published in early 2018.
Research
HMICFRS commissioned Plymouth University to undertake research a short academic study into existing methodologies for the inspection of leadership, with the aim of helping us refine our approach to our inspection of leadership as a concept within policing.