Improvements needed in the south west’s regional response to serious and organised crime

The South West Regional Organised Crime Unit and its regional police forces need to improve how they work together to tackle serious and organised crime, the police inspectorate has said.

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An inspection of the south-west regional response to serious and organised crime

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspected the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit and made graded judgments on how the unit and its five regional police forces tackle serious and organised crime:

  • The South West Regional Organised Crime Unit has been graded as adequate;
  • Avon and Somerset Police has been graded as requires improvement;
  • Devon and Cornwall Police has been graded as requires improvement;
  • Dorset Police has been graded as requires improvement;
  • Gloucestershire Constabulary has been graded as inadequate; and
  • Wiltshire Police has been graded as requires improvement.

The inspectorate said that the unit appoints senior officers to lead on the region’s priorities to tackle serious organised crime. It reviews what works well in these operations and shares this learning with its teams and regional forces. However, inspectors found that across the region, learning from operational activity was inconsistent. The unit needs to improve the governance of regional resources and support assigned to forces.

HMICFRS also said that the unit and its regional forces were not assessing their serious and organised crime threats consistently. Some forces in the region didn’t have enough personnel to fully assess the intelligence. Examples were found of forces undertaking investigations involving organised crime groups, even though the groups hadn’t been formally threat assessed.

The inspectorate found that the unit had found it difficult to recruit personnel. While the vacancy rate had reduced in the 12 months prior to the inspection, HMICFRS said that to address resource problems, the unit had recruited staff with little experience of investigating serious and organised crime. Inspectors heard that personnel in regional forces have difficulty accessing individual IT systems, making it harder for them to do their jobs.

Inspectors said that the unit and police forces in the region need to work together to successfully improve their response to tackle serious and organised crime.

His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke said:

“The South West Regional Organised Crime Unit regularly reviews what worked well in its serious and organised crime operations. It was positive to see it effectively manages support requests from forces and other agencies, and appoints senior officers to lead on regional priorities.

“But the unit and its regional forces need to improve how they assess threats and how they work together to tackle serious and organised crime. We found inconsistences among the performance of the regional forces. It was troubling to hear about the recruitment issues faced by forces, meaning personnel are not always as experienced as they should be. And IT across forces isn’t well connected, making it harder for personnel to do their jobs.

“We will be working closely with the unit and monitoring its progress against our recommendations.”

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An inspection of the south-west regional response to serious and organised crime

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