Bedfordshire Police continues to improve
Bedfordshire Police continues to improve its performance in keeping people safe and reducing crime, the police inspectorate has said.
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PEEL 2021/22 – An inspection of Bedfordshire Police
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) graded Bedfordshire Police’s performance across eight areas of policing and found the force was ‘outstanding’ in one area, ‘good’ in in four areas, ‘adequate’ in one area and ‘requires improvement’ in two areas.
HMICFRS said the areas requiring improvement included how the force handles calls from the public and appropriate supervision of investigations.
Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary Matt Parr said:
“Bedfordshire police has improved across a number of areas and performed well in keeping people safe and reducing crime.
“I congratulate the force on being the first to achieve an outstanding grade for the way it manages offenders and suspects. It has demonstrably reduced reoffending for serious offences like burglary and those involving domestic abuse. The force works well with other organisations to achieve these reductions.
“I am pleased to see that the force is still performing well in relation to stop and search. Its external scrutiny panel is important in making sure officers act with integrity and maintain public confidence. The panel consists of local residents and provides robust scrutiny of stop and search encounters, reviewing footage from officers’ body-worn video and giving feedback on this. The force is very open to this feedback and monitors trends so it can find ways to improve.
“These arrangements have again led to the force having impressive results in our stop and search audit. I congratulate the force on this achievement.
“However, the force still needs to work on its supervision of investigations, and on providing a consistently effective contact service with the public.
“Bedfordshire Police is aware of areas where it needs to improve further, and I am encouraged by its focus on the tasks ahead.”
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PEEL 2021/22 – An inspection of Bedfordshire Police
Notes
- For further information, please contact the HMICFRS Press Office on 07836 217 729 or HMICPressOffice@hmicfrs.gov.uk.
- In 2014, we introduced our police effectiveness, efficiency, and legitimacy (PEEL) inspections, which assess the performance of all 43 police forces in England and Wales. Since then, we have been continuously adapting our approach and this year has seen the most significant changes yet.
- We are moving to a more intelligence-led, continual assessment approach, rather than the annual PEEL inspections we used in previous years. We have also changed our approach to graded judgments. We now assess forces against the characteristics of good performance, and we more clearly link our judgments to causes of concern and areas for improvement.
- We have also expanded our previous four-tier system of judgments to five tiers. As a result, we can state more precisely where we consider improvement is needed and highlight more effectively the best ways of doing things.
- However, these changes mean that it isn’t possible to make direct comparisons between the grades awarded this year with those from previous PEEL inspections. A reduction in grade, particularly from good to adequate, does not necessarily mean that there has been a reduction in performance, unless we say so in the report.
- More information about the new PEEL assessment framework 2021/22 is available on our website.