West Yorkshire Police congratulated for excellent performance
West Yorkshire Police has been congratulated for its excellent performance in a challenging policing environment, the police inspectorate has said.
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PEEL 2021/22 – An inspection of West Yorkshire Police
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) graded West Yorkshire Police’s performance across 10 areas of policing and found the force was ‘outstanding’ in four areas, ‘good’ in four areas and ‘adequate’ in two areas.
HMICFRS said the ‘outstanding’ areas included how the force disrupts serious organised crime and how it treats the public.
Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said:
“I congratulate West Yorkshire Police on its excellent performance in keeping people safe and reducing crime. I have graded the force as outstanding in four areas of policing, which properly reflects its high level of performance in a challenging policing environment.
“I am impressed by the force’s well-established approach to community engagement. The force has worked well with its communities to understand their diversity and to solve local policing issues.
“The force has invested significantly in developing its neighbourhood policing model since we last inspected. I am encouraged to see that resources aren’t routinely abstracted away into other areas of policing. I am also pleased to see the value that the force places on early intervention. This is important in supporting children and young people to divert them away from offending.
“West Yorkshire Police is innovative in its approaches to tackling serious and organised crime threats. I am impressed by the way the force has adopted a ‘whole systems approach’ to tackling this serious problem, and how effectively it works with other agencies to do so.
“The force has also done significant work to analyse its stop and search activity, and in the overwhelming majority of cases there are reasonable grounds for that activity to take place. There is good governance in place to make sure that stop and search is scrutinised properly by senior leaders. The force can show that it treats the communities of West Yorkshire fairly when they are subject to stop and search.
“However, the force needs to improve how it identifies vulnerability at the first point of contact because its risk assessments aren’t always effective and don’t always accurately consider the need for support or safeguarding. I am reassured that the force has taken immediate steps to address this after our inspection.
“While I congratulate the officers and staff of West Yorkshire for their efforts in keeping the public safe, I will monitor the progress towards addressing the areas I have identified where the force can improve further.”
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PEEL 2021/22 – An inspection of West Yorkshire Police
Notes
- 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.
- For further information, please contact the HMICFRS Press Office on 07836 217 729 or HMICPressOffice@hmicfrs.gov.uk.