Dyfed-Powys PEEL 2014

The chief and deputy chief constable provide strong leadership and have explained the importance of cultural change to the force. ‘Doing the right thing’ is now a mantra that has been adopted by the whole organisation. The force should do more to ensure staff and officers better understand how they can practically challenge and manage misconduct. The force understands the importance of the new Code of Ethics and there is an enthusiastic view held by senior managers that it offers a significant opportunity for the force to reinforce the progress it has already made concerning standards.

The professional standards department is insufficiently resourced to look for unprofessional behaviour in a proactive fashion and does not carry out timely investigations. Additionally, the anti-corruption capacity and capability is under-resourced. It has limited arrangements in place to prevent major operations being compromised by the threat of corruption and no dedicated and trained analyst and researcher which, in turn, inhibits the development of actionable intelligence.

HMIC considers that there are two sources of data that give an insight into the public’s perceptions of their police force: the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and the Victim Satisfaction Survey.

The data for Dyfed-Powys Police show that:

Crime Survey for England and Wales (12 months to March 2013)

• 65 percent of adults surveyed think that the police do an excellent/good job, which is broadly in line with the figure across England and Wales of 61 percent.
• 70 percent of adults surveyed agree that the police deal with local concerns, which is greater than the England and Wales proportion of 60 percent.

Victim Satisfaction Survey (12 months to June 2014)

• 86 percent (± 2.6 percent) of victims were satisfied with their experience which is broadly in line with the figure across England and Wales of 85 percent (± 0.2 percent).

The value for money inspection found the force had set a clear performance standard for response times, and this had remained the same since 2010. The inspection found that during this time the proportion of calls attended within these standards for ’emergency’ calls had declined, but had improved for ‘priority’ calls.

The crime data integrity inspection found that call-handlers were polite, helpful and professional. The inspection also found that the force had introduced a scheme which enabled any members of the public who find it hard to speak to the police on the telephone or in person to provide relevant personal information so that they were supported and received an appropriate service.

The domestic abuse inspection found that, while the force was committed to identifying victims of domestic abuse, there were weaknesses in the processes in place, particularly in assessment of risk and identification of repeat and vulnerable victims. The inspection found that the force could not be confident that it was consistently identifying victims and accurately assessing the risk they faced at the first point of contact.

The crime data integrity inspection examined 109 incident records and found that 73 crimes should have been recorded. Of the 73 crimes that should have been recorded, 50 were. Of the 50, four were wrongly classified and three were recorded outside the 72-hour limit allowed under the Home Office Counting Rules. This is of serious concern: it means that some victims’ crimes are not being recorded and that these victims are not receiving the service they deserve (because, for example, certain victim support services are only triggered once a crime is recorded).

HMIC examined 47 no-crime records and found 44 records to be compliant with NCRS and HOCR. This suggests that the processes applied by the force to ensure no-crime decisions are correct and robust.