South Yorkshire PEEL 2014

South Yorkshire Police is using a range of methods to understand the demand placed on its services and the consequences of that demand, for example, the numbers of staff required for crime investigation and prosecution file preparation. This information will be vital for the successful implementation of the new operating model. The force has flexibility in moving resources to address new and emerging threats such as child sexual exploitation. The force has seen a reduction in overall crime over the spending review, although at a lower rate than in England and Wales, and overall crime levels remain high.

South Yorkshire Police has developed savings plans to achieve the £12.9m savings needed in 2014/15 and £13.5m in 2015/16. The force has identified that new structures for providing policing are necessary in meeting its spending review challenges. Savings from 2016/17 onwards will become increasingly dependent on the force’s ambition to increase services provided in collaboration with other forces. For this ambition to be realised, there is a need for firm plans to be agreed and implemented.

In response to austerity savings, South Yorkshire Police’s public-facing services continue to be provided through four districts, aligned to local authority boundaries. The force is now at the point of implementing a new structure for the provision of local policing. Incrementally, business support functions have become increasingly provided through collaboration, much of which has been led by South Yorkshire. The next phase of the continuous improvement programme will focus on the collaboration of operational support and specialist crime.