Warwickshire PEEL 2014

The chief constable has promoted a culture where staff are expected to take personal responsibility for their ethical and professional conduct. An acceptable culture of challenge exists, and most staff feel comfortable and supported when reporting misconduct. The force has a structured plan to introduce the Code of Ethics supported by the use of the National Decision Model. The force has developed policies relating to standards of behaviour and professionalism; however, staff knowledge and understanding of some of these policies needs improvement.

The force professional standards department had a significant backlog of complaints against police from members of the public. Staff from the anti-corruption unit are used to reduce the backlog, limiting the proactive anti-corruption capability of the force.

The force does not effectively identify staff groups or individuals who may be vulnerable to corruption, and intelligence gathering in this regard is not proactive but this should improve as an analyst had recently been appointed. While the force responds to reports of poor behaviour or corruption, it needs to improve the capacity proactively to prevent, develop and investigate these issues.

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 Warwickshire Police show that:

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

• 54 percent of adults surveyed think that the police do an excellent/good job, which is less than the figure across England and Wales of 61 percent.
• 53 percent of adults surveyed agree that the police deal with local concerns, which is less than the England and Wales proportion of 60 percent.

Victim Satisfaction Survey (12 months to June 2014)

• 83.8 percent (± 1.7 percent) of victims were satisfied with their experience which is broadly in line with the figure across England and Wales of 85.0 percent (± 0.2 percent).

The value for money inspection found that Warwickshire Police 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 frontline staff, including call-takers, understood the importance of meeting the needs of the victim when considering crime-recording and investigation; they were polite, professional and helpful.

The domestic abuse inspection found that staff in the force operations and communication centre were trained to question callers about the likely threat, harm and risk to the victim or anyone else who may be present at the incident. Staff accessed the force intelligence systems and provided information to the attending officer. The databases were not integrated, so operators needed to access different systems to find the relevant information. The force provided an enhanced service to the victims of domestic abuse who are assessed as being at the greatest risk of harm. The operators usually sent a uniformed officer immediately or within an hour, dependent on the circumstances reported. Officers and staff had received training in the use of the domestic abuse, stalking and harassment risk assessment. This risk assessment must be completed for each victim of domestic abuse. The compliance and quality assurance of the initial attendance and risk assessment process was the subject of robust scrutiny.

The crime data integrity inspection examined 90 incident records and found that 77 crimes should have been recorded. Of the 77 crimes that should have been recorded, 63 were. Of the 63, two were wrongly classified and one was recorded outside the 72-hour limit allowed under the National Crime Recording Standard and the Home Office Counting Rules. This was of concern as it meant that some victims’ crimes were not being recorded and that these victims were not receiving the service they deserved (because, for example, certain victim support services are only triggered once a crime is recorded).

The inspection also examined 61 no-crime records and found 37 records to be compliant with National Crime Recording Standard and the Home Office Counting Rules. This was a serious concern as the no-crime decisions reviewed related to offences of rape, robbery and violence. HMIC examined 19 rape no-crime records and found that 10 complied with National Crime Recording Standard and the Home Office Counting Rules. Most failures related to the interpretation of additional verifiable information.