Greater Manchester PEEL 2015

Greater Manchester Police is good at preventing crime and anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe.

The force has a strong commitment to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. The importance of preventing crime and anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe is generally well understood throughout the whole force.

The force is committed to working more closely with other public sector organisations and agencies, to improve outcomes for local people under the banner of public service reform.

HMIC found many examples of effective partnership working across the force area and the use of new legislation to tackle emerging issues of anti-social behaviour.

The force is committed to neighbourhood policing and neighbourhood teams work effectively with partner agencies to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour in local communities. Taking staff away from their neighbourhood duties continues to have an impact on how effective they can be in their neighbourhood role. The force plans to address this and is piloting a new integrated neighbourhood policing model in Salford.

Greater Manchester Police’s approach to investigating crime and managing offenders requires improvement.

The force has introduced a new crime screening policy to determine which crimes will be investigated and by whom, but it is not always being applied appropriately.

The standard of investigation of non-complex crime is poor and lacks effective management and supervision.

The investigation of serious and complex crime is conducted to a very high standard and, while specialist teams do not always undertake the investigation of serious sexual offences, detectives with specialist support will carry them out.

Good investigation support is provided through forensic analysis and significant progress has been made in the digital analysis of exhibits to help identify offenders.

Multi-agency integrated offender management teams are identifying effectively those at greatest risk of offending and diverting them away from crime.

The force has a dedicated sex offender management unit and, although it acknowledges that its policies and procedures are not in line with national guidance, staff within the unit are managing the threat and risk dynamically on a daily basis.

The force is changing its risk assessment practices for registered sex offenders to implement an active risk management system, which, although time consuming, is in the main resulting in a reduction in the level of assessed risk.

The management of offenders under multi-agency public protection arrangements is good.

Greater Manchester Police is good at protecting from harm those who are vulnerable and supporting victims.

Following a critical report in 2014 by HMIC about the force’s approach to tackling domestic abuse, Greater Manchester Police invested considerable effort and resources into ensuring that vulnerability is the priority for the force. In November 2014 HMIC re-visited the force and found significant improvements.

Police officers and staff now routinely identify those who are vulnerable at an early stage and tailor their response. While computer systems are limited in their ability to identify repeat victims, officers and staff are confident and skilled to ask victims directly.

The force investigates crime committed against the most vulnerable victims well. Investigations by specialist officers into the most serious offences, such as rape and wounding, are of a particularly good standard, with victim-centred investigations.

Greater Manchester Police has a clear, structured and well-supervised process for responding to reports of missing and absent children. The force works well with local authorities and partners to keep these children safe.

The force has learnt lessons from high profile cases of child sexual exploitation. All public sector partners across Greater Manchester have signed up to Project Phoenix, a shared approach to tackling child sexual exploitation.

Officers attending domestic abuse incidents have a good knowledge of how to assess risk and look for indicators of increased risk.

Greater Manchester Police has a very good understanding of how serious and organised crime makes an impact on local communities.

The level of threat posed by organised crime within Greater Manchester is extensive. Organised crime groups are identified at local and force levels and good systems are in place to tackle these groups using a wide range of options.

The force has committed significant resources to manage the ongoing threat, including a well developed intelligence capability, which makes the most of intelligence gathering opportunities, particularly those available through government and partner arrangements.

The force is strongly committed to partnership working to tackle serious and organised crime through Programme Challenger. Programme Challenger sets the overall approach to serious and organised crime for the force and its partners. Dedicated multi-agency challenger teams disrupt and dismantle OCGs.

The force is meeting its responsibilities under The Strategic Policing Requirement. It has sufficient resources to deal with most public order contingencies and respond to a major incident and these arrangements are regularly tested.

This is the first year HMIC has graded forces on their effectiveness at tackling serious and organised crime, including its arrangements for ensuring that it can fulfil its national policing responsibilities, so no year-on-year comparison is possible.