Durham PEEL 2016

Durham Constabulary is good at treating all the people it serves with fairness and respect.

The constabulary has a culture in which high ethical standards are understood and practised across the organisation. The ‘Durham difference’ forms the basis of all policing activity. HMIC found that staff have a good understanding of the reasons why treating people with fairness and respect is so important in providing an effective service to local communities.

The constabulary recognises the importance of receiving both positive and negative feedback from as many of the people it serves as possible. The professional standards board identifies concerns about officer and staff behaviour and devises action plans to address these issues. The constabulary has an effective process for informing staff across the organisation about lessons learned.

Durham Constabulary regularly feeds back to the communities it serves through a variety of methods. It recognises the importance of enhancing public confidence and places great emphasis on ensuring that it continually reviews how to do so.

Durham Constabulary requires improvement in ensuring that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully.

The constabulary is effective in ensuring that staff within the organisation are aware of what standards are expected of them. It has a strong, robust and effective process of ensuring that important messages are communicated to and understood by staff. The constabulary has effective lines of communication for informing the workforce of the results of misconduct hearings and uses established processes to report cases of gross misconduct to the public.

However, the constabulary does not have sufficient capability to proactively monitor force systems. This was raised in HMIC’s 2014 police and integrity inspection and it is disappointing to see that this has still not been addressed. The constabulary also has limited capacity and capability to seek intelligence on potential corruption. Awareness of the threat posed by officers abusing their position for sexual gain is widespread across the workforce. However, the constabulary has no proactive capability for identifying officers who may be engaged in such activity.

In our 2016 national overview of police legitimacy, we recommended that all forces should have started to implement a plan to achieve the capability and capacity required to seek intelligence on potential abuse of position for sexual gain. In 2017, we reviewed of the plans put in place by all forces to in response to this recommendation.

Abuse of position assessment – Durham Constabulary

Durham Constabulary has been found to be outstanding in the way that it treats its staff with fairness and respect.

The constabulary recognises the link between providing an efficient and effective service to the public and maintaining a motivated, well-supported and well-managed workforce. It has invested considerable time and effort into ensuring that the voice and wellbeing of its staff are the main reasons for changing its policies and working arrangements.

Working in partnership with Durham University Business School, the constabulary’s annual staff survey provides a detailed academic assessment of the current factors influencing staff perceptions of their work. The regularity of the process has enabled the constabulary to build on the improvements made since the first staff survey in 2013.

The constabulary has appointed wellbeing champions across the organisation, enhanced its welfare provision and given supervisors training to help them identify the early warning signs of stress.

The annual individual performance appraisal (PDR) process is well established and many staff members feel that it helps them identify and achieve training and development opportunities. Monthly one-to-one meetings with line managers are widely completed and established coaching, mentoring and secondment processes are available to all. The workforce perceives opportunities to progress within the organisation to be fair and transparent.