Greater Manchester PEEL 2016

Greater Manchester Police is good at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe. It understands the threats facing its communities and uses information from across the force and from other local partner organisations to make sure these threats to all sections of its communities are well understood.

Through its new operating model, the force has reinforced its commitment to providing a policing service that has the interests of the local communities at its centre, as well as close and effective neighbourhood working with other partners. Neighbourhood policing continues to be the link between the community and the force through the dedicated neighbourhood beat officers and police community support officers (PCSOs). The force uses conventional engagement methods and social media to communicate with a wider audience.

The force works well with partner organisations to provide a collaborative problem-solving approach to dealing with community concerns. The use of problem solving at the local level is consistent. However, the force itself has a limited understanding of the importance of carrying out any evaluation of the overall process. The force has seen a reduction in incidents of anti-social behaviour; however, there is a notable rise in the amount of recorded crime.

Greater Manchester Police’s approach to investigating crime and reducing re-offending requires improvement.

The force allocates crime for investigation appropriately and officers possess the required level of skills. Within the control room, call takers correctly assess risk and generally gather sufficient information to assist in the early stages of investigation. However, following the initial gathering of evidence by the first attending officer, the subsequent handover to another investigator is limited and has an unacceptable standard of supervision. Despite the limitations with its investigations, the force continues to provide a quality service for victims of crime.

Greater Manchester Police manages offenders who pose the greatest threat to the public. Efforts to locate and arrest wanted persons are good and the force has an established approach to integrated offender management with a mixed cohort of offenders. However, the force has large numbers of registered sex offenders being managed by an insufficient number of staff. The force has a backlog of computer devices to be reviewed. This is a concern, as it is not able to identify how much risk exists within those devices.

The way in which Greater Manchester Police protects those who are vulnerable from harm and supports victims requires improvement. While the force has continued to build on its support and provision of services to vulnerable people, some elements have slipped following the introduction of the new policing model.

The force is strong at identifying vulnerability at the first point of contact; however, we have concerns with the initial response that follows initial deployment. The force’s process following deployment is flawed. How officers complete domestic abuse, stalking and harassment risk assessments has some limitations. The force’s ability to review and refer medium-risk domestic abuse incidents suffers a shortfall.

Despite these concerns, the force works well with partner agencies such as health and education; and provides effective safeguarding support through the use of restrictive orders such as domestic violence protection orders; and supports the ‘domestic violence disclosure scheme. It has continued to build the picture it has on hidden crime such as child sexual exploitation and on domestic abuse and it is working towards increasing its understanding of modern day slavery. The availability of body-worn video cameras enhances the force’s ability to gather significant evidence when first attending incidents of domestic abuse.

Greater Manchester Police is outstanding in how effective it is in tackling serious and organised crime. The force has improved from HMIC’s 2015 effectiveness report in which it was assessed as good.

Tackling serious and organised crime is a priority for the force and its partner organisations. Frontline staff have a comprehensive understanding of their role in disrupting crime groups. Partnership arrangements are very well developed and there is an obvious commitment for all agencies to work together in targeting those individuals who cause the greatest harm to communities. All elements of the national strategy (pursue, prevent, protect and prepare) are actively followed with some innovative means of diverting young people from being drawn into organised crime.

The force has an advanced capacity and capability to deal with the organised crime groups that create the greatest threat and additional support is provided by the regional organised crime unit. Lifetime offender management is well advanced with numerous examples of both the use of ancillary orders and other civil powers to place restrictions on offenders. We are impressed with the work the force is doing with the prison service and this is particularly pertinent in the proactive work undertaken in getting offenders returned to prison based on intelligence information only.

Greater Manchester Police has effective specialist capabilities and has appropriate plans in place to mobilise in response to the threats set out in the Strategic Policing Requirement (PDF document). The force regularly takes part in regional exercises to test these plans and makes amendments following the lessons learned from such tests. Over the past 12 months, the force has taken part in more than 20 exercises.

The resources available to Greater Manchester Police, both locally and through the North West region, ensure that the force is well prepared to respond to an attack requiring an armed response. The force has recently started to recruit officers into the force to support the national uplift in capacity and capability; it has an effective training regime that will support the planned implementation of the enhanced number of resources.