Northamptonshire PEEL 2016

Northamptonshire Police has improved the efficiency with which it keeps people safe and reduces crime since HMIC’s 2015 inspection, although its planning for demand in the future requires improvement. The force has a good understanding of its current demand based on a range of data and a detailed policing model capable of providing relatively complex analysis. In collaboration with forces in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire, and working with the College of Policing and academia, the force is developing tools to allow effective monitoring of changes in demand. It is developing its understanding of crime less likely to be reported, and has identified domestic violence and child abuse as concerns in the region. The force has done a great deal of work with partners to understand how the community is changing and to manage demand collectively with partners. It realises that it also needs to engage with harder-to-reach groups to prepare for changes in demand.

The force is good at using its resources to manage current demand. It has revised its service delivery model to focus on demand and has taken the opportunity of the redesign to try and identify inefficient processes. Good analytical tools are in place to help identify where costs can be reduced and to model the impact of any changes to its processes. The force has good processes in place to ensure benefits are realised from change programmes, and that potential negative impacts are identified and limited. It makes sensible decisions about how to deploy resources. For example, its demand model showed that cyber-crime was creating more demand than could be resourced so the force moved staff from other areas, and also used suitably qualified and vetted volunteers with specialist skills, to bolster its capability. The force has undertaken a skills audit and analysed every role in its workforce so it can map the impact of changes. However, it could do more to understand the non-operational skills in its workforce. The force collaborates effectively to reduce costs and improve efficiency. It has good joint working arrangements with other forces in the region, collaborating over armed response, roads policing and dogs services with three other forces and sharing an ICT governance board with four other forces. It works very closely with the fire service, especially on public safety and in arson investigations, and shares premises at several locations. It also works closely with local authorities in Northamptonshire, sharing a safeguarding lead on issues such as female genital mutilation, interpersonal violence and modern slavery.

Northamptonshire Police’s plans for demand in the future require improvement. The force’s budget is based on assumptions it expects to change. Although it is developing an ICT strategy as part of a collaboration with the forces in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire and it has some individual ICT projects (such as agile working, body-worn video, hand-held devices and video calling), it has no clear ICT strategy of its own. There is no clear link between ICT and workforce plans. The force does not have a clear investment strategy and decisions have been made without a clear overall aim.

During our inspection some concerns were raised with HMIC about the arrangements for a move to a new police headquarters. HMIC is looking further into the circumstances relating to this matter and will return to consider it in future PEEL inspections.