Nottinghamshire PEEL 2017
Effectiveness
How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
How effective is the force at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe?
Nottinghamshire Police’s approach to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour is good.
Neighbourhood policing is well understood. Examples of good practice include:
- dedicated neighbourhood officers and staff responsible for specific beat areas and the use of community profiles for every neighbourhood;
- neighbourhood teams working well with the local authority;
- collaborative problem solving with partner organisations; and
- the introduction of a shared online system for managing multi-agency responses to high-risk cases involving anti-social behaviour.
While the force can respond to emergencies involving vulnerable people, work pressures and staff shortages sometimes take neighbourhood officers away from beat areas when they are most needed. The force recognises this problem and is addressing it, but it will take time for its plans to be put into practice and have a positive effect.
The force should also:
- improve how it listens to community concerns and provide more consistent feedback about police action taken; and
- develop a more systematic way of bringing research and evidence-based policing tactics to problem solving, rather than relying on professional knowledge of what has worked best in the past.
Areas for improvement
- The force should work with local people to improve its understanding of local communities, and demonstrate what action it has taken as a result of their concerns.
- The force should evaluate and share effective practice routinely, both internally and with other organisations, to improve its approach to the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour.
How effective is the force at investigating crime and reducing re-offending?
This question was not inspected in 2017. The grade and findings from last year’s inspection still stand.
How effective is the force at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims?
Nottinghamshire Police requires improvement at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims. Its staff identify and protect vulnerable people, understanding the importance of acting promptly to protect them. Staff behave consistently positively towards vulnerable people and investigate cases involving them well. They have good links to mental health professionals, such as the local mental health trust.
The quality of the force’s response to incidents involving vulnerable people, once provided, is good. It has improved its understanding of how domestic abuse can affect children. The backlog in referrals involving children and high-risk abuse cases is now minimal. It now refers all such cases to multi-agency risk assessment conferences.
Problem areas that need resolving include:
- delays in initial response times to some incidents, although the force is looking at various ways to deal with this; and;
- confusion among some staff about when to conduct a risk assessment following an incident which involves domestic abuse.
Areas for improvement
- The force should ensure that its response to incidents involving all vulnerable people, but particularly victims of domestic abuse, is not adversely affected by the availability of response officers – in order to ensure victims are kept safe.
- The force should review its policy and guidance about when officers complete risk assessments following an incident involving domestic abuse to safeguard vulnerable victims.
- The force should ensure its process to obtain feedback from victims of domestic abuse includes those victims who do not support police action.
How effective is the force at tackling serious and organised crime?
This question was not inspected in 2017. The grade and findings from last year’s inspection still stand.
How effective are the force’s specialist capabilities?
National threats often require forces to work together, across force boundaries. These threats include terrorism, large-scale disorder and civil emergencies. We examined the capabilities in place to respond to these threats, in particular a firearms attack.
Most positively, the force:
- works with other forces to ensure enough trained staff and officers with specialist skills are available to respond to national threats;
- tests its skills in training exercises;
- has developed a good understanding of the threat to the public from an armed attack; and
- has fulfilled its commitment to a national programme to increase armed policing in England and Wales.