West Midlands PEEL 2017

In general terms, we found that West Midlands Police is good at treating the people it serves with fairness and respect, however there are some areas where improvements could be made. Leaders clearly articulate the benefits and importance of treating people with fairness and respect. The force is taking a progressive and innovative approach to developing procedural justice, seeking to use an ambitious ‘fairness in policing’ project to transform behaviour by the workforce. Officers and staff understand the importance of good communication skills and are trained to use coercive powers fairly and respectfully. However, improvement is needed to the way in which officers apply this knowledge to treat people fairly and with respect consistently, particularly in respect of use of force.

Furthermore, the force’s current arrangements for recording and scrutinising data on the use of force are unsatisfactory; there is no evidence of routine monitoring of the lesser levels of force which can sometimes lead to serious injury. Local and force-wide independent advisory groups (IAGs) provide effective scrutiny and challenge to assist the force with improvements across a range of policing activities, including an innovative football supporters’ IAG. The incomplete scrutiny of the use of force contrasts with stop and search, in which the force has effective scrutiny, both internally and externally. Local stop and search scrutiny panels are supplemented by a stop and search commission which provides feedback to the force to bring about improvements. The public can be confident that most officers who carry out stop and search in the West Midlands understand how to do so lawfully, fairly and with respect. The force places a strong emphasis on reducing any potential unfairness through disproportionate use of stop and search, but it would benefit from sharing any learning from its scrutiny more widely across the force.

Chief officers in West Midlands Police are aware of the need to be genuine role models, and members of the workforce acknowledge that leaders encourage them to challenge their decision making, but published information relating to chief officers’ business interests, gifts and gratuities needs to be updated more regularly. A sustained programme of training and guidance supports ethical decision making, and the force’s ‘fairness in policing’ project aims to build further on this approach. The large backlog of vetting ‘aftercare’ arrangements creates an unnecessary risk to the force’s integrity, and the force’s plans to remedy this completely within the next 12 months are not achievable. Although standards of complaints investigation are generally satisfactory, the force has an inconsistent approach both to communicating regularly with those who make a complaint and to referring appropriate cases to the IPCC. Officers outside the professional standards department who conduct investigations would benefit from additional training and development. Additionally, the force could do more to target communications about its complaints process, including printed material, to those communities with less confidence in the police.

Although we found some effective practices and recently introduced developments, West Midlands Police requires improvement in aspects of its approach to treating its workforce with fairness and respect. Leaders are open to feedback from the workforce, and there are a number of established methods that are regularly used by many of the workforce. The force uses feedback and monitors a wide range of data to identify areas which affect its workforce’s perceptions, including a recent baseline assessment of procedural justice. However, its approach to resolving individual grievances lacks consistency and credibility with the workforce. The force has carried out detailed analysis to understand disproportionality in terms of recruitment and complaints, and it has introduced well-considered and innovative action aimed at tackling the problem. The force demonstrates its focus on improving the workforce’s health and wellbeing, but, at an individual level, some supervisors lack knowledge and understanding of the support available. The force has recently introduced new processes to improve how fairly and effectively it manages individual performance, nurtures talent and selects its leaders, but these are not yet established.