In 2023–2025, we carried out a PEEL inspection of Humberside Police. PEEL stands for police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy.
We inspected how well the force performed in several areas of policing. Most of these areas were then graded as outstanding, good, adequate, requires improvement or inadequate.
Find out more about Humberside Police
More information about the PEEL assessments
Our inspection assessed how good Humberside Police is in nine areas of policing. We make graded judgments in eight of these nine as follows:
We also inspected how effective a service Humberside Police gives to victims of crime. We don’t make a graded judgment for this area.
We set out our detailed findings about things the force is doing well and where the force should improve in the rest of this report.
We also assess the force’s performance in a range of other areas and we report on these separately. We make graded judgments for some of these areas.
In 2014, we introduced our police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy (PEEL) inspections, which assess the performance of all 43 police forces in England and Wales. Since then, we have been continuously adapting our approach.
We have moved to a more intelligence-led, continual assessment approach, rather than the annual PEEL inspections we used in previous years. Forces are assessed against the characteristics of good performance, set out in the PEEL Assessment Framework 2023–2025, and we more clearly link our judgments to causes of concern and areas for improvement.
It isn’t possible to make direct comparisons between the grades awarded in this PEEL inspection and those from the previous cycle of PEEL inspections. This is because we have increased our focus on making sure forces are achieving appropriate outcomes for the public, and in some cases we have changed the aspects of policing we inspect.
Our reports contain references to, among other things, ‘national’ definitions, priorities, policies, systems, responsibilities and processes.
In some instances, ‘national’ means applying to England or Wales, or England and Wales. In others, it means applying to England, Wales and Scotland, or the whole of the United Kingdom.
I congratulate Humberside Police on its performance in keeping people safe, reducing crime and giving victims an effective service. But to provide a consistently good service, it needs to improve in some areas.
I was pleased to find that the force has kept up its performance in several areas since our last inspection, including the good service it gives to communities. The force’s data, strategic planning, and governance and performance arrangements help it match resources to the demand it faces. And I congratulate the force’s police officers, staff and volunteers for the hard work they have done to help the force succeed.
However, since we carried out our inspection, I have become concerned about a lack of stability in the chief officer team and among other senior leaders. And I am concerned about how this may negatively affect the force’s performance and culture now and in the future.
The force’s funding is in line with the average for forces in England and Wales. Thirty‑one percent of it comes from the police precept. This is also in line with the England and Wales average.
The force’s number of recorded incidents per 1,000 population is slightly lower than the England and Wales average. Its 999 calls per 1,000 population are in line with the average, but its 101 calls are higher than average.
The force continues to identify vulnerability effectively and works well with partners to protect the public. This includes effective work with communities and local community safety partners to tackle local problems.
I am impressed with how the force uses technology to become more efficient. It has automated processes to make them more consistent and this has freed up its workforce to focus on other important tasks. We highlighted this type of good work to improve efficiency in our ‘State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2023’ report.
The force’s innovative use of technology is also helping other forces. Since our last inspection, the force has helped other forces introduce Right Care, Right Person. Humberside Police developed this programme to reduce the number of mental health incidents it attends and make sure vulnerable people get support from appropriate care professionals. The force has also created My Police Portal to improve updates to victims of crime. Seven other forces have already decided to also use this portal.
But the force needs to improve the quality and supervision of its investigations. This will make sure victims get the justice they deserve.
The force has good leadership among its police officers and staff. This has led to a consistently positive culture in which leaders encourage and expect people to challenge poor behaviour. In the coming months, I intend to closely monitor the situation with regard to the chief officer team and other senior leaders to make sure the force continues to provide a good service to the public. I am keen to make sure my concerns are quickly addressed.
HM Inspector of Constabulary
Using the College of Policing leadership standards as a framework, in this section we set out the most important findings relating to the force’s leadership at all levels.
The force has governance and performance arrangements that align with its strategic plan. It uses data and analysis to understand current and future demand and matches resources to it.
The force has a clear understanding of what it expects from leaders at all levels. It has invested in a leadership training programme called Humberside LEAD (Lead, Engage, Aspire and Develop) which aligns with the College of Policing’s leadership framework.
The force has identified barriers to under-represented groups progressing in the workplace. And it is taking good action to help people overcome these barriers. For example, it has a specific development programme for women in its workforce.
The force and its leaders have created a positive culture and working environment where police personnel feel valued. They feel empowered to challenge the performance and behaviour of others to help the force improve. This is because of the force’s effective leadership and positive culture.
When the new chief constable is selected, they should build on the force’s already strong leadership and positive culture.
More detail on Humberside Police’s leadership is included in the main body of the report.
The reducing crime assessment sets out what Humberside Police is doing to reduce crime and how effective this action is. This assessment doesn’t include police recorded crime figures. This is because they can be affected by variations and changes in recording policy and practice, making it difficult to draw comparisons over time.
The force focuses on the right priorities in its efforts to cut crime. It has continued to improve how it works with communities to help build trust and confidence.
The force has an effective neighbourhood policing model that helps it understand what its communities need. The force works well with partners, such as local authority community safety partnerships, to prevent crime and antisocial behaviour and help vulnerable people.
Since we last inspected, the force has improved how quickly it attends incidents. It has made most progress around incidents graded as a priority response, which police should attend within one hour.
The force has good data to understand its current and future demand. This helps it make strategic decisions and place officers in the right place to prevent crime.
But the force needs to improve the quality of its investigations by pursuing more lines of investigation. Supervisors must provide good oversight to make sure the force improves outcomes for victims.
More detail on what Humberside Police is doing to reduce crime is included in the main body of the report.
This section describes our assessment of the service Humberside Police provides to victims. This is from the point of reporting a crime and throughout the investigation. As part of this assessment, we reviewed 100 case files.
When the police close a case of a reported crime, they assign it an ‘outcome type’. This describes the reason for closing it.
We selected 100 cases to review, including at least 20 that the force had closed with the following outcome type:
When diversionary, educational or intervention activity has been undertaken and it isn’t in the public interest to take any further action.
Although our victim service assessment is ungraded, it influences graded judgments in the other areas we have inspected.
The force has reduced the number of non-emergency calls that the caller abandons before the force can answer. But the force needs to improve how quickly it answers emergency calls.
In their calls, call handlers use a structured process that assesses threat, harm, risk and vulnerability called THRIVE. And they usually identify repeat victims. This means that call handlers know the victim’s circumstances when deciding on the force’s response to them. We found that call handlers act politely, appropriately and ethically.
On most occasions, the force responds appropriately to calls for service. But it doesn’t always respond within the timescales it has set for itself. It doesn’t always inform victims of delays, so their expectations aren’t always met. This can cause them to lose confidence and stop supporting cases.
In most cases, the force investigates crimes in a timely way and keeps victims updated. This is good. Victims are more likely to have confidence in police investigations when the force regularly updates them.
But the force doesn’t always complete all relevant and proportionate lines of enquiry or supervise investigations well. A thorough investigation increases the chance that the police will identify and arrest criminals, giving a positive result for victims.
In most cases, the force took victim personal statements so that victims could describe how a crime has affected their lives.
When victims withdraw support for an investigation, the force considers moving forward without their support. This can safeguard victims and prevent further crimes being committed.
The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (‘the Victims’ Code’) requires forces to carry out a needs assessment. This should take place early on during a case to help the force understand whether victims need extra support. This can include any mobility needs or use of interpreters. But the force doesn’t always carry these out or record all requests for extra support.
When the force closes a case, it usually lists the appropriate outcome type and records the reasons for this outcome. The force asks victims for their views to make sure it is listing the correct outcome type. But it doesn’t always keep an auditable record of what they said.
When the case is finally closed, the force nearly always tells victims what outcome type it listed.
Humberside Police is good at using police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
The force has introduced conflict coaches to support student police officers who may not be confident using powers such as stop and search. Conflict coaches are officers who have completed a three-day training course that teaches them how to support colleagues as they develop their skills. Conflict coaches support student officers doing operational police work, such as live stop and searches, and help them understand how to behave correctly.
The force has begun to use conflict coaches more widely. Coaches now support any officer who lacks confidence using their powers, even if they aren’t a student. This includes officers returning to frontline work.
The force may put conflict coaches in place after negative feedback on an officer’s use of powers. They may also do this after one-to-one meetings between a sergeant and their officer. This helps them improve how they use their powers.
The force has detailed and effective processes to scrutinise officers’ use of force. It requires sergeants to check and sign-off all use of force records. When officers record use of force, they have to write down why they did so and the decisions they made in a free-text box.
Custody personnel remind officers to record use of force. They also create tasks on the force IT system to make sure officers do this. There are extra reminders of this in custody suites and on force computers. These encourage officers to complete use of force records before they leave the custody suite.
The force checks officers’ use of force records against custody incident logs. This helps the force get the best possible picture of when and how officers have used it and the impact it has had on detainees. This scrutiny process helps it make sure use of force is fair and appropriate.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
Humberside Police officers understand how to use police powers fairly and respectfully. The force gives officers communication training that teaches them how to deal with conflict and de-escalate incidents.
The force tries to learn from the lived experiences of its communities. It asks community members to talk to officers about how they were treated when they interacted with police and the impact it had. Officers told us that they valued this lived experience.
We found that officers received effective initial and refresher training on stop and search powers. Additional training days involve scenario-based role plays that focus on cultural awareness. For example, a role play exercise with someone from an ethnic minority community who is stopped and searched by police. The training is effective in preparing officers to use police powers fairly and to consider the impact of their actions on community members.
Humberside Police gives mandatory refresher training on officer safety. This training is in line with the College of Policing’s new national curriculum. The training covers communication skills, conflict management and use of force tactics.
The force has an up-to-date body-worn video (BWV) policy, in line with national mandates from the College of Policing. This tells officers to record all incidents where they use police powers on BWV.
As part of its internal scrutiny of its use of police powers, the force completes audits to makes sure its officers are following force policy. The force told us its audit showed that 91.7 percent of encounters are in line with force policy.
During our inspection, officers told us there sometimes weren’t enough BWV sets for all officers. This can happen during shift overlap periods, where police officers on two different shifts are on duty at the same time. Sometimes, BWV sets need to be repaired or redistributed across police stations to make sure they are available for officers to use them. It is good that the force tracks where its BWV sets are and when they have been sent for repair.
The force is aware of these challenges. At the time of our inspection, it was running a regional procurement process to improve its stock of BWV sets. This will review how many BWV cameras the force has and its approach to repairing them to make sure there are enough sets for its officers.
We audited ten BWV recordings where officers used police powers. We found that officers always treated the public with courtesy and respect.
In five cases, recordings didn’t show officers giving all the necessary information to suspects before searching them. We told the force about this. It has now told officers to start recording earlier to include the full stop and search encounter.
We found that the force has internal and external scrutiny systems to understand its use of stop and search powers.
All stop and search records are checked and signed-off by a line manager. The manager should also dip sample BWV records of stop and search encounters. But some told us they don’t always have time to do this. Each member of the district’s senior leadership team reviews five encounters a month. And the force’s internal audit team reviews every stop and search encounter too.
The force also has an internal panel meeting that reviews stop and search data. This includes examining the characteristics of those the police stopped and making sure officers always recorded reasonable grounds. The panel is chaired by a member of the force’s Bridge Forum, a network for under-represented groups within the workforce. The force uses this network to give extra scrutiny of records of when the police stop people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The local police and crime commissioner’s office has an external police powers scrutiny panel with an independent chair. The force trains all panel members about police powers. This helps them make informed judgments about how fairly and effectively officers are using all their powers, including stop and search.
The force’s lead for police powers and its training team attend this panel. This means the force can hear the panel’s feedback and adapt training or continuing professional development in response. When records are scrutinised at this panel, the force shares feedback with the officers involved. Officers told us that they valued this feedback.
The force also has a data dashboard focused on police powers. Sergeants and other supervisors can access this to monitor how officers are using these powers.
During our inspection, we carried out an audit of stop and search encounters. We examined the grounds officers recorded for carrying out a stop and search.
When officers make records, these must be specific and detailed. They should allow someone else to judge whether a reasonable person, with the same information, would also believe that the person they stopped was carrying an illegal item. The officer must write down the grounds for the search clearly, so that the person they searched can understand them if they ask for a copy of the record. If officers don’t record encounters accurately, it is more difficult for scrutiny to take place.
During our inspection, we reviewed a sample of 181 stop and search records from 1 February 2023 to 31 January 2024. Based on this sample, we estimate that 91.2 percent (with a confidence interval of +/- 4.1 percent) of all stop and searches by the force during this period had reasonable grounds. This is broadly unchanged compared with the findings from our previous review of records from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021, when we found 84.9 percent (with a confidence interval of +/- 4.5 percent) of stop and searches had reasonable grounds. Of the records we reviewed for stop and searches on people who self-defined as from an ethnic minority background, 18 out of 18 had reasonable grounds recorded.
We used ethnicity data from the 2021 census to understand how stop and search powers could have a disproportionate effect on people in Humberside.
In the year ending 31 March 2022, Humberside Police was 3.5 times more likely to search Black and Black British people than White people. This had reduced to 2.2 times more likely in the year ending 31 March 2023. For Asian and Asian British people, the figures reduced from 1.4 times more likely to 0.8 times more likely over the same period.
Across all forces in England and Wales, police were 4.1 times more likely to search Black and Black British people. They were 1.4 times more likely to search Asian and Asian British people.
Humberside Police’s reduction in the disproportionate use of stop and search may help the public to have trust and confidence in the way the force uses its powers.
The force has a policy on recording use of force incidents. There are processes to make sure officers complete these records. For example, custody sergeants remind officers to do this when they come into a custody suite. The force has dedicated rooms with desks and computer space so that officers can complete records before they leave the custody suite.
By examining how many arrests a force makes, we can estimate how many use of force incidents there are likely to be. Every arrest would usually count as a use of force. This means that the number of use of force incidents should be at least as high as the number of arrests, but likely higher.
The force told us that, in the year ending 31 March 2024, it recorded 16,230 use of force incidents and 17,405 arrests. This indicates an under-recording of at least 1,175 incidents. This is a major improvement from the year ending 31 March 2023. In that period, the force recorded 8,493 use of force incidents rather than the expected number of 18,765 such incidents. This was an estimated under-recording of 10,272.
At the time of our inspection, the force hadn’t yet published on its website data for use of force in the year ending 31 March 2024.
Humberside Police is outstanding at prevention and deterrence.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to prevention and deterrence.
The force continues to use an effective tool called Humber Talking. This lets the force have two-way conversations with members of its communities. Community members complete surveys on what they feel police priorities should be and the problems they face. Neighbourhood officers then tell communities about their policing activities targeting those issues. The force told us that 36 percent of its population (215,000 households) have registered for and are using this tool.
Humber Talking offers different language settings. This makes it accessible to community members who don’t speak English as a first language. It also gives the force useful information, such as areas where people are using Humber Talking in a language other than English. This makes it easier for officers to locate and work with those communities in an effective way. The force has a system to track how many public meetings it has and how it works with different communities.
Another example of the force working well with communities is a free messaging service called My Community Alert. The force told us that 62,000 local residents are signed up to this service. This service helps the force to share important news and information through people’s smartphones and other devices.
The force has a number of independent advisory groups. Each local authority area has its own advisory group. There are also some themed groups. Themed groups help the force hear from specific communities, such as young people or women and girls affected by violence. Group members share feedback with the force and scrutinise its services. They also attend live incidents and events to help the force improve relationships across different communities.
The force has worked with advisory group members within Operation Tarlac, the national police response to the Israel–Palestine conflict. Advisory groups have helped the force understand the impact of the conflict on local communities. This has made it easier for the police to reduce tensions between different communities.
The force shares information with communities in relation to Operation Tarlac and its other work through a weekly My Community Alert report.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that overall confidence in Humberside Police has increased. In the year ending December 2023, 73.3 percent of respondents had overall confidence in the local police in Humberside. This was much higher than overall confidence in police across England and Wales, which was 65.3 percent in the same year.
The force has continued to improve its joint tasking and prioritisation process. This is a process where the police work with partners, such as local authorities, to focus on areas where antisocial behaviour and vulnerability are high. When it identifies these areas, the force focuses its resources on them to deal with problems.
The force has a very good understanding of where these areas are. It considers information from the Acorn dataset, which provides socioeconomic data about areas across the UK. And it also uses data from community safety partner organisations, such as support services for homeless people, to help with this.
The force has detailed ward profiles. These identify the skills and police personnel the force will require to meet the needs of different communities. The force also has governance and performance arrangements at force, district and team levels. These help the force monitor performance against force plans and goals.
The force works effectively with its partners, especially community safety teams, to prevent crime, antisocial behaviour and vulnerability. By working with these partners, the force is helping to improve safety and build safer communities in Humberside.
For example, the force has introduced a programme to develop safer communities. It is based on the Clear Hold Build concept, which aims to remove organised crime groups from neighbourhoods and then work with local people and community safety partnerships to help improve their communities.
In Humberside, the programme has focused on three locations:
In the Clear and Hold stages, the force has acted against criminals in these three target areas. Since the programme started, it has made 928 arrests and executed 88 search warrants. It has charged 288 people with criminal offences and kept 228 in custody.
But the programme is about more than just the police arresting criminals. In the Build phase, it is about stopping people becoming involved in crime and antisocial behaviour. The force’s partners and local communities run early intervention schemes to help with prevention. And they lead community activities to help improve the local area. By taking this partnership approach, the force is helping to make communities feel safer and more confident, while also targeting local criminals.
Another example of effective problem-solving involved the force working with partners to reduce criminal damage to the local bus network. The force told us that 4 bus windscreens and 197 windows had been smashed. This damage to property also meant local communities using the transport system felt unsafe.
The force worked with partners, including the bus company, to solve this problem. They decided to change the environment to reduce the opportunity for offenders to damage buses. They improved lighting and removed potential missiles (such as bricks) on affected routes. They also funded an educational film to show in schools and youth venues. The police targeted offenders in areas where this criminal activity was most common and told parents when those involved were young people.
The force said that damage to buses has reduced because of this work. No windows were damaged in 2024. And people felt more confident using bus services.
The force uses its civil powers to effectively tackle antisocial behaviour in Operation Luscombe. It uses a traffic light system to decide how it should deal with people committing antisocial behaviour. This system gives criminals a chance to stop offending and instead be referred by the force to partners. These partners, which include services that help people with addiction issues, help them tackle problems that may be causing their offending.
For less serious offenders, the force issues a green intervention notice, which offers them support. If they commit more offences, the force gives them an amber community protection written warning. This offers offenders support from a local intervention hub. If they keep offending, the force gives a red community protection notice. This is a final opportunity to stop offending. If they don’t do this, the force can ban the individual from an area for up to three months.
The force recognises and rewards this type of work at its problem-solving awards. It doesn’t focus only on those working in neighbourhood roles. For example, the force’s fraud team won an award for its fraud alert process.
The force has an effective approach to neighbourhood policing. It has increased the number of officers carrying out this work.
The force has an abstraction policy on when officers can be diverted away from their main duties. The force follows this policy and officers said they are only diverted from neighbourhood policing work if there is a threat-to-life incident.
We found that neighbourhood officers were committed to their work and had good leaders. They had appropriate workloads. This allowed them to focus on working with communities and dealing with key priorities in their ward areas, such as high-harm and vulnerability crimes.
The force gives neighbourhood officers the information they need to help them prevent and deter offending. The force analyses police incidents to help officers prioritise areas where crime and antisocial behaviour are highest.
Humberside Police is good at responding to the public.
Humberside Police created Right Care, Right Person, a programme to make sure vulnerable people receive support from the most appropriate service. Right Care, Right Person is now being rolled out nationally by all forces in England and Wales.
In Humberside, the programme continues to make sure people get timely support from the most appropriate service. The savings it has created have helped the force spend more money setting up dedicated teams to search for missing people. These teams search for vulnerable people who repeatedly go missing from care homes.
Humberside Police worked with the College of Policing to support the national roll out of Right Care, Right Person. The force helped to create a toolkit for forces adopting this programme to use when working with health partners. Force experts have given presentations about Right Care, Right Person at conferences and have visited other forces to help them introduce it. They have also carried out peer reviews, giving useful feedback to forces to help them put Right Care, Right Person in place as effectively as possible.
Other forces that have introduced Right Care, Right Person have measured its impact. They have found that police officers attend fewer incidents. Forces have reported major savings in the time officers spend on this work and vulnerable people get care from the most appropriate service.
The force has worked with an external provider to create the My Police Portal app, which can be used on smartphones. The force analysed the 101 calls it receives and found that many were from victims trying to get updates on their cases.
The new portal sends victims a push notification at seven stages in an investigation. If the victim registers with the portal app, they can access more information about their case and directly message the officer investigating it.
The force evaluated the portal and found that, for the two crime types tested, 101 calls reduced by 60 percent. The force now uses it for more crime types. The force also found that victims who sign up to the portal access it 6.8 times on average. This shows that victims tend to check on the progress of their cases regularly, so the portal is reducing how often they call 101.
The portal is now available to all forces across England and Wales. Seven forces have agreed to use it by the end of this year. Humberside’s approach is likely to help these forces support victims and cut 101 call demand.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force responds to the public.
The force has a detailed understanding of the demand it expects to face from the public. It uses software to analyse previous demand data and estimate the resources it should need for dealing with future 999 and 101 demand.
The force has an operating model that it regularly reviews and updates to identify how many officers it needs for operational policing teams. The model helps the force to make sure it has enough officers available to protect their safety and deal with predicted demand.
We found that when the public dial 999 to get help from Humberside Police, the force answers their calls quickly.
In the year ending 30 April 2024, the force answered 84.2 percent of its 999 calls within 10 seconds. This is below the 90 percent standard expected of forces. But the force has been improving on this measure. For the six months to May 2024, the force met the 90 percent standard.
Figure 1: Proportion of 999 calls answered within ten seconds by forces in England and Wales in the year ending 30 April 2024
Source: 999 performance data from BT
Note: Call answering time is the time taken for a call to be transferred from BT to a force and then answered by that force.
The force told us that, in the year ending March 2024, it took 20 seconds on average to answer 101 calls. In this period, only 2.9 percent of 101 callers ended the call before the force answered it.
The public now have multiple ways to contact the force. These include online methods, such as live chat with a force control room operator or the Single Online Home platform. This means the public can report incidents and crimes that don’t need a more urgent response.
The force also uses the My Police Portal app. This helps victims to get case updates directly by email or mobile phone, or by accessing an app.
During our inspection, we audited the incidents recorded by call handlers. In this audit, we used different sample sizes to examine various issues.
In 79 of 80 cases we examined, we found that call handlers acted politely, appropriately and ethically, and used clear language without bias.
The force has many incidents in which call handlers identify someone as vulnerable. In the year ending September 2023, the force identified vulnerable people in 63 incidents per 1,000 population. This is higher than the average (20 incidents per 1,000 population) across all forces in England and Wales.
In our audit, we found call handlers checked whether a victim was vulnerable in 88 of 90 cases. When they identified vulnerable people, they recorded this in 70 of 73 cases. They also checked if a caller was a repeat victim in 83 of 86 cases. They used that information effectively in all 45 cases we examined.
In our victim service assessment, we found that call handlers used a structured triage approach to assess risk and consider callers’ needs in 81 of the 89 cases. This approach is based on the THRIVE model. In 80 of 81 cases, call handlers recorded accurate and useful details of what the caller said.
The force has specialist support and external experts available to its control room to improve decision-making and risk assessments. This includes mental health professionals located in the control room who support officers responding to incidents.
The force also has domestic abuse specialists and independent domestic violence advisers (IDVAs) available. They use force systems to give officers attending domestic abuse calls extra information about previous incidents. And they re-contact victims to give specialist advice and offer IDVA support.
In our victim service assessment, we found the force prioritised calls appropriately in 81 of 90 cases. In eight cases, a supervisor reviewed and approved a downgraded response to an incident. In 55 of 57 cases, there was effective supervision of decisions to deploy officers to an incident. In our audit, we found that the force responded appropriately in most cases.
For emergency incidents, the force’s published target for attending urban locations is 15 minutes. For rural locations, it is 20 minutes. For priority incidents (determined by the force using the THRIVE model), the standard target is one hour.
In 60 of 68 cases, the force met these published targets. And the force told us that, in the year ending February 2024, it met its combined emergency and priority incident targets 90 percent of the time.
We found that attending officers completed appropriate risk assessments (for victims and others) in 49 of 50 cases. In 19 of 22 cases, call handlers gave appropriate advice about protecting evidence before officers attended an incident. In 32 of 33 cases, call handlers also gave good advice on crime prevention.
Humberside Police requires improvement at investigating crime.
We found that some investigations by the force aren’t supervised properly. This means that investigations aren’t thorough enough, and the force doesn’t take some investigative opportunities.
In our victim service assessment, we found that only 62 of 85 investigations we reviewed had effective supervision updates recorded. These records show what further actions supervisors told an investigator to take during the case. In 67 of 88 cases, the force took all appropriate investigative opportunities.
The force should do more to actively and regularly supervise cases. This will make sure it carries out thorough investigations and takes all investigative opportunities.
Under the revised Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, all victims are entitled to receive a needs assessment from the police. This happens early in a case to decide if victims need any extra support during the investigation or later in court. In the 77 relevant cases we reviewed, 20 didn’t have a clearly recorded needs assessment.
The force isn’t always achieving acceptable outcomes for victims of crime. It has low numbers of crimes that are solved following investigations. The force needs to understand the issue and work to achieve better outcomes for victims.
In the year ending 31 December 2023, Humberside Police recorded 86,768 victim-based crimes. Of these recorded offences, 11.4 percent were assigned an ‘offences brought to justice’ outcome. This is within the normal range compared to other forces in England and Wales.
Figure 2: Percentage of victim-based crime recorded by Humberside Police and all forces in England and Wales by selected outcome types in the year ending 31 December 2023
| Outcome types | Force outcome rate | England and Wales outcome rate |
| 1 – Charged/summonsed | 6.7% | 5.3% |
| 2 & 3 – Caution – youths & adults | 1.0% | 0.7% |
| 8 – Community resolutions | 3.1% | 1.5% |
| 9 – Prosecution not in the public interest (Crown Prosecution Service decision) | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 10 & 21 – Prosecution not in the public interest (police decision) | 1.0% | 0.7% |
| 14 – Evidential difficulties (suspect not identified but the victim declines or is unable to support) | 3.1% | 5.6% |
| 15 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports police action) | 11.3% | 12.6% |
| 16 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim does not support or withdraws support) | 17.3% | 20.7% |
| 17 – Prosecution time limit expired | 1.5% | 0.2% |
| 18 – Investigation complete – no suspect identified | 30.5% | 43.2% |
| 20 – Action undertaken by another body/agency | 3.8% | 1.5% |
| 22 – Diversionary, educational or intervention activity | 0.2% | 0.3% |
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from Home Office
Note: Presented data come from the Home Office’s April 2024 data release and may have been revised since. Data from the British Transport Police and the City of London Police are excluded from the England and Wales rate. Total police-recorded crime includes all crime (except fraud and computer misuse). For a full commentary and explanation of crime and outcome types, please see the Home Office statistics.
Figure 3: Proportion of victim-based crimes assigned a ‘charged/summonsed’ outcome (outcome 1) by Humberside Police between the year ending 31 March 2015 and the year ending 31 December 2023
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Note: Presented data comes from the Home Office’s April 2024 data release and may have been revised since. Victim-based crimes are defined as all police‑recorded crimes where there is a direct victim, such as an individual, an organisation or a corporate body.
Between the years ending 31 December 2022 and 31 December 2023, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned outcome 16 fell from 20.8 percent to 17.3 percent in the force. This is below the normal range expected for forces in England and Wales. This means there are fewer cases where victims stop supporting cases in Humberside and is a positive finding.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force investigates crime.
The force has governance and performance arrangements for its investigations. This lets it oversee cases effectively at the force, district and team levels.
The force’s strategic improving investigation standards meeting evaluates whether it has the right investigative resources. It examines progress in recruiting officers to become qualified detectives. And it identifies training needs or continuing professional development updates for investigators. The heads of each investigation team meet weekly to review case performance too.
At force level, a chief officer chairs a monthly victim focus meeting. This reviews the force’s service to victims at a district and department level. The force also has a local accountability meeting that scrutinises district commanders on their teams’ handling of cases.
In our victim service assessment, we examined the quality of the force’s service to victims. In 79 of the 95 cases we evaluated, the force gave a good service, in line with the Victims’ Code.
At the start of an investigation, the force should complete a victim needs assessment to decide if a victim requires any extra support. But we found that the force only recorded when victims needed additional support in 35 of 48 cases.
During an investigation, the force agrees a contract with victims to make sure they are properly updated on their case. In 74 of 79 cases, investigating officers adhered to that contract.
Officers should also consider if partner agencies, such as victim support services, could give helpful extra support to victims. We found that in 54 of 56 cases, the force referred victims to appropriate partner organisations.
A crime can have a significant impact on a victim. So, it is important that the force gives them the chance to record a personal statement, setting out how the crime has affected them. The force offered victims this opportunity in 24 of 26 relevant cases.
It is also important for forces to understand why victims decide not to support a case. In 31 of 32 cases, the force recorded the reason given by a victim. This was included in the case file in 31 of 36 cases.
Sometimes, the force should consider continuing with a case, even if a victim doesn’t support it. This is called an evidence-led prosecution. In 12 of 13 relevant cases, we found that the force considered or tried to continue a case without a victim’s support.
At the end of a case, the investigating officer should speak with the victim. They should consider the victim’s views before ending the investigation and deciding on the case outcome. In our victim service assessment, we found that the force consulted victims before deciding an outcome in 38 of 40 cases. And it considered the victim’s views in 48 of 51 cases.
The force runs a quality assurance thematic testing programme. This reviews around 300 investigations a month to get a detailed understanding of the service it offers to victims. It assesses the quality of investigations around victim care, investigation management and suspect management. This includes making sure investigators complete investigation plans and follow all appropriate lines of enquiry.
The force tries to get the best possible outcome for victims. It reports outcomes monthly at its victim focus meeting. The force told us that, in the year ending 29 February 2024, it recorded ‘an offender brought to justice’ outcome for 15.5 percent of victim-based crimes.
In our victim service assessment, we reviewed 100 investigations that the force had completed. We found that 76 were effective.
We also found:
Humberside Police is outstanding at protecting vulnerable people.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force protects vulnerable people.
Humberside Police has a strategy for supporting vulnerable people. This is supported by governance and performance arrangements, with plans that evaluate its work to protect the vulnerable.
The force has continued to develop its harm-reduction work, which is improving the outcomes for vulnerable victims and communities. For example, the force is working with community safety partnerships to identify issues causing the most harm to the public. And it uses problem-solving activities in three locations, through a programme called Clear Hold Build, to work with communities to build stronger, safer environments.
The force has a clear understanding of its workforce’s capability and capacity to keep people safe. It has trained personnel in its vulnerability hub to take actions that protect vulnerable people. This includes carrying out risk assessments, completing intelligence research for multi-agency risk assessment conference or child protection strategy meetings. The force has also trained another team in these skills, so they can provide extra support if demand is higher than the hub can manage. This helps the force provide timely safeguarding to vulnerable people.
The force has continued to develop other structures to improve public safety.
For example, there is a domestic abuse co-ordination team available 24 hours a day in the control room. It re-contacts victims to give safeguarding advice and access to IDVAs. And it provides research to support officers at domestic abuse incidents. This research informs secondary risk assessments. These are carried out after officers refer someone who might need extra support to the force’s vulnerability hub.
The force has also used savings from Right Care, Right Person to invest in resources to protect vulnerable people. This includes vulnerable people who are often reported missing and may be at risk of being exploited. The force also offers experienced mentors and a dedicated pathway to develop officers and staff who work in teams focused on protecting vulnerable people.
The force has created a new domestic abuse safeguarding and investigation team. It aims to create a consistent approach to investigations and safeguarding vulnerable victims. Although the new team is still developing, we found that it has improved outcomes for domestic abuse victims.
This new domestic abuse team has three parts, covering investigations, safeguarding and criminal justice support.
The safeguarding team focuses on keeping victims safe. It makes sure the force refers victims to partner agencies, such as commissioned domestic abuse services, which can give specialist support and advice. And it holds daily partnership integrated triage meetings (referred to as PIT Stop) where it completes safeguarding risk management plans and focuses on how it will keep vulnerable people safe.
The criminal justice support team helps domestic abuse investigators get positive outcomes for victims. It includes specialist criminal justice personnel who help investigators prepare case files and a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer who gives early advice.
The force told us that, in the year ending 31 March 2024, positive outcomes for domestic abuse-related offences increased by 3.5 percent compared to the previous year. In the same period, the proportion of victims who stopped supporting cases fell by 2.5 percent. In our victim service assessment, we found that the force considered evidence-led prosecution in 12 out of 13 relevant cases.
The force continues to use prevention orders effectively. These includes domestic violence protection orders (DVPOs) and domestic violence protection notices.
The force asks officers to take positive action when they attend domestic abuse incidents. The domestic abuse co-ordination team in the force control room supports officers with extra information. For example, they share details from previous incidents when officers are called back to the same locations.
From 1 January 2024 to 31 March 2024, officers arrested 98 percent of the offenders it apprehended for domestic abuse related crimes, rather than allowing them to voluntarily come to a police station for interview.
Arresting offenders gives investigators time to work towards prosecuting offenders or apply pre-charge bail conditions, to help safeguard victims if further evidence is needed.
The force has increased the number of DVPO applications it makes at court. From 1 October 2022 to 31 December 2022, the force applied for 68 DVPOs. From 1 July 2023 to 30 September 2023, this increased to 107. Across the full year ending 30 September 2023, courts granted 91.5 percent of the force’s DVPO applications.
Operational officers work proactively to make sure offenders follow the rules in their DVPOs. In the year ending 30 September 2023, the force recorded 108 DVPO breaches. This is equivalent to 11.5 breaches per 100,000 population and means that 36 percent of DVPOs were breached by offenders. This is higher than expected compared to all forces across England and Wales, where the average was 4.2 breaches per 100,000 population.
Figure 4: Domestic Violence Protection Orders breached per 100,000 population across forces in England and Wales in the year ending 30 September 2023
Source: Data collection and analysis from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
The force uses a range of other tactics to keep domestic abuse victims safe. These include:
In Humberside, there is a single central hub that gives consistent support to people who have been identified as vulnerable and need help from the force and its partners. Within each of the four local authority areas, there is a team of police officers who work with local authority professionals and others to support victims and their families.
The force uses a tracker to map vulnerability in its local authority areas. The tracker shows the force locations, including home, schools or communities, with detail on vulnerability types. This helps it identify hot-spot areas where vulnerable people could be exploited, such as children being groomed for criminal purposes.
The force uses this data and analysis to allocate neighbourhood officers to problem solving and crime reduction work to reduce risks to vulnerable people. For example, if the force identifies a potential risk with online activity by school children, neighbourhood officers can work with the school to give online safety training.
Each of the four local authority hubs has a daily partnership integrated triage meeting (PIT Stop). At this meeting, police and partners share information and decide on activities to support families and keep vulnerable people safe.
Personnel in the vulnerability hub carry out a range of activities to meet the overall objective of keeping vulnerable people safe, working with partner organisations. They complete secondary risk assessments for all levels of domestic abuse related incident referrals. They also make checks against the firearm certificate holder register. Firearms are seized if a firearms certificate holder is involved in the domestic abuse incident. All team members are trained, and resources can be adjusted to manage demand. We found no backlogs during our inspection. Secondary risk assessments were sometimes being completed while officers were still at an incident. This means additional help and support can be quickly provided to victims of domestic abuse.
Vulnerability hub personnel make sure that research is carried out to support officers attending child protection strategy meetings and risk assessment conferences, and share information with partners. Meeting attendance, minutes and actions are all tracked and managed through governance arrangements.
They also research and manage Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme right to know applications in conjunction with the domestic abuse safeguarding and investigation team. The force has a dashboard that records requests, disclosures and the rationale for decisions. Decisions are made quickly. Most disclosures were made within the required 28-day time period. This means people receive the timely information they may need to make an informed decision on their safety in a new relationship.
Humberside Police is good at managing offenders and suspects.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force manages offenders and suspects.
Humberside Police is good at pursuing and arresting offenders. The force told us that, in the year ending 31 March 2024, it had the second highest arrest rate per 1,000 population of all forces in England and Wales.
The force has good governance and performance arrangements that review how it is managing offenders and suspects. These make sure police leaders are held to account for force performance in arresting suspects.
The force also holds daily meetings to discuss high-risk suspects who are likely to cause serious harm. It then assigns officers to locating and arresting them. In our victim service assessment, we found that in 33 of 34 cases the force arrested suspects in an appropriate time frame.
To help identify suspects from CCTV evidence, the force has developed a system called Vision On. This is an IT platform that allows the force to share CCTV images and helps its officers to identify suspects. The force uses this in line with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Officers complete an evidential statement for the identification of an image. The investigating officer is alerted to the identification, which supports an investigation.
The force told us this system has improved how often it identifies suspects from images. Police officers had identified suspects in 18 percent of images uploaded to Vision On.
The force has good governance arrangements to monitor its use of pre-charge bail. It has introduced a dashboard containing this information. It lets the force scrutinise how often it uses bail for people from different under-represented groups.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 changed the rules for using released under investigation, and since then the force has reduced its use. The force uses pre-charge bail effectively to safeguard victims. In the year ending 31 March 2024, it used pre-charge bail for 90.2 percent of suspects released from custody who weren’t charged with a crime.
In custody suites, bail managers help officers manage suspects they have placed on bail. This makes it more likely suspects will follow their bail conditions. It also makes sure that when a suspect has been bailed, meaning that they must come back to the police at a specified time and date, the force processes them in a timely way when they return.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, there were 1.6 registered sex offenders per 1,000 population in the force area. The force has a management of sexual offenders and violent offenders (MOSOVO) team that covers all registered sex offenders living within the force area.
We found that the MOSOVO team has strong leadership and a good understanding of the risks involved in managing sex offenders. The team is well resourced, with a good ratio of 1 offender manager to 46 offenders. This is in line with College of Policing authorised professional practice. Every team member has either completed relevant training or, for newer recruits, is scheduled to do so.
During our inspection, we audited ten offender records. We found that all these records and risk assessments were of good quality and managers had carried out offender visits within reasonable time frames. All records showed good oversight from supervisors. At the time of our inspection, the force had no backlog of risk assessments to complete and was managing offender visits well.
Supervisors review their offender managers’ workloads and whether they are following authorised professional practice every 28 days. This gives supervisors a good understanding of their work.
The force has effective performance and governance arrangements in place. This includes secondary sign-off by a detective inspector or above for all risk assessments involving high and very high-risk offenders.
The MOSOVO team considers and uses ancillary and prevention orders, such as sexual harm prevention orders, to protect the public. In the year ending 31 March 2024, courts issued 87 such orders for Humberside Police.
This team monitors whether offenders comply with these orders. Whenever someone breaches an order, an offender manager records it as a crime.
The force uses digital monitoring software to identify what sex offenders do online. It has bought more software licences to help it improve the chances of detecting breaches or further offending.
The force’s police online investigation team investigates online referrals to the force about online child abuse. This team investigates all referrals and takes enforcement action against offenders, such as making arrests or executing search warrants.
The team also works with children’s services to safeguard children it has identified during investigations. It has a memorandum of understanding with the four local authorities, which allows them to share information to protect children.
We found that the police online investigation team worked within the Kent internet risk assessment tool time frames for taking enforcement action, such as making arrests. At the time of our inspection, it didn’t have any backlogs in this enforcement work. We found that its officers were very professional. The force had recognised this by awarding them team of the year in 2023.
The team can examine suspects’ electronic devices when it carries out enforcement activity or home visits by using mobile equipment. If it could access this equipment more often, the force could examine and seize these devices more efficiently. This would make it easier to identify evidence and offenders who may pose a danger to the public.
The team also has access to a specialist police digi dog, which can help officers search for digital devices.
In our audit, we found investigators complete timely referrals to services that can safeguard children. They also protect the welfare of arrested suspects by liaising with them and their family. They complete risk assessments for suspects and can refer them to support services.
The investigating officer is notified if a suspect comes to the attention of police again, so they can manage any breach of bail conditions. The officer provides a briefing to neighbourhood policing teams to monitor any pre-charge bail conditions and community tensions that may occur as a result of the enforcement activity.
Humberside Police is outstanding at building, supporting and protecting the workforce.
The force has developed a short video in which four members of the workforce describe how they have been affected by mental health issues. This includes senior police officers and someone working in a role with greater risk of experiencing traumatic incidents. The video is called Strength in Being Blue.
The video describes work-related problems and one story about issues at home. Each person describes how their mental health was affected by these challenges. They also explain how the support services offered by the force’s well-being and occupational health unit helped them manage their personal circumstances and begin feeling well again.
The force shows the video to its workforce to help them identify signs of poor mental health in themselves and colleagues and how the force can help them. The stories from senior officers show that mental health problems can affect anyone.
Well-being support teams attend these video sessions so that afterwards they can give immediate support to anyone who may need it. Oscar Kilo and the National Police Chiefs’ Council have highlighted and shared the video as an example of good practice.
In our last inspection report, we noted the force’s good practice around supporting women in policing and identifying barriers to progression. The force has continued to build on this work.
The force has a development programme for women that aims to remove barriers to progression and improve their representation. The programme is now supporting its sixth cohort of women. It contains six modules, which cover topics such as mentoring, leadership and confidence-building. The force told us this programme has led to more women applying for promotion and higher promotion success rates.
The force has a very active Women’s Integrated Network that supports all women in the force. It also has links with all emergency services in Humberside and other women’s networks within local businesses.
The network hosts an annual conference open to police personnel and external women’s networks. This offers a space for connecting with others and hearing from inspirational speakers about their experiences and achievements. The network also gives guidance and support to female officers who are under‑represented in specialist areas of policing, such as public order and firearms commander roles.
The force’s development programme for women aims to create opportunities for those who are from under-represented groups to progress within the force. These include:
The force identified that a critical incident and major enquiry could seriously harm its workforce’s well-being.
The force set up a well-being hub to support personnel who were at the scene and had searched the premises. The force provided quiet rooms, well-being professionals and chaplaincy support. It also offered hygiene facilities and refreshments for those working long hours.
The force offered trauma risk management (TRiM) when officers and staff first attended the incident. And they offered TRiM again when officers and staff finished their work.
As part of its response to this incident, the force had support from officers from other forces through mutual aid. Humberside Police updated each officer’s home force about the support they had been given, so that they could continue it in their own force.
At the time of our inspection, officers and staff who had responded to this critical incident all said that the force’s well-being support was very good. The force has reviewed the well-being hub structure and will now use it in future critical incidents. It has also completed a peer review to understand how it could further improve its well-being support.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force builds, supports and protects the workforce.
The force has continued to build on the positive findings from our last inspection and workforce well-being remains a high priority in its policing plan. The force has refreshed its people strategy, its well-being support and its chief officer-led Well Together board. The board has an action plan to help the force better understand its workforce’s well-being.
The force uses a range of methods to monitor well-being. These include workforce surveys, feedback sessions with the workforce, and occupational health and human resources data from each policing district or department.
In January 2024, the force started a health check campaign for all personnel aged 40 or older. The force hired an external company to provide health screening for them. This included over 2,000 people, 80 percent of whom took part within 3 months. They all received individual feedback, advice and signposting support to help improve their health. The company gave the force a report on the health of its workforce aged 40 or older, which it is using to inform future well-being activities.
The force has taken steps to deal with well-being challenges facing its workforce. It provides quiet rooms to help people relax during breaks and has restored exercise facilities to help with fitness and mental health. It also has a well-being van, which visits police stations so that personnel can get advice and health screening services.
The force has increased TRiM capacity for those who attend traumatic incidents. In our PEEL workforce survey, carried out from 30 January 2024 to 26 February 2024, 89.1 percent of respondents (829 of 930) said that the force provides counselling after incidents.
The force uses the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework and data on absences to identify well-being challenges. This includes its workforce’s workload, which we found to be generally reasonable, and work-life balance, which officers and staff told us was positive. In the year ending 31 March 2023, Humberside Police recorded 51.4 hours of paid overtime per person across its full-time equivalent workforce. This was much lower than the average (77 hours) we found across 40 other forces in England and Wales.
Figure 5: Hours of paid overtime recorded per full-time equivalent employee across forces in England and Wales in the year ending 31 March 2023
Source: Data collection and analysis from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
The force has identified roles and teams that involve high-risk work. Personnel working in these areas have a higher chance of experiencing potentially traumatic incidents.
The force continues to offer extra support to people in these roles. For example, call handlers can press a welfare button when they deal with traumatic calls. This notifies a supervisor about a potentially traumatic call. Call handlers can also access separate rooms to decompress after such calls.
The force also offers the Pause Point programme. This monitors individual well-being within its protecting vulnerable people team through a six-step process. And it lets personnel request a break from their current working environment to support mental well-being. Sometimes supervisors recommend a break instead.
The force has also identified high-risk roles where personnel are less likely to take up well-being support options. It has worked hard to make sure those personnel use support services. For example, the force offers annual psychological health screening to 19 teams and roles working in high-risk areas. In the year 2023/24, the force completed 330 screenings. And it monitors whether people complete further sessions with health professionals.
The force also realised that referrals from armed response teams to support services were low. To deal with this, it established the Watch My Six referral process. Mental health teams now work in armed response workspaces to make it easier for those personnel to access support. And they attend initial firearms training to give one-to-one and group support sessions for new firearms officers. This has led to more referrals and positive feedback from those who ask for support.
The force has used the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework to complete a self‑assessment of its occupational health unit. The force has worked to address any gaps this identified.
For example, the force struggled to fill vacancies in its occupational health unit. This was because its pay grades weren’t in line with those in other public health services. The force matched the pay grades found in other services and then was able to recruit trained and experienced health professionals. This meant that, at the time of our inspection, its occupational health unit was fully staffed with qualified health professionals.
The occupational health unit has a confidential portal for referring personnel to its services. The force monitors this to identify well-being trends across districts and teams. Police officers and staff told us the support from occupational health and well-being teams is timely and good quality. Surveys of those who use its counselling services are also very positive.
The force’s well-being team has proactive programmes to improve health and well‑being. The force has published a ‘Your health and wellbeing guide’. This includes preventative, prepare, react and treat sections, and a suite of options and signposts to help the workforce improve their health and well-being.
The force recruited 365 extra officers as part of the Police Uplift Programme. It recruited more officers than the Uplift target, meaning that it avoided potential financial penalties for missing the target.
As the force hired many new student officers, it tried to identify any well-being or welfare needs they might have. This included reasonable adjustments to support their learning. The force evaluated all student officers for neurodivergence, such as dyslexia, to make sure training was adapted to their needs. And the force recorded these needs on students’ files so that reasonable adjustments continued as they began frontline roles.
The force realised it needed more tutor constables to support its new officers. It created more training courses, so that each student would have their own tutor as they worked towards independent patrol status. During their training, the force made sure tutors understood the different police entry routes and their requirements. It also taught them how to identify and support the well-being needs of student officers.
Each district has a centralised assessment unit, which acts as a point of contact and mentorship for student officers during the assessment phase of their training. The unit offers support and examines whether the students are meeting the assessment criteria for student officers. Students told us the force and the operational colleagues they worked with every day gave them good support.
The force created a retention strategy to encourage officers to stay in policing. The strategy has three pillars, with a specific section focused on student officers. The force has also created a retention working group, which is attended by chief officers, human resources, learning and development, and positive action teams. The group monitors and reviews data on people leaving the force.
Following a successful model in another force, the positive action team runs Say and Stay conversations for anyone considering leaving policing. In these conversations, the force speaks with officers to understand why they are thinking about leaving. It tries to find solutions to any problems they are having, to make it more likely that they will stay.
These conversations have been very successful. The force told us that every person who had a Say and Stay conversation decided to remain in the force.
The force has an active network of staff associations, including its Bridge forum. These associations give advice and support to student officers. To make sure student officers are aware of them, the associations give presentations during initial officer training and advertise on the force intranet.
Humberside Police’s leadership and management is good.
The force uses robotic process automation to complete some repetitive administrative tasks. This is software that replaces time-consuming manual processes and completes them automatically.
For example, the force has developed one robotic process automation to handle information requests from the Probation Service. Probation officers need information from the police to do their work effectively.
To complete an information request, the force used to carry out manual searches of different databases to make sure it passed on all relevant information. On average, the force had two people working full time on this work. By using robotic process automation, the force doesn’t need analysts to do this anymore. Instead, analysts can focus on other important work.
This approach has also meant the force responds more quickly to the Probation Service. It now takes just five minutes on average to process their requests.
The force is working with the Police Digital Service to pilot the use of artificial intelligence to help police call handlers deal with domestic abuse reports.
The artificial intelligence acts as an assistant to the call handler and efficiently transcribes the call. It also searches force systems to gather data that can help call handlers carry out risk assessments.
This new approach increases efficiency by reducing how long it takes to record details of an incident. And it helps the force manage domestic abuse calls more effectively.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to leadership and management.
The force has effective governance processes in place. These include clear performance objectives and strategic planning processes that align with its force plan. And the force’s more specific strategic and departmental plans align with it too.
The members of the workforce have a good understanding of force priorities and what they can do to support those goals.
The force’s strategic decision-making relies on effective analysis of intelligence and data. The force uses data to check that it is working effectively and to measure progress against priorities. This means that the force has a good understanding of its current performance and uses data to make improvements.
The force has a good level of investment in its leaders. It has created a high-quality training programme called Humberside LEAD (Lead, Engage, Aspire and Develop). The programme sets out the leadership style the force expects at all levels. It teaches personnel the necessary skills, abilities and capabilities to lead effectively.
At the time of our inspection, the force had given the first phases of this training to most frontline supervisors, such as sergeants. It plans to expand this to other leadership levels in the programme’s next phases.
During our inspection, personnel told us senior leaders were visible, approachable and very engaging in the force. This is helping to create a positive working environment.
Personnel said they felt encouraged to speak up about issues they experience and were confident the force would act if they did. They also felt supported and valued in their work.
The force uses data and information effectively to help it understand current demand and prepare for future challenges. It has invested in high-quality data and now has trustworthy information about its demand and the causes of it. It has a good understanding of all sources of demand and uses this to make effective strategic decisions.
For example, force demand data can identify areas where work needs to be prioritised, removing some demand that can be dealt with more effectively in other ways. This includes continual improvement of its systems and processes, where internal hidden demands can be removed to make them more efficient.
This approach helps the force have efficient support functions, such as its robotic process automation and reducing its 101 call demand through the new police portal. In the year ending 31 March 2023, 8.5 percent of its officers were working in support roles. This was within the normal range for forces in England and Wales.
The force’s Right Care, Right Person programme has been effective and continues to reduce demand, allowing officers to focus on other priorities. Following its success in Humberside, other police forces around the country have now adopted it too.
Humberside Police works well with partners, such as private companies and other forces, in appropriate areas. And it explores larger partnership options that can improve efficiency and make savings.
Humberside Police collaborates with other forces in its region to provide some services, such as scientific support, roads policing and organised crime teams. It works closely with South Yorkshire Police to provide joint IT services.
The force regularly reviews partnerships to make sure they are still providing value for money. There are good governance arrangements in place to make sure the force can track benefits and make improvements.
The force’s high-quality data also helps it evaluate what is working. It recently left its regional procurement partnership after it carried out a review and found it no longer provided the expected benefits. It has instead built the same capability in its finance department.
The force manages its finances effectively. The forecasts included in its mid-term financial plan are based on realistic assumptions about future income and spending.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, the force received £231 million in total funding. As per other forces in England and Wales, this is a combination of a core grant from central government and local revenue from the police precept. The precept was worth £74 million to the force that year, around 32 percent of its total budget. This is slightly lower than what most other forces receive from it.
For 2024/25, the force received the maximum possible increase in the police precept (£12.99 per band D property). Despite this, the force estimates it will have a budget deficit of £5.8 million in 2024/25. The force has identified where it will make savings to cover this. It has a good track record of making savings and is confident it can achieve its plans.
During 2024/25, the force is also planning £14 million of capital expenditure. This will cover improvements to force buildings and IT, as well as replacing its vehicle fleet.
The force manages its reserves sensibly, but financial pressures mean it has often had to spend these funds. Its general reserves are now around £7 million. This will increase in line with predicted rises in the force’s net revenue budget. This will keep reserves at around 3 percent; this is an adequate amount.
Data in this report comes from a range of sources, including:
For any charts and tables included in this report, we have listed the data source underneath.
We collect data from police forces twice a year. We agreed the design and schedule of this data collection with forces and other interested parties, including the Home Office.
Our analysts check and evaluate the collected data. We contact the force if we have any initial queries. Following this, we carry out an in-depth data review and make further contact with the force if needed. This process gives forces several opportunities to quality assure and validate the information they shared to make sure it is accurate.
We then share our analysis with the force by uploading the data to online dashboards. As they can review own and other forces’ data in context, forces can identify any notable differences or other inconsistencies.
This report presents the results from a PEEL inspection of one of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. British Transport Police is outside the scope of this report.
Any aggregated totals for England and Wales exclude data from the British Transport Police, which means that the totals will differ from those published by the Home Office. If any other police forces didn’t supply data and aren’t included in the total figures, we will mention this.
We use data that has been collected outside our PEEL inspection to support our fieldwork.
This report contains the latest data available before the start of our inspection and the data that the force gave us during our inspection. If more recent data becomes available after our inspection fieldwork and shows that the force’s performance has changed, we will comment on this.
In this report, we sometimes present information as rates per 1,000 population in each police force area. This allows our data to be comparable across all forces. Where population data is used in our calculations, we use the latest mid-year population estimates from the Office for National Statistics.
In this report, we have included bar charts with dotted red lines to show where a force is significantly different from the average for forces in England and Wales.
The dotted lines on the bar charts show one standard deviation above and below the unweighted average of all forces. Standard deviation summarises the difference between each individual value and the average and can be used to identify extreme or rare values.
Forces that are more than one standard deviation above or below the average are considered significantly different. These forces are outside the red dotted lines on our bar charts and we have highlighted them in either a dark blue (forces above average) or light blue (forces below average) colour. Typically, 32 percent of forces will be above or below these lines for any given measure.
We survey the police workforce throughout England and Wales to understand their experiences at work. The survey is an opportunity for the whole workforce to share their views with us. It is a valuable source of information as it isn’t possible to speak to everyone in a force during our inspection.
However, the responses we receive come from a non-statistical, voluntary sample within the workforce. The number of responses also varies between forces. This means that the results may be not representative of the workforce population.
We treat the results with caution and don’t use them to assess police forces. Instead, we use the results to establish themes that should be explored further during our inspection fieldwork. The results can also be used to give more evidence and validate information from other sources.
We carry out a victim service assessment for all forces as part of our inspection programme.
We assess the service that a force provides to victims. This is from the point of reporting a crime and throughout an investigation.
We also evaluate how forces record crimes. We assess every force on its crime recording practices at least once every three years.
Details of the technical methodology for the victim service assessment.
We carry out a stop and search audit for all forces as part of our inspection programme.
Our stop and search audits allow us to evaluate how well forces use their stop and search powers. We review how many stop and searches a force carried out under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 or section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We analyse:
Humberside PEEL assessment 2023–2025
You can find more about Humberside Police on our dedicated force page.
The Force covers four local authorities (both urban and rural), has a large port infrastructure and an international tourist, transport and trade network.
Among the population of 943,000, there are high levels of deprivation in urban areas and historically high levels of crime in comparison to peers.
Humberside Police congratulated for good performance but must improve the way it investigates crime
Find out more about HMICFRS’s work and other inspection areas.
Find out how well other forces have performed during their PEEL assessment.
You can view the recommendations for all forces made by HMICFRS on our Progress against recommendations page. This shows how much progress has been made on these recommendations.
