In 2023–2025, we carried out a PEEL inspection of Lincolnshire 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 Lincolnshire Police
More information about the PEEL assessments
Our inspection assessed how good Lincolnshire 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 Lincolnshire 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 have concerns about the performance of Lincolnshire Police in keeping people safe, reducing crime and providing victims with an effective service. In particular, I have serious concerns about how well the force investigates crime. In addition to this, I have serious concerns that the force isn’t attending incidents resulting from calls to service as quickly as it should.
Another area of concern is around how the force manages offenders and the threat they pose to the public. Many of these gaps in Lincolnshire Police’s performance are linked to a further concern about its understanding of demand and its ability to make strategic plans to address both current and future demand. In view of these findings, I have been in regular contact with the chief constable as I do not underestimate how much improvement is needed.
Since our previous inspection, the standards of investigations have deteriorated. The force isn’t allocating investigations to appropriately trained officers and staff who have the right skills and experience. We found that some investigations lacked effective supervision and oversight to maintain consistent standards. Additionally, the force doesn’t assess the needs of victims to make sure it fully supports and updates them throughout an investigation. Lincolnshire Police needs to improve all these aspects of its approach to the management of investigations to achieve better outcomes for victims of crime.
Lincolnshire Police has made several improvements in the force control room, including increasing staffing levels, improving training and improving its systems. These have achieved positive results in both the time taken to answer 999 calls and its reduced number of abandoned calls.
However, the force still isn’t attending incidents as quickly as it should.
During our inspection, we found that the force wasn’t effectively managing its registered sex offenders. Workloads were too high for officers responsible for mitigating the risk this type of offender poses. The force needs to understand the risk and make sure there is appropriate capacity and capability to protect the public.
Lincolnshire Police isn’t aligning its resources effectively to meet its demand. This is a major contributor to the issues already set out in this summary. These include not meeting response time frames, poor investigation standards and a lack of capacity in some specialist services.
The force needs to understand its demand better and have an operating model that can manage this demand effectively and efficiently.
The force had a change in leadership in the year leading up to our inspection with the appointment of a new chief constable and other senior leaders. They have reviewed how the force can manage current and future demand through an effective operating model.
At the time of our inspection, the force hadn’t yet implemented a new operating model that could meet the level of demand that outstrips its resourcing structure.
We found that the force didn’t have strategic plans that would help it meet its challenges around funding and demand. Lincolnshire Police receives one of the lowest levels of central funding in relation to its population in comparison to other forces in England and Wales. This has created a growing gap between the force income and expenditure, which has caused a budget deficit. The force anticipates the deficit will grow further.
Lincolnshire Police has a saving plan, but this doesn’t address several areas of inefficiency. These inefficiencies are increasing its operating costs and worsening its budget deficit.
This growing resource gap puts pressure on the force’s ability to effectively manage its demand and provide a level of service which the public would expect.
Due to the concerns I have outlined in this summary, I have given the force specific recommendations that set out the areas it needs to focus on.
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.
Lincolnshire Police needs to improve its governance processes and the capacity and capability of its leaders at all levels.
Although chief officers are visible, there are leaders at all levels who don’t always understand all the elements of their role. We found some areas of the force weren’t managed effectively.
Although governance processes exist, they aren’t always informed by accurate data that provides qualitative insight into performance. Similarly, senior leaders don’t always understand how the decisions they make in one area affect service and performance elsewhere.
The force leadership team has several challenges to contend with, including a growing budget deficit and demand that is outstripping resource in critical areas of its service to the public. But senior leaders haven’t yet identified more efficient ways of providing the service or understanding the nature of the demand the force is dealing with. So the force is implementing short-term measures to address long-standing gaps in capacity and capability that aren’t dealing with the underlying reasons behind these issues.
Senior leaders are committed to developing leadership at all levels. Support is available to officers and police staff entering leadership for the first time. We found that new leaders highly valued the force’s training.
Lincolnshire Police’s operating model is failing to address its levels of demand. Senior leaders have begun to examine how the force can better manage its current and future demand. However, the force hasn’t communicated its new operating model effectively to officers and staff, nor the rationale for change. This is having a detrimental effect on morale.
The force needs to produce plans for change that are co-ordinated and sustainable.
More detail on Lincolnshire Police’s leadership is included in the main body of the report.
The reducing crime assessment sets out what Lincolnshire 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.
To provide the public with a better service, Lincolnshire Police needs to make sure it attends non-emergency calls faster. By not always attending in a timely way, it is missing opportunities to safeguard the public and reduce crime. The force needs to respond to incidents within its published timescales.
The force’s neighbourhood policing teams work well with partner agencies to address crime and antisocial behaviour using ancillary orders. The force encourages problem-solving, that is, identifying the root cause of crime and vulnerability. But in practice this doesn’t take place consistently. The force needs to make sure that it understands and properly applies problem-solving techniques. It needs to evaluate problem-solving with more rigor so it can identify and replicate activity that works.
The force must urgently improve how it manages and investigates crime. It needs to achieve better outcomes for victims. Investigations need to be better supervised with greater accountability to address poor practice.
Lincolnshire Police needs to improve its response to and management of offenders to reduce demand. The force isn’t doing enough to monitor civil orders imposed on offenders, such as Domestic Violence Protection Orders. Similarly, the force needs to work more proactively with multi-agency risk assessment conferences by providing a police response to address perpetrator behaviour. This would give longer-term support to vulnerable victims of domestic abuse.
The force needs to understand its demand better across several areas of its service to the public. This is so that it can prioritise its resources into supporting vulnerable people and targeting offenders who pose the greatest risk to the public.
More detail on what Lincolnshire Police is doing to reduce crime is included in the main body of the report.
This section describes our assessment of the service Lincolnshire 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:
Outcome 15 – when a suspect was identified and the victim supported police action, but evidential difficulties prevented further action.
Although our victim service assessment is ungraded, it influences graded judgments in the other areas we have inspected.
The force needs to reduce the number of non-emergency calls that the caller abandons before getting an answer. When Lincolnshire Police answers calls, it doesn’t always use a structured triage process that takes into account threat, harm, risk and vulnerability. It doesn’t always identify repeat and vulnerable victims, so it isn’t always fully aware of the victim’s circumstances when considering its response. Call handlers are polite and give victims advice on crime prevention and on how to preserve evidence.
On many occasions, the force doesn’t respond to calls for service within its set timescales. It doesn’t always inform victims of delays, meaning that victims’ expectations aren’t always met. This may cause victims to lose confidence and disengage from the process.
In most cases, the force carries out investigations in a timely way, but doesn’t always complete relevant and proportionate lines of inquiry. The force doesn’t supervise investigations well and it doesn’t always update victims regularly. Victims are more likely to have confidence in a police investigation when they receive regular updates.
A thorough investigation increases the likelihood of perpetrators being identified and arrested, providing a positive end result for the victim. In most cases, the force takes victim personal statements. These give victims the opportunity to describe how that crime has affected their lives.
When victims withdraw support for an investigation, the force doesn’t always consider progressing the case without the victim’s support. This can be an important method of safeguarding the victim and preventing further offences. In most cases, the force records whether it considered using orders designed to protect victims, such as a Domestic Violence Protection Notice or Domestic Violence Protection Order.
The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime requires forces to carry out a needs assessment at an early stage to determine whether victims need additional support. The force rarely carries out this assessment.
The force isn’t consistently providing a level of service to make sure that it achieves appropriate outcomes for victims of crime. The force doesn’t close crimes with the appropriate outcome type in many cases. It doesn’t always record a clear rationale for using a certain outcome and it doesn’t effectively supervise this. It seeks victims’ views in most cases when deciding which outcome type to assign to a closed investigation. When required, it makes an auditable record of the victim’s wishes. The force does inform victims in most cases of the outcome code assigned to the investigation.
Lincolnshire Police requires improvement at using police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
We found that there were gaps in how the force monitored and managed aspects of its use of stop and search and use of force.
Making sure that officers are properly trained in stop and search and the use of force is critical in maintaining public confidence that powers are used legitimately and proportionately. Maintaining proper oversight of standards and levels of training provides reassurance that only appropriately trained officers and staff can exercise such powers over the public.
We found that the force couldn’t provide clear evidence of its understanding of the levels of training among officers and staff. And it couldn’t provide evidence of the safeguards it had to intervene when training hadn’t been provided or had lapsed.
The College of Policing national curriculum requires forces to make sure that operationally deployed officers receive public and personal safety training every 12 months. This training includes material on conflict management and stop and search.
Senior leaders told us Lincolnshire Police removed from operational deployment any officers who were no longer validated to use force until they had attended training.
However, data that the force provided to us disclosed that it had a high proportion of officers who weren’t validated to use force as they had not received their annual training refresher but had been deployed (outside national guidance) and had used force.
This data showed that 194 officers had used force in the year 2023/24 when their last refresher training was 13–18 months previously. Some officers were even further out of required validation timescales. Force data for the same period showed that 50 officers had used force a full 19–24 months since their last refresher training. A further 229 officers used force between 2 and 5 years since their last training. Most surprisingly, 24 officers had used force more than 5 years since their last recorded training. The force told us that it had data quality issues around these figures. It stated that it was reviewing all officers that were out of validation. It should have addressed this much earlier.
The force told us that it had given unconscious bias training to 1,316 of its 2,470 total workforce, which is 53 percent. Officers and staff must complete a mandatory training package and the force told us it monitored this. But the force couldn’t confirm timescales for completion of this package by all those who it requires to take the training.
Some of the force’s internal auditing processes for the use of powers are incomplete. They don’t provide enough data for the force to assure itself that officers are adhering to policy relating to stop and search and the use of force.
The force has two tactical leads at inspector rank for both stop and search and the use of force. However, neither individual is dedicated to the role and they perform it on a part-time basis. We heard that due to the other demands of their duties, the tactical leads didn’t have the capacity to scrutinise all the data that they would like to review.
Four sergeants from various departments in the force help the tactical leads. They act as deputies on a part-time basis. These officers are part of an internal audit process and are expected to review body-worn video (BWV) for quality assurance purposes.
The force told us that these officers were expected to review 20 items of BWV footage a month collectively. But this isn’t happening. We found that they had done 118 reviews over the 9 months between June 2023 to March 2024. This equates to only 13 reviews a month across the whole force.
The force has gaps in its governance of the guidance it gives to officers around stop and search. It also has gaps in how it records searches of minority cultural groups and in how it uses this data to inform senior leaders about performance.
The force’s stop and search policy and standard operating procedure give detailed guidance to officers. But they don’t stipulate appropriate locations for searches, nor when a search could be made without an appropriate adult. Nor does the guidance include advice about the examination of body orifices. During our inspection we were told that the force didn’t currently include data about such searches within its performance packs.
We found that the force didn’t analyse its linked find rate for stop and search, although it did collate this data. The linked find rate shows when the officer finds the stolen or prohibited article/object they were looking for when carrying out a search. This indicates that the powers are used effectively and are helping to reduce crime.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, the linked find rate for stolen and prohibited articles within Lincolnshire Police was 18.5 percent. This is lower than expected for forces in England and Wales, for which the average linked find rate was 24.6 percent. The force told us that in the 5 months between April and August 2024 its linked find rate was 16.9 percent. This would indicate that its lower-than-average performance in this area is sustained.
During our inspection, we asked the force why its linked find rate was lower than other forces but it couldn’t explain this. Although the force does include linked find rates in its performance packs, it hasn’t reviewed or assessed this divergence from the average rate for all forces to understand possible causes. As a result, the force can’t be assured that it is using stop and search powers effectively to reduce crime.
When a certain group of people is affected by police action in a way that is substantially different from people not of that group, this is referred to as disproportionality. An example of disproportionality is if people of certain ethnicities are stopped and searched more frequently.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Black people were 4.9 times as likely to be subject of these powers as a White person. This is above the national average for disproportionality within England and Wales. Further data from the force discloses that in quarter 4 of 2023/24, 4.1 Black people per 1,000 population of this ethnic group have been stop and searched. For White people this figure is 0.7 per 1,000 of population.
The force didn’t include any explanation of the disproportionality within its data or any context.
During our inspection, we reviewed a sample of 212 stop and search records from 1 June 2023 to 31 May 2024. On the basis of this sample, we estimate that 81.1 percent (with a confidence interval of +/- 5.1 percentage points) of all stop and searches carried out by the force during this period had reasonable grounds. This is broadly unchanged compared to the findings from our previous review of records from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021, where we found 82.2 percent (with a confidence interval of +/- 5.7 percentage points) carried out by Lincolnshire Police had reasonable grounds. Of the records we reviewed for stop and searches on people who self-identify as from an ethnic minority background, 15 out of 25 had reasonable grounds. This suggests there might be further disproportionality in how the force employs its stop and search powers.
Lincolnshire Police doesn’t publish any data around how its officers use force. Our review of internal performance packs revealed that its use of force data wasn’t as detailed as stop and search data relating to disproportionality. We found that 2.7 percent of use of force forms related to people with Black ethnicity. Those of Black ethnicity represent only 0.6 percent of the population of Lincolnshire.
We found that the force wasn’t assessing data that might provide it with the reasons for this disproportionality. This would include identifying any officers who repeatedly stop people who are Black or from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Lincolnshire Police, along with other forces, issues guidance to its officers and staff about when to activate BWV during an encounter with the public. This is so that the encounter is filmed and recorded for evidential purposes.
We found that the force didn’t include compliance on the activation of BWV in its force performance reports that senior leaders review. This would help the force to identify any links between non-compliance for BWV guidance and disproportionality.
Lincolnshire Police is under-recording the use of force. In the year ending 31 March 2023, Lincolnshire Police recorded 5,487 use of force incidents. This was 4,301 lower than estimated. We estimate this by linking the use of force to recorded arrests. During our inspection, the force accepted that it was under-recording the use of this power. Senior leaders suggested that the force wasn’t always recording compliant handcuffing of suspects. Compliant handcuffing is a term used to describe the handcuffing of suspects who aren’t resisting police detention but are under restraint to protect the officer and other people from any potential harm.
The force told us that it was providing further training around recording the handcuffing of people coming into custody. However, the force can’t be sure that this is the only gap in its recording and will need to analyse and understand its data better. Gaps in data such as this further impede the ability of the force to assess the legitimacy of the exercise of these powers by its officers. It is important that forces maintain oversight over the use of powers around both stop and search and use of force. This will assure both the force and the public that these coercive powers are being used appropriately. We found only partial evidence of Lincolnshire Police maintaining this regular oversight and understanding.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
The force has policies for the safeguarding of children who are subject of stop and search. These state that a public protection notice (PPN) is submitted for every child who is stop and searched. A PPN is a document used to record safeguarding concerns about an adult or child. It allows the police to share information with other services, such as children’s social care, to trigger and support a multi-agency response to these concerns. However, the force doesn’t monitor the numbers of children it stop and searches against the number of PPN submissions it completes as this isn’t part of the data reviewed by senior leaders.
We found that the force provided additional training to its supervisors on what constitutes reasonable grounds for the use of stop and search powers. This training includes guidance on reviewing footage of stop and search encounters from BWV. The force briefs supervisors on the criteria that external scrutiny panels use for assessing BWV footage. This helps to make sure that the standards for reviewing stop and search activity are consistent at both internal and external levels. However, we found this wasn’t always happening due to capacity issues for the sergeants concerned.
The force provides additional training to its front-line officers around the legal grounds required to use stop and search powers. Operational staff receive this on scheduled training days that provide continuous professional development. These training days stress the requirement for officers to provide mandatory information to people being searched and that this same information gets added to the record of the search. This information is in accordance with College of Policing guides and known under a mnemonic GOWISELY (which is taught as a memory aid for officers). During our inspection, we carried out an audit of stop and search encounters recorded on BWV. The footage for this was selected randomly and demonstrated good adherence to GOWISELY by the officers concerned.
Since our last inspection, Lincolnshire Police has improved its arrangements for the external scrutiny of the use of powers around stop and search and the use of force. We found that the force had both online and face-to-face scrutiny panels composed of members of the public.
It holds these panels every three months at further education colleges in Lincoln and Boston. We found that these panels were open to all, but that they were mainly composed of students from these colleges. This approach does provide a diverse demographic and allows for some individuals who have been subjected to these powers to take part. Panels generally consist of around 30 people on each occasion. A police officer, who will also carry out internal audits of BWV, supports this panel. The meeting starts with a PowerPoint presentation that outlines police powers around both stop and search powers and the use of force. The panel randomly selects BWV clips. These are then shown to the group. The officer provides advice and guidance on legal and procedural matters if asked, but doesn’t comment on the actions of the officer(s) concerned or the individual stop and search process and interaction. After viewing this footage, the panel completes an electronic questionnaire. This covers many aspects of the stop and search process and the use of force. Lincolnshire Police then collates the responses to identify any themes that it needs to act on. This includes areas such as officers’ training and feedback to officers who are subject of the scrutiny. The quarterly force legitimacy board chaired by the deputy chief constable reviews panel observations. Leads from departments across the force attend these boards, such as local policing, custody, specialist operations, professional standards and learning and development.
Lincolnshire Police requires improvement at prevention and deterrence.
The force needs processes for effective problem-solving. It needs to use problem‑solving more widely so it can reduce harm and demand. Although we found some good examples, these tended to reflect specific initiatives and weren’t widespread. Officers and staff who have been trained to problem-solve aren’t consistently applying the use of the scanning, analysis, response and assessment problem-solving model (SARA). During our inspection, we found that the force did little or no analysis of problems and that its interventions were reactive rather than aimed at addressing underlying causations. Similarly, the way it evaluates problem-solving is unsophisticated and lacking in evidence to support proper assessment.
The force has created a central prevention hub to raise standards in problem‑solving among the force’s neighbourhood policing teams. However, we found that due to capacity issues within the hub, the quality assurance of problem‑solving had reverted to local supervisors. But it isn’t being done because of confusion about whose responsibility it is.
We are aware the force has done some good work with its summertime initiative to deal with increased demand on its coastal resorts. But this isn’t representative of the force-wide standard of problem-solving. In our last inspection, we identified a lack of consistent problem-solving and evaluation of problem-solving as an area for improvement. The force has created a prevention hub, but we didn’t see enough improvement in this area of prevention activity.
Effective problem-solving is a key element in reducing police demand and maintaining public confidence in the ability of the police to address antisocial behaviour.
The force should make sure that:
During our inspection, we found that the force had a problem-solving library on its force intranet site. Senior managers told us that the purpose of this library was to record good practice around problem-solving. This allows officers and staff to refer to it and replicate it. However, when we reviewed this site, we found that it didn’t always contain examples of effective problem-solving. Some of the problem-solving cases on the site hadn’t been closed or evaluated. There appeared to be no quality control of cases posted on the site, and it didn’t serve the purpose of being a corporate memory that could inform future problem-solving. We were subsequently told that the prevention hub didn’t manage this site and that neighbourhood policing teams could directly upload problem-solving cases onto it without any assessment of their outcomes.
The force should properly record and assess problem-solving packages before it puts them on the intranet site. That way, it can assure itself the site provides examples of what works.
During our inspection, we found no evidence that the force had a strategic engagement strategy to promote consistent public engagement. Instead, the force has a document that sets out minimum standards of engagement and has spreadsheets which neighbourhood policing teams populate with their planned engagement. We found that local policing teams weren’t sure what activities they should record. And we found that what they recorded was inconsistent. The force accepts that other teams outside neighbourhood policing don’t always record engagement. Senior leaders within the force acknowledged that the force needed to refine a more two-way approach to public engagement.
At the time of our inspection, the force was looking at IT platforms that could better gather public engagement data. But until it finds such a solution, the force can’t effectively collate or evaluate engagement activity.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to prevention and deterrence.
Lincolnshire Police uses the vulnerable localities index (VLI) to identify the neighbourhoods it should prioritise. The VLI uses data on crime, deprivation and socio-demography to form a single index value for small geographic areas. When mapped, the index value can help with deciding where to target neighbourhood policing and prevention activity.
The force and its partners told us that Lincolnshire Police had used the VLI to prioritise communities identified as vulnerable when deploying officers and staff in neighbourhood teams.
However, we found that this level of analysis wasn’t consistent in how the force identified local threats and vulnerability at neighbourhood policing team level. Neighbourhood officers, staff and supervisors told us that they didn’t have enough access to analytical products or briefing documents that could help them understand local threats and vulnerabilities.
Not all neighbourhood teams could tell us who their local repeat victims were or who their most vulnerable adults and children were. Similarly, some officers and staff couldn’t tell us who their local registered sex offenders were or who was on the integrated offender management programme in their local area.
This gap in knowledge about both potential victims and threat offenders means that neighbourhood teams can’t base their intervention activity on knowledge of threat, harm and risk.
At the time of our inspection, we found that some members of neighbourhood teams hadn’t received foundation training in some aspects of their role. These included core activities such as basic methodology in prevention, problem-solving and working with the public. Instead, the force expects officers to learn these specialised skills while in the role.
We did see some evidence of the force providing some professional development events designed to raise awareness of problem-solving and engagements. The force holds regular conferences for all its neighbourhood officers and staff where guest speakers talk about case studies of effective problem-solving both in the UK and across the world. These conferences also recognise neighbourhood officers and staff for their engagement activity in the communities they work in. Our inspectors attended these events and witnessed first-hand how they served as an opportunity to discuss and share views on effective neighbourhood policing.
Diverting neighbourhood policing teams from their main duties is known as abstraction. At the time of our inspection, there was no abstraction policy for neighbourhood officers. This means it becomes less clear as to why and when they can be used for other policing duties which take them away from their core neighbourhood role of problem-solving and working with local communities. Additionally, we also found that the force didn’t record unplanned spontaneous abstractions of neighbourhood officers part-way through a neighbourhood shift. So the force can’t fully understand the effect of this type of abstraction on its neighbourhood policing. Although some officers told us the force never abstracted them, this wasn’t a consistent situation across the force. Some officers and staff stated that they were sometimes taken away from their core duties at short notice to cover response roles.
Neighbourhood teams from across the force told us about the work they did with local authority antisocial behaviour teams and housing teams to share information and work together to address crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour. They hold regular meetings with these partners to identify antisocial behaviour hot spots and persistent offenders. These identify which legislation best addresses these issues and the most appropriate agency to apply it.
The legislation designed to tackle antisocial behaviour is known as ancillary orders. We found that neighbourhood teams within the force used a wide range of such orders. These include:
The force has a dedicated officer who oversees ancillary orders and guides and assists neighbourhood teams around appropriate orders. Colleagues across the force see this officer as a subject-matter expert, and their knowledge is highly valued. However, we were concerned that there was an overreliance on this officer. We were concerned that should this person be absent or unavailable, the force would make less effective use of ancillary orders.
We found that the force’s local authority partners viewed its use of these powers positively. During our inspection, we saw examples of the force working well with partners to reduce crime. The force jointly manages plans with the community safety partnership to tackle youth-related knife crime and antisocial behaviour. It participates in multi-agency meetings which make sure there is accountability across police and partners. One such example of this work is The Happening, a trauma-informed, educational and immersive knife-crime workshop created by the force and its partners, which has seen good levels of engagement from schools. The force told us that 5,671 pupils had gone through the programme. In addition to this, the force and its partners have also provided programmes in schools on county lines, hate crime and violence against women and girls.
Home Office figures show that knife and sharp instrument offences recorded by Lincolnshire Police have overall decreased over time. Between the years ending 30 September 2022 and 31 March 2024, knife and sharp instrument offences decreased by 28.2 percent, from 522 to 375. This follows a period of increases between 30 September 2021 to 30 September 2022.
Figure 1: Number of knife and sharp instrument offences recorded by Lincolnshire Police, years ending 30 September 2021 to 31 March 2024
Source: Offences involving knives or sharp instruments open data tables from the Home Office
Note: The data is for knife and sharp instrument offences recorded by the police for selected offences (murder, assault with injury, assault with intent to cause serious harm, threats to kill, robbery, rape, and sexual assault). Therefore, this may be a minor undercount as it may not include all incidences where a knife and sharp instrument were used in a crime.
Lincolnshire Police has invested in creating a rural crime team. This team focuses on addressing issues that are important to rural communities, such as agricultural plant theft and wildlife crime. This has helped promote trust and confidence in these communities, who can see the police acting on their concerns.
We found that the force was aware it needed to work with its new and emerging communities, such as the Balkan communities in Boston. The force carries out cohesion and engagement work with Boston Borough Council. The force will consider different languages for each issue. The force in Boston has a community and cohesion police officer who works with some of the new communities in the area. This reflects the force’s awareness of the growing level of diversity in and around Boston. Local policing teams have also worked hard with the asylum seeker community within Skegness and make regular visits to the premises where they are housed. This has allowed the force to address any local tensions at an early stage.
Lincolnshire Police is inadequate at responding to the public.
This was an area we identified in our 2021/22 police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy (PEEL) inspection as requiring improvement. But in this inspection, we found the force’s performance has deteriorated further.
The force has a graded response policy, which is clearly defined. But in our victim service assessment, we found that the force attended calls within the required time in only 49 out of 93 cases. This means it had met its graded response targets in only 52.6 percent of these cases.
We found that the force wasn’t managing its response deployment well enough. In our victim service assessment, we found effective and appropriate supervision for response deployment in only 14 out of 52 cases.
The force isn’t updating callers about delays in the police attending. In our victim service assessment, we found that callers were updated about delays in only 29 of 48 cases. Not attending calls promptly increases the likelihood of evidence being lost, which can have a negative effect on victims and reduce confidence in the police.
In June 2024, the force identified it had response time problems and set up a strategic management group to address them. This group focused on changes to the force graded response policy. Non-priority calls are now dealt with by an incident resolution team in the force control room, instead of being allocated to response patrols. The force also introduced Operation Resource over the summer months, using overtime so that additional officers could work on reducing the backlog of calls requiring police attendance.
Although the force has introduced strategies to resolve these issues, they haven’t led to improvements. Attendance times for emergency and priority incidents are still outside target times.
The force uses an IT system called Guardian in its control room to manage calls and dispatch police resources. This system identifies which police patrols are available to attend incidents. But we found dispatch personnel weren’t always using this information to assign patrols to incidents and were making general requests by radio for any free patrols to volunteer to attend incidents. Although managers told us this practice had stopped, during our fieldwork, we found that it was continuing.
Within six months from the date of publication of this letter, Lincolnshire Police should:
Single Online Home is a web platform operated by the majority of police forces whereby the public can access a wide range of reporting services, crime prevention advice and information about local policing teams. The benefit of this service is that it reduces demand on police switchboards and allows the public to report less serious and non-emergency matters without waiting in a call queue.
Within the Lincolnshire Police force control room, the dedicated incident resolution team manages this facility. One of the responsibilities of this team is to triage incidents in this online queue to identify any threat, harm or risk that requires escalation and a more rapid response from police. The incident resolution team in the control room doesn’t operate on a 24-hour basis and instead works from 8am to 8pm. This leaves a 12-hour window when the force doesn’t assess incidents that, due to their nature, may need an urgent or priority response. The force can’t presume that all calls in this Single Online Home queue won’t be serious or not linked to vulnerability. The force should treat all contact to it in the same manner, making sure that it triages and assesses incidents throughout the day and night.
In our victim service assessment, we found that the force only recorded a repeat victim in 29 of the 37 cases we examined. We also found that where it identified a vulnerable person, it only recorded this in 33 out of 47 cases.
Lincolnshire Police is missing some opportunities to identify vulnerability and victims may not receive adequate safeguarding to protect them from future harm.
The force should make sure it records information about repeat callers and vulnerable victims and uses it to inform the response the caller receives.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force responds to the public.
The force told us that callers abandoned 9.19 percent of calls to its non-emergency 101 number in the year ending 30 September 2024. However, as set out in the 2020 national contact management strategy principles and guidance, forces with a switchboard should aim to have an abandonment rate lower than 5 percent.
We found that the force was actively focusing on achieving this rate and could demonstrate a clear trajectory for improvement with a steadily falling abandonment rate, which culminated in a rate of 3.9 percent for the month of September 2024.
The force has a dedicated performance analyst within its control room. They monitor data closely, such as the time it takes a call taker to deal with a call. During our inspection, we saw that managers within the force control room aimed to meet the national standard for abandoned calls.
Call handlers in the control room use a structured approach to assess threat, harm, risk, investigation, vulnerability and engagement (THRIVE). However, we found that this assessment could be more thorough.
Our victim service assessment found that call handlers only used a structured triage approach to assess risk and consider the needs of the victims in 63 out of 85 cases.
When a victim contacts the police, it is important that the force assesses all information properly. Call takers should assess the caller’s vulnerability in a more thorough and structured way to prioritise the call and give the best response.
The force is effective at answering emergency calls. National call handling standards for 999 set out an expectation that forces should answer 90 percent of these calls within 10 seconds. In the year ending 31 August 2024, Lincolnshire Police answered 92.2 percent of its 999 calls within 10 seconds. This was above the expected standard and demonstrated consistent performance by the force in this area.
Figure 2: Proportion of 999 calls answered within 10 seconds by forces in the year ending 31 August 2024
Source: 999 call answering times from BT
Note: Call answering time is the time taken for a call to be transferred from BT to a force, and the time taken by that force to answer the call.
We found that the force control room had robust processes to monitor 999 call response. And we found supervisors acted quickly to make sure there was sufficient resource to deal with any spikes in demand.
During our last inspection, we found that the force needed to improve how call takers advised callers about crime prevention and the preservation of evidence.
When forces don’t give this advice, it may lead to losing evidence that would support an investigation. And the force may miss opportunities to prevent further crimes against a victim.
During this inspection, our victim service assessment disclosed that force performance in this area had improved. We found that a call handler gave advice on crime prevention in 47 out of 49 cases. We also found that call handlers gave advice on the preservation of evidence in 28 out of 30 cases.
We found that the force control room had trained call takers in crime prevention and evidence preservation, which included forensic awareness. Supervisors monitor calls through dip sampling and the force gives feedback to officers and staff around the importance of providing advice to callers.
Lincolnshire Police is inadequate at investigating crime.
We found that the force hadn’t made enough progress in improving the standard of investigations since our 2021/22 PEEL inspection. As a result, not enough offenders are being brought to justice.
Although the force does have governance arrangements and processes in place, we found crime investigations weren’t managed as effectively as they could be. We found that some processes were missing or ineffective or weren’t clearly defined.
We found that the force wasn’t always applying its crime allocation policy consistently. This means that some investigations are being allocated to officers who don’t have the appropriate level of training and accreditation for investigating more serious and complex crimes.
We acknowledge that the force does a good job of investigating many of the most serious crimes. But in our victim service assessment, we found only 68 out of 100 cases were effective investigations. We also found only 40 out of 61 cases had an investigation plan. Investigation plans, outlined in the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice, support investigators to make sure they make the most of all available opportunities to gather evidence.
We found cases that had significant failings and in which victims had been let down. In our victim service assessment, we found effective supervision in only 45 out of 83 cases. During our inspection, supervisors told us they didn’t have time to complete all the supervisory tasks that they should. As a result, the force isn’t always achieving acceptable outcomes for victims of crime. The number of crimes that the force solves following investigations is low.
In our victim service assessment, we found the force had only applied the correct outcome in 56 out of 80 cases and supervision of the outcome took place in 62 out of 79 cases. We found supervisors sometimes applied incorrect outcome codes for crimes, applying outcome 15 (Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim supports action) instead of outcome 16 (Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim does not support further action). Supervisors considered the force’s crime management bureau criteria for an outcome 16 too rigid and difficult to meet and instead selected an easier but unsuitable outcome when finalising crimes. The force has the highest rate for outcome 15 of all forces in England and Wales. Senior leaders in the force acknowledge that this is likely to be a result of the difficulties recording outcome 16.
Lincolnshire Police is also failing to support victims. Under the revised Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, all victims are entitled to a needs assessment. The police should carry out an assessment early in a case to establish whether victims need any extra support during the investigation or later in court. Of the 69 relevant cases we reviewed, only 5 had clearly recorded needs assessments. For victims entitled to an enhanced level of service because of their age or vulnerability, only 7 out of 42 relevant cases had needs assessments recorded.
Within six months from the date of publication of this letter, Lincolnshire Police should make sure:
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 30 June 2024, Lincolnshire Police recorded 47,004 victim‑based crimes. Of these recorded offences, 9.5 percent were assigned an ‘offences brought to justice’ outcome. This is within the normal range compared to other forces in England and Wales.
Figure 3: Percentage of victim-based crime recorded by Lincolnshire Police and all forces in England and Wales by selected outcome types in the year ending 31 March 2024
| Outcome types | Force outcome rate | England and Wales outcome rate |
| 1 – Charged/summonsed | 7.8% | 6.1% |
| 2 & 3 – Caution – youths & adults | 0.9% | 0.7% |
| 8 – Community resolutions | 1.1% | 1.7% |
| 9 – Prosecution not in the public interest (CPS decision) | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 10 & 21 – Prosecution not in the public interest (police decision) | 0.9% | 0.8% |
| 14 – Evidential difficulties (suspect not identified but the victim declines or is unable to support) | 1.7% | 5.6% |
| 15 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports police action) | 28.7% | 13.5% |
| 16 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim does not support or withdraws support) | 14.9% | 21.5% |
| 17 – Prosecution time limit expired | 0.2% | 0.3% |
| 18 – Investigation complete – no suspect identified | 37.8% | 43.4% |
| 20 – Action undertaken by another body/ agency | 1.6% | 1.5% |
| 22 – Diversionary, educational or intervention activity | 0.0% | 0.4% |
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Note: Presented data comes from the July 2024 data release and may have been revised since. British Transport Police and City of London data are excluded from the England and Wales rate. Total police-recorded crime includes all crime (except fraud). For a full commentary and explanation of crime and outcome types please see the Home Office statistics.
Figure 4: Proportion of victim-based crimes assigned a ‘charged/summonsed’ outcome (Outcome 1) by Lincolnshire Police between the year ending 31 March 2015 and the year ending 31 March 2024
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Note: Presented data comes from the July 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 corporate body.
Between the year ending 30 June 2023 and the year ending 30 June 2024, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned an Outcome 14: ‘Evidential difficulties: suspect not identified; victim does not support further action’ by Lincolnshire Police decreased from 2.0 percent to 1.7 percent. Both of these values are lower than expected for forces in England and Wales.
Between the year ending 30 June 2023 and the year ending 30 June 2024, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned an Outcome 15: ‘Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim supports action’ by Lincolnshire Police decreased from 27.2 percent to 24.2 percent. Both of these values are higher than expected for forces in England and Wales.
Between the year ending 30 June 2023 and the year ending 30 June 2024, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned an Outcome 16: ‘Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim does not support further action’ by Lincolnshire Police decreased from 16.7 percent to 13.1 percent. Both of these values are lower than expected for forces in England and Wales.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force investigates crime.
During our inspection, we found that the force couldn’t be sure that it had carried out the initial stages of an investigation effectively. The period immediately after a crime has been committed is known as the golden hour. It is during this period that police should preserve or gather evidence that may otherwise be concealed, lost, damaged or altered.
We found that officers didn’t always comply with the force’s stated approach to the golden hour when attending crime scenes. And we found that supervisors weren’t always monitoring or enforcing these investigative principles. As a result, the force could lose potential evidence. Examples of this included failure to carry out house-to-house enquiries to identify potential witnesses, and failure to obtain accounts from witnesses while an event was still fresh in their memory.
When an ongoing investigation is transferred to another investigator, they receive handover files. These should record all the initial investigator’s actions, and highlight actions that need taking forward. The force has a template for this process on its crime management database, Niche, which the initial investigator should complete. However, we were told that investigators didn’t always complete these templates, and a supervisor didn’t always check them for quality assurance. This sometimes results in subsequent investigators having to redo investigative tasks that haven’t been carried out properly, such as obtaining witness statements or seizing potential evidence.
Processes exist to make supervisors aware of poor handovers and address them. But we found that there was an unwillingness to challenge officers whose handovers weren’t good enough. Some experienced investigators told us that they found this frustrating. This wasn’t only because of the delays caused, but also the failure to address the poor investigation standards. This failure means that the force allows poor standards to continue.
The performance of Lincolnshire Police around investigations has deteriorated since our last inspection. Senior leaders couldn’t explain why this had happened and didn’t have the necessary governance or scrutiny to understand why. Similarly, the force hasn’t addressed poor performance in a timely manner.
The force has recognised the need to improve, and we saw that it was focusing on making changes to address those gaps identified in our inspection. The force has now introduced a monthly crime standards board chaired by the head of crime with specific terms of reference around improving all aspects of investigation. The force is setting up a new audit regime for investigations. This is known as quality assurance thematic testing. The force hopes this will provide a qualitative assessment tool.
The force has also set up an investigative improvement team. And it has begun a training programme around areas of investigations such as forensic awareness.
However, at the time of our inspection, these initiatives were new and not established. It will, therefore, take time for the force to evaluate these and understand the effect on investigation quality.
Lincolnshire Police requires improvement at protecting vulnerable people.
The force gets a limited amount of victim feedback directly from victims. The force told us it considered around 55 samples a month, which may include a small number of vulnerable victims. This limits the ability of vulnerable people to positively influence the future service provided by the force.
The force should make sure it collates feedback from a range of sources, analyses it, and uses it to guide the direction of service improvements. It should also consider promoting how it has used this feedback. This could further improve victim satisfaction and confidence of partner agencies.
In our last inspection report, we said the force should consider protective powers and orders in all appropriate cases. Data shows that the force considers Domestic Violence Protection Notices and seeks Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs) at court for cases of domestic abuse.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Lincolnshire Police applied for 131 DVPOs at court. This means that the force made DVPO applications for 3.7 percent of the domestic abuse related crimes it recorded. This was higher than expected compared to the average for forces in England and Wales.
Figure 5: Number of Domestic Violence Protection Order applications as a proportion of domestic abuse-related crimes across forces, year ending 31 March 2024
Source: Data collection and analysis from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
However, while the force has an ancillary orders unit, which has a very good awareness of all active civil orders across the force, our inspectors didn’t find the same level of awareness in the wider workforce. The ancillary orders unit co‑ordinates the force’s response to all protective orders, but we found there was an overreliance on this team. During reality testing, police officers and staff told us that responsibility for monitoring a perpetrator’s compliance with a protection order rested with the original officer, usually a response officer who routinely deals with other calls for service. A dip sample of live orders found there had been little police activity to check the compliance of offenders with the orders.
The force would benefit from clear expectations across the organisation in the use of civil orders, to manage a perpetrator’s behaviour and bring offenders to justice.
Our reality testing also indicated that the force relies too much on victims reporting breaches. It doesn’t give clear direction to officers to carry out proactive checks for enforcement opportunities. Failure to effectively monitor orders could lead to missed opportunities to protect vulnerable victims. This could lead to a decline in confidence in the police’s ability to safeguard victims.
Data shows that the force considers and uses its powers under the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (also known as Clare’s Law). This allows police to disclose information to a victim or potential victim of domestic abuse about their partner’s previous abusive or violent offending. The scheme gives a victim the right to ask for information. The police in specific circumstances can also proactively share this information under the right to know.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force recorded 610 right to know applications and 360 such disclosures, which equated to 78 applications and 46 disclosures per 100,000 population. This was higher than expected compared to the average for forces in England and Wales.
Standards set out the expectations for all forces when processing Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme requests, with particular reference to the timescales associated with the disclosure of information. The force currently has a backlog of requests to consider, which means victims may not be in timely receipt of critical information.
As part of our inspection, we found the force had 207 live Clare’s Law applications. Of these, 193 were awaiting allocation for research to be completed and 71 of these were outside the 28-day notice period for responding to these requests.
The force should make sure it follows the national standards and timeliness for making disclosures. This is so that individuals are appropriately safeguarded, risk is reduced and further offences are prevented. We will continue to monitor how the force makes proper and consistent use of this scheme to protect vulnerable people.
The police representative at multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs) isn’t empowered to make decisions on behalf of the force. We also found there was little proactivity in actions being offered and set to manage a perpetrator’s risk of harm. MARAC is the opportunity for police and partners to take measures to reduce risk of harm to victims. And it is an opportunity to robustly manage a perpetrator’s offending behaviour. This usually rests with the police as one of only two enforcement agencies in attendance. Therefore, the person attending MARAC on behalf of the police needs to have the requisite knowledge and be of sufficient seniority to make these decisions on behalf of the force.
The force has developed a policy called Operation Komoran to support high-risk victims of domestic abuse in MARAC. The aims of Operation Komoran include more timely sharing of information between partner agencies, better compliance with Home Office crime recording standards, and a more holistic understanding of risks to victims. However, the force needs to make sure that it appropriately risk assesses these referrals and that it considers key lines of enquiry to support an evidence-led prosecution. It also needs to make sure there is a clearly recorded supervisor review. Without this, victims are at risk of further harm and police are missing opportunities to intervene to safeguard victims and manage perpetrators’ risky behaviour.
The force has developed a subject profile management plan (SPMP) to help with the identification and management of risk of perpetrators subject to a Stalking Protection Order.
The SPMP has a section to include a summary of the offending behaviour that led to the Stalking Protection Order and details several options to consider for safeguarding. It also includes sections for details that may be useful to subsequent police investigations or offender management.
The final sections require a current assessment of risk and consideration of tactical options to minimise any risk identified. This includes a suggested visits regime and frequency of review of the SPMP.
The force adds these forms to its crime recording system, Niche, so they are available to the wider workforce.
We will be interested to learn whether the force adopts this as a template, and how it uses it as a risk management tool.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force protects vulnerable people.
We found there was a lack of strategic oversight of some areas of public protection.
The force has a dedicated lead for Operation Soteria. The aim of this operation is to improve the criminal justice response to victims of rape and serious sexual offences. Officers and staff that our inspectors spoke to were aware of their role in this approach, and of the benefits to victims. This contrasted with the force’s response to violence against women and girls. The force told us that the lead for violence against women and girls had retired and it was yet to replace them. The force didn’t provide a violence against women and girls action plan. And while officers and staff we spoke to were aware of violence against women and girls, they lacked an understanding of the force response to it.
The force told us that strategic responsibility for domestic abuse was with the head of public protection. But investigations and the management of perpetrators is the responsibility of local policing teams. We found examples of activity and performance in relation to domestic abuse that the force wasn’t overseeing at a strategic level. For example, identification and management of high harm offenders and enforcement of DVPOs.
We found officers and staff in public protection investigation hubs were committed to providing a quality service to vulnerable victims. However, several teams had a high number of vacancies. Many officers and staff in these roles were still in their initial detective training period without a tutor to support their development. This is despite public protection roles managing high levels of risk and dealing with the most vulnerable victims.
Most requests for strategy discussions about identified risks to children are completed by police officers and staff within the partnership safeguarding hub. We found the force prioritised these discussions over other workloads and they were completed in a timely way. However, police aren’t always attending section 47 joint investigation visits with children’s social care due to high workloads and competing demands in public protection investigation hubs. This isn’t placing the child at the centre of the investigation.
However, we did see in one hub the use of an office manager. Officers and staff we interviewed spoke positively about this role, which was helping them to manage demand more effectively and prioritise workloads.
The force has a partnership safeguarding hub (PSH) that discharges its responsibilities under multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. The PSH has access to a range of partners that work together to assess and manage the risk to individuals identified as a vulnerable adult or child. Many are victims of domestic abuse. This is achieved through the prompt assessment of safeguarding referrals by the force and sharing information about those at risk of harm with the other safeguarding agencies.
We found there were moderate workloads of referrals in the PSH and there were processes and IT solutions to prioritise the highest risk. Some officers and staff in this team had relevant experience from policing or other safeguarding roles. However, the majority told us they hadn’t received adequate training for their roles. Supervisors and managers spoke of positive working relationships with partner agencies. But there is a risk that police officers and staff within this team aren’t sufficiently trained or empowered to make decisions on behalf of the force. Informed and knowledge-based decisions could reduce the risk to vulnerable victims or manage perpetrators’ behaviour.
Practitioners who work with victims of domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and so‑called honour-based violence use a risk-assessment tool called Domestic Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour-based Violence (DASH). It helps practitioners to identify the level of risk posed to a victim and to refer them to appropriate agencies.
The force uses DASH assessments for all reported domestic abuse. The submitting officer’s supervisor reviews the initial risk assessment. This assessment then goes to the force’s partnership safeguarding hub for onward referral to safeguarding agencies. We audited the quality of a sample of these risk assessments. We found risk assessments contained good levels of detail, checks on police systems and reference to wider risk factors. Supervisor reviews were both timely and bespoke to each case, providing rationale for the grading of the risk.
This allows safeguarding agencies to be notified at the earliest opportunity. So vulnerable victims get appropriate and timely safeguarding support.
We are aware of the force partnership initiative Families First for Children Pathfinder. While the Department for Education funds this initiative, the force has dedicated resources to develop this work.
Through this national programme, the force aims to enhance partnership working and service to children. It focuses on clearer multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and a child protection system which protects all children from significant harm. And it establishes local multi-disciplinary family help services and greater use of family networks.
As part of this new approach, the force provided some multi-agency training in May and June 2024 to officers and staff in public protection roles. And the force told us of an example where this new way of working provided a co-ordinated child-centred approach, prioritising the child’s emotional and physical well-being.
We will be interested to learn of the findings of the evaluation and to see how this changes the force’s response to child protection.
Lincolnshire Police is inadequate at managing offenders and suspects.
All police, probation and prison services use the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) database to manage the risk posed to the public by convicted sexual and violent offenders. The police create a record on the active risk management system (ARMS) that sets out the potential risk that an offender poses. This should be followed by a risk management plan (RMP) detailing how the risk will be actively managed by the police and partner agencies, such as the Probation Service.
At the time of our inspection, we found that personnel in the force’s management of sexual and violent offenders (MOSOVO) team didn’t have capacity to manage and reduce the backlog of ARMS and RMPs. This had resulted in an overdue workload backlog that the force had been unable to reduce over a four-month period. We found that there weren’t enough offender managers and supervisors to address the backlog and that they had already raised these resourcing gaps with senior leaders.
We found that offender managers in the MOSOVO team had high caseloads, with a ratio of 1 offender manager to 65 offenders in the community. These managers also had a further caseload of offenders in custody or living abroad, which increased the ratio to 1 manager to 86 offenders. Nationally, forces are working towards a ratio of 1 manager to 50 offenders in the community.
During our inspection, we found that not all personnel in the MOSOVO team had the appropriate level of training and accreditation to carry out their roles. They should be accredited under the College of Policing professionalising investigations programme level 1, which covers priority and volume crime investigations. At the time of our inspection, the force accepted this gap around capability but had no definite timescales in place to provide the necessary training.
The national guideline on target completion rates for ARMS and RMPs is 95 percent. We found that the force completion rate was below this level, at 88.9 percent for ARMS and 93 percent for RMPs. However, to achieve this level the force suspended some visits on convicted sex offenders. Again, this indicates a lack of capacity in the MOSOVO team.
During our inspection, we found a large backlog of over 3,000 supervisory reviews on the ViSOR database. After we told the force about this, it made significant efforts to reduce the backlog. But it still had 843 overdue reviews after a three-month period. Supervisors need a manageable number of reviews so that they can provide meaningful reviews and oversight of ongoing offender management. It is vital that the force has the capacity and capability to manage the ViSOR database so it can understand the threat, harm and risk posed by offenders who are in the community.
Offender managers and supervisors told us backlogs meant visits to offenders involving the Probation Service as the lead agency had been suspended. We were told that this would be a temporary measure until backlogs were reduced and that some degree of risk assessment would be carried out to determine which offenders would only receive phone calls rather than personal visits.
The police must visit all offenders regardless of whether the force is the lead agency. The police have the powers to enter homes and carry out checks in accordance with court orders that restrict an offender’s activity, such as Sexual Harm Prevention Orders. So, by not visiting offenders, the force could potentially miss an escalation or concern and put the public at risk.
Within six months from the date of publication of this letter, Lincolnshire Police should make sure:
The force doesn’t maintain sufficient performance data in respect of police bail. We found that although the force had some data on this, it was limited. So Lincolnshire Police doesn’t have a clear picture of how it uses police bail and whether its processes are effective. The force doesn’t have any officers or staff in a dedicated bail management role.
During our inspection, we found that the force had provided some training and guidance to its officers and staff about the requirements of the new legislation, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It has produced a single-page guidance document in response to these recent changes. However, the force doesn’t reinforce this document with any additional training or central communication. Instead it chooses to delegate responsibility for the interpretation and application of the bail act changes to individual teams. This approach means that the force hasn’t seen a consistent use of police bail.
We found that the force’s police online investigation team didn’t routinely monitor compliance with bail by suspects being investigated for online sexual abuse of children. Instead the force relies on responding to breaches reported by third parties. There are many stages to an indecent images investigation, so there are sometimes lengthy waits while cases progress to court. The monitoring of a suspect to make sure there is no further offending and that safeguarding is adequate is therefore critical.
The force has a dedicated resource to support the families of individuals who are suspected of accessing indecent images of children. Academic research suggests that these families have to deal with a range of practical implications. For example, supervising any access to the children, a loss of income, isolation, and the fear of community and media judgments. So the innocent families of suspects, who are in effect indirect victims, need support and safeguarding.
To mitigate these issues, the force has created an indirect victim support officer role. The aim of this role is to increase the support for, and reduce the adverse effects on, families affected by investigations into online child sexual abuse offences. The role is carried out by a police officer who isn’t involved in the investigation. The support offered by the indirect victim support officer can include face-to face meetings, texts, phone calls or emails, all depending on the family members’ preferences. A significant aspect of the role involves liaising with other agencies such as social services.
This scheme has been subject to both academic study and media attention. Other forces have also examined the scheme to identify the good practice within it.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force manages offenders and suspects.
Lincolnshire Police produces a weekly list of outstanding suspects. It prioritises these suspects using the Cambridge Crime Harm Index. This ensures the force prioritises the overall threat the suspects pose to the public over the offence they are wanted for. The index measures the effect of a crime by assessing the level of harm caused, rather than just the number of incidents. The index gives greater emphasis to higher‑harm crimes, such as serious assault, than to multiple instances of lower-harm crime, such as theft or criminal damage. At the same time, it recognises the potential for greater harm in a series of repeat incidents. We also saw how Lincolnshire Police managed outstanding suspects who were wanted at the force tactical tasking and co‑ordinating group and daily management meetings. At these meetings, the force assigns to officers and teams tasks of locating and arresting people who are wanted.
We found that the police online investigation team (POLIT) didn’t have sufficient resource to carry out enforcement action without assistance from other teams within the force. This is due to capacity and capability issues within the team itself. This has led to delays in police action.
POLIT should prioritise enforcement activity using the Kent internet risk assessment tool (KIRAT). This assesses the level of risk posed by a suspect who possesses and views indecent images of children on the internet. The assessment includes the likelihood of them becoming a contact offender who commits sexual offences against children. KIRAT sets out certain categories of risk – these being low, medium, high or very high risk – with nationally recognised timescales to carry out enforcement based on the assessed risk.
We found that the POLIT within Lincolnshire Police wasn’t working to KIRAT tiered timescales for low and medium-risk investigations due to capability issues. The force has recognised this and has set up days of actions where other teams within the force will carry out enforcement action, such as the execution of search warrants and the arrests of suspects. Although these days of actions have done much to reduce enforcement backlogs, we don’t see this as a sustainable practice to address the level of indecent images of children the force deals with.
The force POLIT uses software such as the Child Protection System and the ICAC Child On-line Protection System to identify the sharing of indecent images over the internet. When images are identified, it uses software, the child abuse image database (CAID), to determine whether any of the victims are known to law enforcement agencies.
The force has trained personnel who are experienced in using CAID and a dedicated victim identification officer. This officer is responsible for uploading images onto CAID and carrying out other intelligence-gathering to identify victims, such as open source internet research. The force refers all potential identifications to the National Crime Agency. When a child can be readily identified, the force issues a PPN that records its concerns about the child. It shares this with partner agencies, such as social services, to instigate a multi-agency safeguarding approach for that child and any others who may be at risk, such as siblings. This allows these agencies to make risk assessments, hold meetings and take any action required at the earliest opportunity.
The force has good processes to safeguard children at risk of online exploitation. The force POLIT has a set process to deal with instances where young children have uploaded images of themselves to the internet. It deals with these incidents by visiting families, making sure there are no coercion or exploitation concerns and offering online safeguarding advice. These visits offer the opportunity to work with young people and their parents, contribute to future victim identification on CAID and, ultimately, prevent the possible exploitation of these children. This strand of enforcement is to focus on the educational interventions and making sure the appropriate safeguarding measures are in place. The aim isn’t to criminalise those who have been involved in such activity. The POLIT has set up a safeguarding network of officers who visit these children and give educational advice. They also signpost them to any further support from other agencies. This allows POLIT officers to continue their investigations into online child abuse while suitably trained officers provide prevention activity.
Lincolnshire Police requires improvement at building, supporting and protecting the workforce.
During our inspection, some officers and staff told us that the force didn’t have an inclusive culture. An inclusive culture is one where every member of the workforce feels valued, respected and empowered to contribute regardless of their background. However we were told that the force still had a degree of negative behaviours present and this was too often brushed aside as ‘banter’ or ‘canteen culture’.
The force told us that it carried out regular surveys, known as cultural stocktakes, to try and understand prevailing issues around diversity, equality and inclusion. But we found that officers and staff from under-represented groups were sceptical about these surveys and how they actually led to any change. We noted that the force cultural stocktake for 2024 showed a deterioration from the last survey in 2023 around workforce perceptions of how differences and diversity are respected.
Some officers and staff told us that the force didn’t deal effectively with behaviours such as misogyny. Other officers and staff described a degree of apathy among managers in addressing negative discriminatory attitudes and behaviours.
We found a disconnect between what force leaders felt prevailing cultures were and what some officers and staff felt them to be. The force needs to work to build up confidence that it understands prevailing attitudes and behaviours that reduce the inclusivity of the workplace. And it needs to then tackle them. We are aware that the force has made some effort to address this. But our January 2025 police integrity inspection found that there was inconsistency in the training provided to police officers and to police staff. This related to the Code of Ethics and expected standards of professional behaviour. We found that new police officers and staff didn’t receive the face-to-face training provided to new officers but instead only online training packages.
The force has provided some of the workforce with culture awareness sessions. It has trained some cultural advocates, who can lead discussions on culture within departments and identify any issues. Although we welcome this, we would expect that the force would educate all of its workforce in awareness and sensitivity to cultural issues.
During our inspection, we found that the force only had partial processes to interview officers and staff who exited the organisation.
Lincolnshire Police does have a process for exit interviews, but it only carries these out if the individual leaving specifically requests an interview. We found that relatively few people complete exit interviews. So the force doesn’t have data about why people from different groups are leaving. Senior leaders within the force accepted this was a gap and were aiming to implement stay interviews, which have been introduced in other forces. Forces use these interviews to uncover what part of an individual’s job or role keeps them within an organisation. In other forces, these interviews have reduced personnel attrition rates. Lincolnshire Police would benefit from better using these to understand personnel retention.
Professional development reviews (PDRs) should be an effective tool for officers and staff to record their objectives and achievements. They are essential to help supervisors understand the development needs of their officers and staff.
We found that Lincolnshire Police had a low completion rate for PDRs across all sections of its workforce. In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force only had a completion rate of 52 percent across its whole workforce.
Some officers and staff told us that the PDR process wasn’t meaningful. In some cases, PDR completion is viewed as just a necessary process to submit to in order to receive a yearly pay increment. Officers and staff told us that PDRs weren’t referred to in promotion processes or in any other recruitment and selection procedures.
Under force guidelines, officers and staff should have an interim PDR meeting, known as a pause point. This should be no less than bi-monthly, with the aim that they will be monthly wherever possible. However, we found that these meetings didn’t always happen. Some supervisors told us that they didn’t always have time to make sure PDRs truly reflected individual achievements and areas for development. We found that PDRs were inconsistent in quality and timeliness due to workloads. Supervisors often defer pause point meetings during times of high demand. So officers, staff and their supervisors don’t always consider or progress areas for development.
Some officers and staff we spoke to didn’t value the PDR or pause point meetings. They referred to the meetings and PDR as a box-ticking exercise. Our workforce survey corroborates this. We found that of those who had had a PDR in the past 12 months, only 53.3 percent (171 of 321 respondents) agreed that these were an effective tool in their development.
The force needs to review its PDR process so that the workforce perceives it as a genuine development tool and wants to use it.
Police forces should make sure that their composition reflects the ethnic, racial, gender or any other demographic diversity of the population they serve.
A force should therefore have programmes and initiatives that aim to support the development and progression of individuals from under-represented groups.
We found that Lincolnshire Police didn’t have a progression programme for officers from under-represented groups. When we asked senior leaders about plans to increase the number of officers from teams, such as the CID or protecting vulnerable people (PVP), they struggled to explain any. This was mirrored among the workforce, where we found little understanding of what was available to under‑represented groups by way of support. Although the force promotes the College of Policing Aspire Scheme for under-represented groups at chief inspector rank or above, this isn’t tailored to under-represented groups at lower ranks. This isn’t perceived to be providing tangible support for more junior officers or staff.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force builds, supports and protects the workforce.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Lincolnshire Police had a 5.0 percent rate of long‑term sickness absence as a proportion of full-time equivalent police officers. This was higher than expected for forces in England and Wales, and was the highest recorded of all the forces in England and Wales. During our inspection, officers told us that there was a culture of having to work longer shifts and work on rest days in order to keep up with workloads. This included working from home on rest days.
Figure 6: Long-term sickness absence rate among police officers as a proportion of full-time equivalent in the year ending 31 March 2024
Source: Police workforce, England and Wales: 31 March 2024 from the Home Office
We also found that the force had a long-hours culture. Officers on teams such as response regularly work overtime on their rest days. We saw some evidence that the force monitored excessive hours, but it didn’t always identify all instances. The force’s process to intervene in such cases wasn’t consistent. So Lincolnshire Police cannot assure itself that all officers and staff have an appropriate work/life balance.
We found that staffing was below establishment levels in some teams. This created a greater workload for officers and staff. This in turn caused some to report sick due to work pressures and burn out. When this happened, officers and staff then tended to be absent for an extended period. This then exacerbated the pressures on remaining personnel and resulted in further sickness.
Senior leaders told us that there was an expectation that first-line leaders would monitor the working hours of their officers and staff. But first-line leaders told us that they didn’t always have the time to do this due to their own workloads. They also told us that force data didn’t flag excessive hours worked.
We found that the force didn’t monitor senior officers’ long working hours, either. Superintendents are obliged to carry out on-call duties where they have to be available outside their normal working hours. We were told that the force wasn’t consistently recording or monitoring working hours for superintendents. Working hours for officers in this rank are therefore not visible to the force.
Senior managers couldn’t explain the force’s high long-term absence rates. It was clear that the force doesn’t understand the effect of excessive workloads and hours on absence rates.
The force provides a support service called Trauma Risk Management (TRiM). It offers this welfare-led assessment to first responders after they attend or deal with a traumatic incident.
We found that there was no recognised welfare provision for officers working in protecting vulnerable people (PVP). Their daily responsibilities include dealing with child death, child sexual assault and rapes. Officers and staff told us that PVP officers didn’t receive TRiM support after they had dealt with serious crimes that could be highly traumatic. Officers would welcome further support after dealing with serious crimes.
Officers within PVP sometimes view and assess indecent images of children during investigations. This can be a lengthy process. These officers aren’t subject to mandatory annual welfare assessments which their colleagues in the POLIT automatically receive. The emotional impact of viewing indecent images of children cannot be underestimated and the force may wish to examine addressing gaps in its welfare provision.
Student officers begin their period of operational deployment on response teams where they are tutored by an experienced officer for ten weeks. The force told us that it had assessed how many tutor officers it required. It told us it had assured itself it had enough to provide the training and mentoring function. But when we spoke to tutor constables and their supervisors, we found that most tutors were carrying out this role on an almost non-stop basis. This was extremely demanding and made it difficult to give student officers the right level of support. Supervisors told us that the majority of tutor constables were themselves relatively junior in service and in some cases only just out of their own student officer period. Officers and supervisors felt that both the capacity and capability of tutor constables was under strain. This had a negative effect on the level of support student officers could expect to receive at a critical time in their police careers.
The force told us that it couldn’t compel officers to become tutor constables. Nor could it offer them any extra remuneration for the role. However, Lincolnshire Police may wish to examine non-financial incentives that other forces offer to attract and retain experienced tutor constables.
The force understands the pressures on student officers who have just joined the organisation and has provided support measures for them. One such measure is the provision of a student officer well-being officer.
Student officers we spoke to felt that the force was very open with discussing issues that may affect students’ well-being. They said that the force and student trainers had an open-door policy, which encouraged new recruits to raise any concerns.
As part of the PEEL workforce survey, we asked new recruits whether they achieved a good balance between their work life and their private life. Out of 83 officers, 71 agreed that they achieved a good balance.
During our inspection, we found that the force provided student officers with ten dedicated learning days each year. This gives them the time to complete their studies for professional qualifications.
Lincolnshire Police effectively equips, develops and supports its first-line leaders to meet leadership standards, exemplify the behaviours expected of them and effectively support both teams and individuals.
All first-line managers (sergeants) attend the mandatory first-line leaders course. Officers who are awaiting promotion or have passed the police national promotion exams and who are seeking promotion are also sent on the first-line leaders course. Officers and staff who have served as first-line leaders for a few years also attend the course as a refresher. The course helps attendees understand themselves as leaders and includes content on managing personnel well-being, and challenging discriminatory behaviour.
The force told us that a total of 56 substantive/acting sergeants attended the first-line leader course between February and September 2024. This accounts for 26.5 percent of all active sergeants. Generally, the course has been well received. The force plans to give more first-line leaders the opportunity to attend the course from January 2025 onwards.
Lincolnshire Police’s leadership and management is inadequate.
This was an area for improvement we identified in our 2021/22 PEEL inspection. But it has not improved, so it is now a cause of concern.
The force doesn’t have enough capacity in the right places, which is affecting force performance. For example, it isn’t meeting response time frames, there are delays in investigations and some specialist services lack capacity.
During our inspection, we also found that the force was extensively using overtime to meet demand. The force told us the overtime budget was nearly exhausted mid-year. This isn’t a sustainable approach to meeting demand in key areas such as response and crime investigations. It also places more financial pressure on the force and additional pressure on those officers and staff who are working extra hours.
The force should continue to review its operating model and implement any changes efficiently. It should make sure it has effective governance processes and enough resources to oversee its change programme. If the force has the right people in the right places, it will help it to make sustainable and cost-effective improvements in performance. The failure to plan effectively could prevent the force from providing its community, including its most vulnerable people, with the expected standard of service.
Within six months from the date of publication of this letter, Lincolnshire Police should make sure:
Senior leaders in the force haven’t had enough control over strategic planning and oversight since our 2021/22 inspection. The lack of effective governance and management of force performance has negatively affected almost all areas of the force.
Although the force has a strategic savings and efficiency plan, we have limited confidence that the plan will lead to an efficient and effective service. We found that the force had been frequently using its reserves to support its expenditure for some time, which isn’t sustainable. This lack of effective planning is reflected in its operating costs. In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force spent £74,000 per member of the workforce, which is higher than most other police forces.
Despite the financial pressures we found several areas of inefficiency, including the force’s vehicle fleet and estates strategy. The force told us it had closed 17 of its underused buildings to save costs, but it hasn’t sold any of these buildings. Some of the remaining 37 operational buildings are underused and have few people working from them. The police and crime commissioner is responsible for the estate, but senior leaders are responsible for operational efficiency and value for money. The force should review how it uses its estate and its management strategy so that it can better meet current and future needs.
Senior leaders in the force lack oversight of some areas of expenditure, such as the vehicle fleet. The arrangements, at the time of our inspection, for managing fleet size and allocation were ineffective. At the time of our inspection, the force had 462 vehicles, but these were only used 5.7 percent of the time on average. The force should review its fleet management plans to make sure its investments provide value for money and the workforce has what it needs to be efficient and productive.
Lincolnshire Police receives one of the lowest levels of funding per 1,000 population among forces in England and Wales. But its financial plans aren’t aligned with other corporate plans such as workforce, IT, fleet and estates strategies. It isn’t clear how the force can continue to provide the current level of policing within its anticipated budgets. And it also doesn’t fully understand its demand and operating costs. This means that the force can’t be sure that its current operating model will help it to meet future demand. The failure to plan effectively means the force isn’t helping to provide its community, including its most vulnerable members, with the expected standard of service.
Figure 7: Cost per full-time equivalent member of staff for all police forces in England and Wales in the financial year ending 31 March 2024
Source: Police objective analysis data from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy
Within six months from the date of publication of this letter, Lincolnshire Police should:
The force isn’t currently making the most of technology and this is restricting progress. During our inspection, we found several inefficient manual processes for handling data and resolving quality issues. These were creating internal demands. For example, we found individual teams using spreadsheets to record data. The force must improve its data quality by prioritising plans to replace and upgrade its aging IT infrastructure and outdated software systems. In particular, it should upgrade those that have the greatest impact and require manual processing. These should be automated wherever possible. For example, robotics can replace some repetitive manual tasks more effectively, allowing the force to produce and present accurate, timely data more efficiently.
During our 2021/22 inspection, we found the force had an ineffective human resources system. We also found it didn’t have a central database to record its workforce’s skills and capabilities. Unfortunately, during our most recent inspection, we found the force had made little progress to address this gap. It still doesn’t fully understand the skills of its workforce. This data is important as it would help to find gaps in skillsets and capability that may affect force performance. The force needs to address this gap in its data so senior leaders can make more informed decisions on training, deployments, and recruitment.
The force needs to develop a more effective approach to managing various forms of internal demands. For example, in the year ending 30 September 2024 its control room recorded 122 incidents per 1,000 population. This is lower than expected for forces in England and Wales who recorded an average of 248. But Lincolnshire Police still faced delays in meeting its call time limits.
Figure 8: Incidents recorded in command and control per 1,000 population across forces in the year ending 30 September 2024
Source: Data collection and analysis from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
We also found delays at various stages of its investigations, even though it recorded a lower than average volume of crime. In the year ending 31 March 2024, Lincolnshire Police recorded 71 crimes per 1,000 population compared to the average of 79 crimes across England and Wales.
The force needs to develop more effective ways to process demand across the whole organisation. This should include reviews of how it deploys resources to incidents and of its crime allocation policy. It should assure itself these are effective. This will help the force to provide a more efficient service to the public.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to leadership and management.
The force has developed a new strategic plan called ‘Making Lincolnshire Safe: Annual Plan 2024/25’. This plan set out the main four force priorities which consider the police and crime commissioner’s ‘Community Safety, Policing and Criminal Justice Plan for Lincolnshire 2021–2025’ to provide the force with a focus on shared priorities. But we also found the force had 16 performance priorities which differed from those in its strategic plan. This makes overseeing force performance and measuring progress against its priorities more difficult. The force should review its plans to make sure they are all aligned.
The force improved its performance framework since our last inspection. But it still needs to improve the quality of analysis and data provided to its governance structure to make sure it is effective and efficient. Without trustworthy and reliable data, the force will struggle to realise its plans, achieve its performance priorities and provide a quality of service that its communities deserve.
The force is investing in the capability of its leaders and has developed a range of training programmes that align with the College of Policing curriculum. This will provide officers and staff with the skills they need to be effective in their roles. We were encouraged to see the force was trying to create a learning culture. It was gathering feedback from those who had attended the training to evaluate and improve the quality. Effective police leadership is essential and will help the force to improve its performance and the quality of service it provides.
The force’s senior leadership is actively working towards increased visibility and engagement with the workforce. But there is still room for improvement in internal communications. During our inspection, we found a mix of staff and officers who saw their leaders on a regular basis, and those who didn’t. The force should make sure leaders at all levels are visible to their officers and staff, and rely less on electronic forms of engagement.
Forecasts within the mid-term financial plan are based on realistic assumptions about future funding and its current levels of expenditure. The force uses a priority-based budgeting (PBB) model to manage its budgets. When used effectively, the PBB model should help the force to find areas where it can make savings. It could use these to balance budgets or to make investments in other priority areas. But we found the force wasn’t consistently using PBB processes to reduce its costs as effectively as it could. The force needs to assure itself it is using the PBB processes to make savings and efficiencies it needs to reduce the funding gap.
Figure 9: Total funding per 1,000 population received by forces in England and Wales in the 2024/25 financial year
Source: Data collection and analysis from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
In the financial year 2024/25, Lincolnshire Police received £164 million in funding. This was equal to £210,000 per 1,000 population, which is at the lower end of the typical range for forces in England and Wales.
The force receives a combination of core grant from central government and local revenue raised through council tax precept. In the financial year 2024/25, this contributed £71 million to the force’s total budget, which is 43.1 percent of the total funding available to the force. This is just above the average amount forces receive from local precept.
The force received help from a 4.45 percent rise in the precept for 2024/25, which is an increase of £12.96 per band D property. The force used this to carry out its plans and maintain its services. Despite this, the force estimates it will have a budget deficit of £9.2 million in 2024/25 and £14 million in 2025/26 which it plans to cover from the use of its reserves. Reserves fall into two categories: a general reserve, and earmarked reserves held for specific purposes such as capital investment. The force plans to maintain a general reserve of £11.2 million to cover its risks. This is approximately 6.8 percent of the force’s net revenue budget and is considered an adequate amount. However, the force predicts budget deficits in future financial years and has been using its earmarked reserves to support its revenue budget. But these will have been exhausted by 2026/27. We are concerned by this. It presents a significant risk to the force’s ability to improve its performance or continue to provide an adequate service to the public of Lincolnshire.
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:
Lincolnshire PEEL assessment 2023–2025
You can find more about Lincolnshire Police on our dedicated force page.
The force’s aims are to stop crime and anti-social behaviour, protect from harm, and help those in need. The force strategy focuses on four priorities of Building confidence in policing, delivering a thoughtful and effective service, developing an inspirational culture and rapidly improving organisation and securing fairer and sustainable funding.
Serious concerns over Lincolnshire Police’s performance
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.
