In 2023–2025, we carried out a PEEL inspection of Nottinghamshire 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 Nottinghamshire Police
More information about the PEEL assessments
Our inspection assessed how good Nottinghamshire 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 Nottinghamshire 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 some concerns about the performance of Nottinghamshire 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 manages crime, and how it manages its performance and identifies areas that need improvement.
Another area of concern is how well neighbourhood policing teams identify and address community problems in order to prevent crime.
In view of these findings, I have been in regular contact with the chief constable as the amount of improvement needed shouldn’t be underestimated.
The force had a change in leadership in the year leading up to our inspection. The new chief constable and other senior leaders have reviewed how the force can adopt a new operating model to manage its current and future demand, which is outstripping its current resourcing model. However, at the time of our inspection the force did not yet have clear plans to do this.
The force needs to improve the way it uses its resources to provide a service to the public. However, its ability to meet demand is affected by acute environmental factors, like high levels of deprivation.
Although the force’s funding is in line with other forces in England and Wales, gaps in funding for other agencies may have an effect on police demand. On 29 November 2023, Nottingham City Council issued a section 114 notice, which means that it can’t meet its expenditure commitments from its income. It is one of the larger local authorities in the country and the consequences for its partners, including Nottinghamshire Police, aren’t yet clear.
Furthermore, 11.5 percent of neighbourhoods in Nottinghamshire are in the top 10 percent most deprived for income across England and Wales. High levels of deprivation are known to have a negative effect on crime, antisocial behaviour, and levels of risk to vulnerable people and groups.
Nottinghamshire Police’s 999 calls and number of offences are in line with other forces in England and Wales, but its number of 101 calls is the highest recorded.
Nottinghamshire Police needs to allocate its resources more effectively to preventing and detecting crime, which will help to protect its communities. To achieve sustainable improvements, it needs to better manage its plans for making changes.
I am pleased to see that the force has accepted our findings and is now looking at how to identify and implement the changes needed to provide improvements.
HM Inspector of Constabulary
In this section we set out the most important findings relating to the force’s leadership at all levels.
The force has a number of challenges around leadership at various levels.
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.
The new chief officer team hasn’t been fully sighted on certain issues that are having a negative effect on performance and workforce engagement. They need to make sure that communication and critical analysis are central to the way the force works.
The force’s senior leaders have produced a mission statement called the Pledge. This document is used to communicate to the workforce their role in helping to provide a service to the public. However, understanding of the Pledge is not yet fully in place across the whole workforce.
Senior leaders aren’t always seen as accessible and approachable by officers and staff. This means that the workforce’s concerns aren’t always being picked up by leaders.
Officers and staff who enter leadership for the first time don’t have enough support. The force recognises this, and has very recently introduced foundation training for first line managers, along with a leadership academy.
The force must urgently improve its governance structures and the data and analysis that informs them. It is currently unable to identify which areas it performs poorly in and why.
Nottinghamshire 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. But the force doesn’t yet have clear and coherent plans, with timescales, to introduce organisational change. As a result, changes haven’t been communicated clearly enough to the workforce. This is having a detrimental effect on morale.
The force needs to produce plans for change that both the workforce and public can understand.
More detail on Nottinghamshire Police’s leadership is included in the main body of the report.
The reducing crime assessment sets out what Nottinghamshire 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, the force needs to make sure it attends non-emergency calls faster. By not always doing so, it is missing opportunities to safeguard the public and reduce crime. The force should respond to incidents within its published timescales.
The force’s neighbourhood policing teams work well with partners to address crime and antisocial behaviour. However, these teams are being diverted from their core role too often. This is preventing them from carrying out consistent problem-solving and community engagement that would reduce crime and address community concerns. The force should give these teams time, space and training to problem-solve effectively.
The force must urgently improve how it manages and investigates crime. It needs to achieve better outcomes for victims. Investigations need to have better supervision and greater accountability to address poor practice.
The force needs to develop more efficient processes for referring vulnerable victims of domestic violence to other agencies, to make sure they are safeguarded at the earliest opportunity.
The force uses stop and search effectively. Most of the recorded grounds for stop and search suggest that officers are using this power in line with legislation.
The Nottinghamshire Police operating model isn’t currently able to manage its demand. The force needs a new model that will equip it to manage current and future demand.
More detail on what Nottinghamshire Police is doing to reduce crime is included in the main body of the report.
This section describes our assessment of the service Nottinghamshire 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:
Community resolution was applied.
Although our victim service assessment is ungraded, it influences graded judgments in the other areas we have inspected.
The force has reduced the number of non-emergency calls that the caller abandons without being answered. But it needs to improve the time it takes to answer emergency calls.
When it answers calls, it takes into account threat, harm, risk and vulnerability. It identifies repeat victims, so it can take this into account when considering what response it should give. But it doesn’t always check to see whether there is a vulnerable victim. Call handlers are polite but don’t always give victims advice on crime prevention and how to preserve evidence.
On too many occasions, the force doesn’t respond appropriately to calls for service. It doesn’t always respond within its agreed timescales. And it doesn’t always inform victims when there are delays, meaning that victims’ expectations aren’t always met. This may cause victims to lose confidence and disengage from the process.
The force doesn’t always carry out investigations in a timely way, completing relevant and proportionate lines of inquiry. Nor does it always supervise investigations well. But it does regularly update victims on developments within the case. 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 result for the victim.
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 from being committed.
The force doesn’t always record whether it has considered using orders designed to protect victims, such as Domestic Violence Protection Notices or Orders.
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 doesn’t always carry out this assessment or record that there has been a request for additional support.
The force isn’t consistently providing the right level of service to make sure that it achieves appropriate outcomes for victims of crime. The force doesn’t always close crimes with the appropriate outcome type. It doesn’t record a clear rationale for assigning a certain outcome and doesn’t effectively supervise this process.
It informs victims when an outcome type is assigned when an investigation is closed but doesn’t always discuss this with victims prior to assigning the outcome.
Nottinghamshire Police is adequate at using police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
The force needs to increase the capacity of its scrutiny panel so that it can review more cases. This will help the public of Nottinghamshire to have more confidence that the force’s use of its powers is being robustly monitored.
The force has an independent scrutiny panel that reviews both stop and search and the use of force by its officers. This panel meets four times a year, alternating between stop and search and use of force. This means that scrutiny over each area is only carried out every six months.
We observed these panels and found that they reviewed a very small number of cases at each meeting. Given the time between each meeting and the low numbers of cases being reviewed, this is an insufficient level of audit. It also reduces the opportunity for the force to receive valuable feedback.
When a certain group of people is affected by police action in a way that is substantially different from people not of that group (for example, if people of certain ethnicities are stopped and searched more frequently), this is referred to as ‘disproportionality’.
We found that the force doesn’t publish stop and search data on its website or anywhere else. Publishing data that shows whether there is any disproportionality, and any identified reasons for it, helps inform the public about whether the force is using its powers fairly and ethically. This is critical to maintain public confidence.
The force is aware of this issue and told us that they plan to publish their stop and search data on the Police.uk website, which contains open data about crime and policing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, this had not happened by the time of our inspection. The force told us that this was due to technical issues.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
During our inspection, we reviewed a sample of 174 stop and search records from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022. Based on this sample, we estimate that 95.4 percent (with a confidence interval of +/- 3.1 percent) of all stop and searches by the force during this period had reasonable grounds recorded.
This is an improvement compared with the findings from our previous review in 2021, when we found 85.5 percent (with a confidence interval of +/- 4.6) of stop and searches had reasonable grounds recorded. Of the records we reviewed for stop and searches on people from ethnic minorities, 34 of 35 had reasonable grounds recorded.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, Nottinghamshire Police carried out 4,789 stop and searches on individuals and vehicles. This was a 7.2 percent increase from the previous year. This compares to a rise of 2.8 percent in the number of stop and searches across England and Wales.
Based on population data from the 2021 Census, Black people were 4 times as likely as White people to be stopped and searched by Nottinghamshire Police compared to 4.1 times across England and Wales. Asian or Asian British people were 1.5 times as likely as White people to be stopped by Nottinghamshire Police compared to the average disproportionality rate of 1.4 across England and Wales.
All frontline officers receive mandatory stop and search training, and we found that they are confident and proactive in using this power. In the year ending 31 March 2023, the linked find rate for stolen and prohibited articles was 29.8 percent. The average find rate was 20.9 percent for all stop and searches carried out in England and Wales. The linked find rate shows when the officer finds the stolen or prohibited article/object they were looking for when carrying out the search. This indicates that the powers are used effectively and helping to reduce crime.
This training has recently been adapted to include input from people who have been stop and searched and have lived experience of how the encounter with the police felt. This training stresses the need for courtesy when using stop and search powers and a full explanation of why these powers are being used.
The force informed us that they have consulted the Youth Independent Advisory Group and the Coalition of Majority Black-led Churches to receive feedback on how they perceive the use of stop and search powers by the police.
The force told us that they have introduced a number of training themes based on their public consultation. This includes training on working with people who are autistic, neurodiverse and/or LGBTQ+, both within the organisation and the wider community. The training also covers cultural awareness when using these powers, for example around the removal of head coverings worn for religious reasons.
The force’s lead for stop and search told us that the training includes corporate videos. These include messages from senior leaders that regularly reinforce the phrases “Bad contact leaves a legacy” and “Every contact leaves a trace”.
The force told us that all forms recording stop and searches are submitted electronically and are subject to mandatory scrutiny by a supervisor. In addition, the force has a dedicated inspector who dip samples stop and search. This inspector will identify any gaps in the recording of grounds for stop and search and make sure that these are addressed with the officer concerned. Any themes picked up in this dip sample are fed back to the force’s training school, so that they can be included in officer training.
All operational officers within the force have to undergo officer safety training every twelve months. The force has a 92 percent compliance rate for staff attending their training, and officers are removed from operational duties if their qualification lapses.
This training is reviewed regularly, and includes scenarios designed to give officers realistic experience of situations they may have to deal with. Officers are trained in how to use the national decision model. This guides officers in making ethical and lawful decisions during both spontaneous and planned events. We found that officers were well versed in the model. They could explain how they used it to provide a rationale for their actions when using force.
The force told us that its training places a significant emphasis on deconfliction. It teaches how to use verbal skills to de-escalate potentially violent situations.
Handcuffing is categorised into two types:
The recording of both compliant and non-compliant handcuffing is obligatory, and this requirement is stressed during training. As a result, we found that officers are aware of the policy and can explain why handcuffing must be recorded, even when an individual offered no resistance.
Nottinghamshire Police has a mandatory policy in place to monitor the use of force by its officers. The force told us that they instruct officers that all use of force must be recorded on body-worn video (BWV) so that this footage can be reviewed by a supervisor. When a use of force form is submitted by an officer on their handheld device, an automatic notification is sent to their supervisor. The supervisor is then required to review the form and accompanying video footage. They use a standard template which allows them to record their view of the legitimacy and proportionality of the force used.
The force informed us that any failure to record a use of force using BWV is chased up. All use of force forms and accompanying BWV footage are dip sampled by a dedicated inspector, using the same process as for stop and search. Any training issues around how force is used or how a rationale is provided for it, are identified and fed into officer safety training.
The force records the use of force not only when used in arrests, but also in stop and search procedures and tactical communication with suspects. Home Office data for the year ending 31 March 2023 shows that 24.7 percent of Nottinghamshire Police’s recorded use of force incidents were on people from an ethnic minority background. This section of the population amounts to 7 percent of the overall population of the county of Nottinghamshire, based on the 2021 census.
This means that force is being used more frequently on people from ethnic minority backgrounds. The force is unable to explain the disproportionality within these statistics.
Nottinghamshire Police is inadequate at prevention and deterrence.
During our inspection, many neighbourhood policing teams told us they couldn’t spend enough time carrying out patrols, working with the public or doing preventative problem-solving work. This was because they were diverted to other duties, like response policing. Some officers said that this affected community confidence and had left teams feeling undervalued by the force.
It is important for the force to maintain the effectiveness of its response teams so it can adequately respond to incidents. But neighbourhood police officers have an important role in problem-solving and getting local communities involved in crime prevention.
Neighbourhood policing teams being diverted from their main duties is known as abstraction. At the time of our inspection, there was no abstraction policy for neighbourhood officers. This means that officers and staff may be aware they will be taken away from their main duties in advance, but they can also be abstracted at short notice. The force doesn’t record when these short-notice abstractions have taken place. As a result, the force can’t be sure of the effect of diverting neighbourhood policing teams away from their main role. There was some variation in the levels of abstractions across the force, but the time that they spent away from their main role was significant.
By 30 September 2024, Nottinghamshire Police should:
The force should make sure that:
The force knows that it needs to put in place processes for effective problem‑solving and use it 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 are not consistently applying the use of the scanning, analysis, response and assessment problem-solving model.
Although the force set up a prevention hub in May 2023 to raise the standard of problem-solving, we found that many personnel didn’t know the remit of the unit and weren’t aware of the services it provides. As a result, services such as analytical support and problem-solving surgeries weren’t being used by personnel.
Operational units within the force and its partners (such as the local authority) use a range of processes to record and operate their problem-solving plans. The force has two separate databases for problem-solving. Officers and staff are often unsure which database to use and, in some cases, can’t log onto or use them. This has led to some personnel not formally recording their problem-solving activity, because they see the process as too bureaucratic. As a result, the force doesn’t have an overview of which problem-solving activity has the best results and struggles to identify best practice.
A single effective system for recording problem-solving activities will help the force to understand which problem-solving works best, and how to use it to achieve sustainable results.
The force should make sure that:
At the time of our inspection, the force had recently produced a strategic engagement strategy to underpin its approach to public engagement. However, this hadn’t been adapted into an easily understood guide that personnel could apply in their everyday activity. As a result, we found that some officers and staff struggled to explain how they structure their engagement activity to meet the needs of different communities.
Getting local communities involved in regular engagement improves communication and understanding between the force and the communities it serves. It also provides community members with the opportunity to influence policing in their local areas and to set local priorities. We found that the force had ongoing two-way discussions with its communities. One example of this is Notts Alerts, a media platform set up by the force in October 2023. This allows the force to send out crime prevention messages and receive feedback from the public on policing activity.
However, we found inconsistencies in staff and officers’ awareness around community engagement. This knowledge was better understood by personnel working in the city of Nottingham than in the rest of the county.
The force could do more to work with some communities who traditionally interact less with the police, and who may have less trust and confidence in it. This is particularly relevant to new and emerging communities, who aren’t always considered by local policing teams when carrying out engagement activity. Wider consultation will help the force to better understand and address local issues, and to build relationships within the wider community.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to prevention and deterrence.
At the time of our inspection, we found that some members of neighbourhood teams hadn’t received training in some aspects of their role. These included core activities such as problem-solving and community engagement. The force had already recognised the need for this training, and recently introduced a foundation course for all officers engaged in neighbourhood policing. The force anticipates that all officers will have received the required training by the end of 2024.
We found that neighbourhood policing teams had very limited access to data and analysis to help them understand the threats their communities face. Some officers told us that they had no information on the communities they patrol and didn’t know who their repeat callers were or the repeat locations that police were regularly called to.
The force doesn’t produce local ‘partnership profiles’, which bring together information usually from local partner organisations, such as local authorities and housing providers. ‘Partnership profiles’ can help officers understand crime and disorder issues in particular areas. Officers also don’t have access to information about vulnerable people and repeat callers to other agencies, such as the ambulance service. As a result, officers told us that they have to rely on their own research, which is often limited. These gaps in information mean that neighbourhood policing teams can’t always identify people that need intervention advice, or locations that require intervention activity.
Neighbourhood teams from across the force told us about the work they do 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 and we found that neighbourhood teams within the force use a wide range of such orders. These include:
The use of this legislation by neighbourhood teams is well understood, and we found that the force’s partners viewed this 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, antisocial behaviour, child exploitation, burglary and theft-related offences. It participates in multi-agency meetings which make sure there is accountability across police and partners. It recently held a co-ordinated knife crime awareness event which involved the youth outreach team, Nottingham College and neighbourhood policing teams. The force told us that they engaged over 2,000 children over a week of action.
Nottinghamshire Police has developed volunteer opportunities for the public in a number of roles. These include:
The force has a ‘citizens in policing’ co-ordinator who oversees the recruitment, training and provision of support for all volunteers.
The Special Constabulary, which numbers 112 officers (as reported by the force), has its own rank structure which mirrors that of the force. Special constables have a good mixture of experience and backgrounds. These include officers who come from teaching and training roles (like teachers), which the force makes use of. Dedicated teams support road policing, rural policing, night-time economy duties and the antisocial behaviour patrol. Volunteers from across the force told us that they felt valued and felt they played a real part in supporting police activity in the county. This sense of belonging has been further enhanced by the awarding of long-service medals to its volunteers.
The force told us that they have 113 police cadets between the ages of 11 and 18 who volunteer at various locations across the force, known as bases. They are deployed to community activities, with an emphasis on being good citizens.
The Mini Police programme is provided by neighbourhood teams in primary schools across the county. The aim of the scheme is to engage with young people and show them and their families a positive side to policing. Children on the scheme have learned about personal safety, knife crime and antisocial behaviour. At the end of the scheme the children receive a certificate from an inspector from a local policing team, at a ceremony attended by their parents.
Nottinghamshire Police is adequate at responding to the public.
The force is not attending grade two (priority but not emergency) calls for service within their published attendance time of 60 minutes. In the year ending 31 December 2023, the force attended 47.4 percent of these incidents within 60 minutes.
In 38 of the 77 cases we examined, the force didn’t respond to the incident within the required attendance time (whether downgraded or not). This delayed response can lead to the force missing opportunities to safeguard victims or collect evidence.
We also found that the caller wasn’t updated regarding a delay in 11 of the 37 relevant cases. Failing to update victims can mean losing public confidence and investigative opportunities.
The force needs to improve how quickly it responds to incidents and make sure that the caller is updated when there are delays.
Not all victims are being given advice on preventing crime or preserving evidence. This may lead to losing evidence that would support an investigation and missing opportunities to prevent further crimes against the victim.
This area for improvement was highlighted in our last inspection of the force. Nottinghamshire Police has worked to address this through an initiative called Operation Solace, which provides additional training to call takers. However, in our victim service assessment we discovered that call handlers gave appropriate advice about preserving evidence in only 15 of the 26 relevant cases we reviewed. We also found that call handlers gave appropriate advice about crime prevention in only 22 of 30 relevant cases.
The force needs to review its training of staff to make sure they are fully aware of this requirement. It should also carry out further monitoring of calls, to check the effectiveness of the training provided to control room staff.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force responds to the public.
In the year ending 31 December 2023, Nottinghamshire Police received 186 calls to 999 per 1,000 population. This is within the normal range compared to the average for forces in England and Wales. In the year ending 31 December 2023, the force answered 86.9 percent of its 999 calls within 10 seconds. This is below the expected standard of 90 percent within 10 seconds. However, we saw that the force has a clear commitment to reaching that target. It has processes in its control room to make sure staff treat this as a priority. Staff are deployed when required to meet spikes in demand.
Figure 1: Proportion of 999 calls answered within ten seconds by forces in England and Wales in the year ending 31 December 2023
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.
In the year ending 30 September 2023, the force received 578 calls made to 101 per 1,000 population. This figure is double the average for forces in England and Wales. The force told us that it has a low abandonment rate (callers who hang up before the call is answered) of 1.8 percent. The force has trained its call handlers to take 101 calls to help reduce the abandonment rate. Follow-up calls are made to make sure contact is made with any outstanding victims.
Members of the public who call 101 to seek help from Nottinghamshire Police can be reassured that their call will be answered quickly.
In our victim service assessment, we found that the force had checked for vulnerability in only 58 out of 71 cases. It also found that the calls weren’t always effectively supervised, with suitable supervision in only 31 of the 53 cases we inspected. The force should make sure that vulnerable people are routinely identified from calls, whether callers or others in the household.
Call handlers in the control room do prioritise calls effectively. They use a structured approach to assess threat, harm, risk, investigation, vulnerability and engagement (THRIVE). This is supported by IT systems which provide a template to be completed on each call. The structured use of THRIVE was present in 72 of the 83 cases we reviewed. The call handers were polite and professional in all 80 cases we reviewed.
The force has a dedicated missing from home desk within the control room. This provides effective command of these incidents and effective safeguarding.
During our inspection, we found that Nottinghamshire Police doesn’t understand its demand. We found that large numbers of incidents had been assessed as grade three (no immediate threat) and allocated to neighbourhood policing officers, which took them away from their core role in the community. The control room was failing to filter out inappropriate demand, such as incidents that other agencies should deal with and those that didn’t require a police response to resolve.
The force needs to assess the demand coming into the control room, and make sure that call handlers are adequately trained to filter out calls that should be dealt with by other agencies.
The management of crime scenes is a critical part of investigations. Some crime scenes need cordons guarded by officers and staff, to prevent the public from entering an area or property and make sure that evidence isn’t lost or destroyed.
The management of this type of scene is normally the responsibility of a supervisor. They assess what area needs to be a guarded crime scene, and any other necessary considerations such as putting up covering to prevent evidence being destroyed by adverse weather conditions.
We were told that this role is normally carried out by sergeants, who attend a scene and direct their personnel in setting up crime scene management. However, sergeants told us that they don’t always have the time to physically attend such scenes due to other commitments being placed on them as supervisors. In these instances, they have to communicate guidance and instructions over police radios. The sergeants we spoke to accepted that this means that they can’t always guarantee that appropriate scene management is taking place. So the force can’t always assure itself that crime scene management is carried out to a consistent standard.
Nottinghamshire Police is inadequate at investigating crime.
This is documented in an accelerated cause of concern issued to the force on 11 March 2024.
The force isn’t always achieving acceptable outcomes for victims of crime. The number of victim-based crimes the force solves following an investigation is low. It needs to understand the issue and work to achieve better outcomes for victims.
In the year ending 30 September 2023, Nottinghamshire Police recorded 88,247 victim-based crimes. Of these, 11 percent were assigned an ‘offences brought to justice’ outcome. This is within the normal range compared to other forces across England and Wales.
Figure 2: Percentage of victim-based crime recorded by Nottinghamshire Police and all forces in England and Wales by selected outcome types in the year ending 30 September 2023
| Outcome types | Nottinghamshire Police outcome rate | England and Wales outcome rate |
| 1 – Charged/summonsed | 7.5% | 5.0% |
| 2 & 3 – Caution – youths & adults | 0.9% | 0.7% |
| 8 – Community resolutions | 1.8% | 1.5% |
| 9 – Prosecution not in the public interest (Crown Prosecution Service decision) | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 10 & 21 – Prosecution not in the public interest (police decision) | 1.7% | 0.7% |
| 14 – Evidential difficulties (suspect not identified but the victim declines or is unable to support) | 3.2% | 5.7% |
| 15 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports police action) | 9.2% | 12.3% |
| 16 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim does not support or withdraws support) | 20.1% | 20.9% |
| 17 – Prosecution time limit expired | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| 18 – Investigation complete – no suspect identified | 47.6% | 43.0% |
| 20 – Action undertaken by another body/ agency | 1.5% | 1.4% |
| 22 – Diversionary, educational or intervention activity | 0.7% | 0.3% |
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Note: This data comes from the latest release at the time of writing and may have been revised since. British Transport Police and City of London Police 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 3: Proportion of victim-based crimes assigned a ‘charged/summonsed’ outcome (outcome 1) by Nottinghamshire Police between the year ending 31 March 2015 and the year ending 30 September 2023
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Note: This data comes from the latest release at the time of writing 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 September 2022 and 30 September 2023, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned outcome 15 ‘Evidential difficulties; suspect identified (victim supports action)’ by Nottinghamshire Police remained stable, going from 9.4 percent to 9.2 percent. The average for proportion of crimes assigned outcome 15 across forces in England and Wales was 12.8 percent in the year ending 30 September 2023.
Figure 4: Proportion of victim-based crimes assigned either outcome 14, outcome 15, outcome 16 or outcome 18 by Nottinghamshire Police between the year ending 31 March 2015 to 30 September 2023
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Note: This data comes from the latest release at the time of writing 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.
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 can’t be sure that the initial stages of an investigation have been carried out effectively. The period immediately after a crime has been committed is known as the golden hour. It is during this period that action should be taken to preserve or gather evidence that may otherwise be concealed, lost, damaged or altered.
We found that officers don’t always comply with the force’s stated approach to this when attending crime scenes. And we found that supervisors aren’t always monitoring or enforcing these investigative principles. As a result, potential evidence could be lost. 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 are given what are known as handover files. These should record all the actions that the initial investigator carried out and highlight actions that need taking forward. The force has a template for this process on its crime management database, Niche, which should be completed by the initial investigator. However, we were told that these templates aren’t always completed and not always checked by a supervisor 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 personnel aware of and address poor handovers. But we were told 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 was not only because of the delays caused, but also the failure to address the poor investigation standards. This failure means that poor standards are allowed to continue.
We found that investigators don’t routinely receive an effective service from forensic providers. This results in delays to investigations.
Some officers told us that, at the time of our inspection, there was a two-month delay to secure the required authorisation from the force’s forensic submissions unit. And once investigators have received authorisation, they find themselves facing further significant delays for the forensic exhibits to be examined. The force told us that it had the following average waiting times:
Investigators told us that forensic services regularly extend the agreed completion dates. Similarly, service level agreements for examining electronic devices are consistently missed.
Senior leaders accept that the force has these backlogs. There are processes in place to escalate high-priority investigations and this happens when required. Digital and forensic examination backlogs are monitored at the force’s ‘improving investigations’ meeting, which is held quarterly and chaired by the force’s head of crime. But, despite the force understanding the effect these delays have for both investigators and victims, it has no plan in place to improve waiting times.
Some officers in investigation teams told us that they didn’t feel properly equipped to carry out their roles. This was apparent in the prisoner handling team, who deal with the interviews of suspects who are in police custody. Officers in these teams had only received basic training in interviewing and compiling prosecution files. They received this as part of their student officer training upon first joining the force, even though interviewing suspects and submitting files to the Crown Prosecution Service is their core role.
We found the same situation among the teams that deal with investigations into rape and serious sexual offences, known as RASSO teams. Officers in these teams told us that they hadn’t received any specialist training for this role and had to acquire the necessary skills on the job.
The lack of training and experience among officers in specialised investigation roles puts additional pressure on supervisors, who have to closely monitor their team’s work. Some told us that they are unable to supervise to the level they would like due to the numbers of unaccredited investigators who need their support. Officers told us that these pressures sometimes prevent them from carrying out high quality investigations.
Nottinghamshire Police requires improvement at protecting vulnerable people.
During our inspection we found that the domestic abuse safeguarding unit had a backlog of referrals awaiting secondary assessment.
These referrals, known as domestic abuse public protection notices (DAPPNs), are made when officers attend incidents relating to domestic abuse, stalking or honour-based violence. Officers are required to include a risk assessment about victim vulnerability, including a grading of the risk as standard, medium or high.
The assessments are then subject to a secondary review by specialist officers, to check that the level of risk has been correctly graded. This helps to make sure that the force refers vulnerable people to the support and specialist services they need. It also makes sure that high-risk cases are considered for referral to a multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC).
At the time of our inspection, the force had over 600 DAPPN assessments awaiting triage, many of which had been waiting for several weeks. Personnel told us that this was caused by insufficient staffing levels. None of those awaiting initial assessment were graded as high risk.
They also informed us the backlog was being prioritised based on how long they had been waiting, with the oldest cases being reviewed first. This meant that cases weren’t being assessed on risk levels or aggravating factors, such as:
This means that victims who should have been graded as high risk could experience delays in being referred to the specialist support or services they need. Our inspectors carried out an audit of the backlog. They found some cases that were clearly high-risk in nature and should have been prioritised for referral.
The force should make sure that:
Preventative orders (also known as ancillary orders) are used to reduce the risk of re-offending and increase safeguarding for victims. These include Domestic Violence Protection Notices (DVPNs), Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs) and Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs).
Officers dealing with incidents involving these types of abuse should consider applying for such orders as part of their support for victims. However, in our victim service assessment we found that this happened in only 11 of 16 cases where it would have been appropriate.
We found that frontline officers had limited awareness of the use of preventative orders such as DVPOs and DVPNs and couldn’t explain the application process to us.
In the year ending 30 September 2023, Nottinghamshire Police recorded 31,146 domestic abuse-related incidents, which equated to 26.8 such incidents per 1,000 population. This was higher than the rate across all forces in England and Wales of 19.4 domestic abuse-related incidents per 1,000 population. Despite this, during the same period, the force made 164 DVPO applications, equating to DVPO applications made in 1 percent of recorded domestic abuse-related crimes. A similar number of DVPNs were authorised during this time (165).
Figure 5: Number of DVPOs applied for, granted, and breached, recorded by Nottinghamshire Police, between the years ending 30 September 2021 and 30 September 2023 (sum over a rolling 12-month period)
Source: Data collection and analysis from HMICFRS
Figure 6: Number of DVPN applications authorised and DVPNs breached, recorded by Nottinghamshire Police, between the years ending 30 September 2021 and 30 September 2023 (sum over a rolling 12-month period)
Source: Data collection and analysis from HMICFRS
The number of SPO applications made by Nottinghamshire Police’s officers had been declining since the beginning of 2022. Senior leaders told us they were aware of this issue and were trying to understand why fewer orders were being applied for.
Staff from agencies that support victims of domestic abuse told us that the force isn’t using preventative orders often enough, and that it is missing opportunities to safeguard victims.
The force has no processes in place to check that DVPOs are being complied with by the perpetrator, and to carry out welfare checks on victims. We found that frontline officers and investigators who deal with victims and perpetrators weren’t aware of the force’s expectations when issuing DVPNs or applying for DVPOs. At the time of our inspection, the force had designated posts in its prevention hub to examine all aspects of preventative orders. But we found that other personnel weren’t aware of the remit of the prevention hub in co-ordinating activity around these orders.
The prevention hub sits within the local policing portfolio of the force, not the public protection portfolio. Other officers and staff, and safeguarding partners, expressed concern about how effectively the prevention hub will maintain links with public protection personnel. The public protection team are responsible for investigating domestic abuse and stalking.
Due to this lack of clarity, we found that officers responsible for DVPNs and DVPOs aren’t proactively monitoring for compliance. This means the onus remains on the victim to report breaches. The force should:
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force protects vulnerable people.
Nottinghamshire Police has a vulnerability strategy that follows the seven themes of the College of Policing’s National Vulnerability Action Plan. Progress is reviewed by the force’s strategic vulnerability board. This meets four times a year and is chaired by the assistant chief constable with responsibility for crime. We found that this board provides adequate direction around fulfilling this plan.
The force has a four-year (2021–25) strategy for violence against women and girls, which closely follows the UK Government’s national violence against women and girls strategy. It takes a multi-agency approach that includes police, local authorities, health services and education services. It makes clear that the force will focus on:
Nottinghamshire Police has produced an action plan to carry out the strategy. This covers the 13 different strands identified in the Violence Against Women and Girls delivery framework published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in 2021.
Each strand has its own plan, which uses the same 4P methodology used in combatting serious and organised crime and terrorism. The 4P methodology seeks to address such threats by taking action targeted at offenders, victims, and communities, in four areas:
The strategic lead for violence against women and girls within the force is the assistant chief constable with responsibility for crime and protective services. Each plan contains clear timescales, and progress is assessed using a RAG (red‑amber-green) rating, also known as a traffic light rating. Implementation is overseen by a tactical and strategic board.
The plans have clear measurable outcomes, and involve collaboration with statutory bodies and key stakeholders such as the police and crime commissioner (PCC), women’s groups, and organisations representing victims.
The force can demonstrate some tangible positive outcomes from its plan, such as the creation of designated safer public spaces for women and girls, and obtaining additional funding for projects that support victims.
During our inspection we found long delays in vulnerable victims receiving the support they need from the independent sexual violence advisor (ISVA) service. ISVAs provide continuous support, advice and help for victims and survivors of sexual violence. Access to support from ISVAs are an important factor in making sure that the needs of victims and survivors are met throughout the criminal justice process.
We found that there aren’t enough ISVAs to support victims of serious sexual offences. At the time of our inspection, we were told that there were eight ISVAs working within the county and approximately 600 victims waiting to be allocated one. This shortage means that victims can wait up to eight months to be allocated an ISVA.
This can have a very negative effect on keeping victims engaged throughout the investigative and judicial process. We found that senior leaders within the force had no knowledge of this issue, and had therefore not raised it with the office of the PCC which is the commissioning body for this service. No research has been carried out by the force to establish whether there are any links between waiting times for ISVA support and victims withdrawing their support for a prosecution.
MARACs are multi-agency risk assessment conferences where information about high-risk domestic abuse cases is shared between police and probation, health, child protection and housing services.
The force has well-established MARAC processes. It has invested in training for the police chairs and officers that attend these meetings, to make sure they have the necessary knowledge to positively contribute. Staff from other agencies who attend these meetings told us that police attendees are knowledgeable and share relevant information so that risk to victims can be understood and managed.
We found that the force has made a good investment into the two multi-agency safeguarding hubs (MASH). These cover the city of Nottingham and the county of Nottinghamshire, respectively. Their purpose is to safeguard vulnerable children and adults by sharing information about potential abuse and using the powers and resources of its agencies to put in place interventions. Each MASH is composed of police, social services and local education bodies. We were told by the force that all MASH partners were committed to maintaining funding for this critical multi-agency response to vulnerability.
The force’s MASH teams are made up of eighteen personnel working across two co‑located sites. They deal with child protection, referrals of vulnerable adults and inter-agency strategy meetings. We found the information-sharing practices and referral processes to be timely and appropriate.
Nottinghamshire Police is adequate 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 make an assessment using the active risk management system (ARMS). This sets out the potential risk that an offender poses and is recorded on ViSOR. It should be followed by a risk management plan (RMP) which details how the risk will be actively managed by the police and partner agencies such as the National Probation Service.
At the time of our inspection, we found that officers and staff within the force’s management of sexual or violent offenders (MOSOVO) unit weren’t able to produce accurate figures for the number of visits, ARMS or RMPs that hadn’t been completed. This was due to supervisors and personnel not being fully competent in the MOSOVO authorised professional practice and in how to find information on the ViSOR system.
The force needs to make sure that all supervisors are sufficiently trained in MOSOVO authorised professional practice and the use of ViSOR, so that it can assess any backlogs in visits, ARMS and RMPs, and take the action required to mitigate risk to the public.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force manages offenders and suspects.
The force prioritises and monitors suspects. It makes good use of its new operating system, introduced in November 2023. This uses the national grading system, where the level of risk posed by outstanding suspects who are wanted on court warrants is graded A, B or C. The escalation policy for suspects who remain at large is managed by neighbourhood policing inspectors.
This process was introduced after the force carried out a full review of its warrant process. We reviewed this process, and the new warrant policy that underpins it.
Figure 7: Number of wanted suspects whose details have been on the Police National Computer for 0 to 6 months in Nottinghamshire between 11 August 2016 and 1 March 2022
Source: Data about suspects on Police National Computer (unpublished) from the National Crime Agency
The force’s daily management meeting identifies and prioritises outstanding suspects. These are allocated to neighbourhood and response teams to proactively locate and arrest the outstanding suspects. The force also operates a briefing and tasking system, which circulates and highlights outstanding suspects across the workforce. First line managers regularly check the progress of investigations.
The force’s performance dashboard (Power BI) monitors the progression of these suspects, and the force’s operations performance review meeting provides further scrutiny of this data.
Active risk management (ARMS) is a structured process to assess changing risk factors associated with sexual offending, and protective factors associated with reduced offending. It is intended to provide police and the probation service with the information they need to plan how to manage offenders in the community. In our last inspection we found that the force didn’t understand well enough the expected standards for managing registered sex offenders) and didn’t always refer to national guidance.
In response, the force has invested in resourcing its MOSOVO teams and reviewing its performance management processes. We are pleased that the force has made good progress in this area. This can be seen in a number of positive changes.
The force told us that it has reduced its outstanding ARMS assessments from 139 in October 2023 to 24 in January 2024. The force can also now identify and prioritise offender home visits that are more than 45 days overdue.
The force created Operation Buckthorn to reduce its backlog by reviewing all registered sex offenders on reactive management (a lower status of management that is less intrusive). This was to make sure that this status was appropriate to the level of risk from the offender.
The force makes effective use of the Police National Database to track potential registered sex offender activity outside the force area.
The force has provided additional training to its offender managers. This training is in gathering intelligence on registered sex offenders to identify potential offending at an early stage.
Nottinghamshire Police records all breaches of orders by registered sex offenders as a crime. The force has a flow chart that clearly shows its policy in response to any breaches of registered sex offender conditions and any other ancillary orders. Responses to a breach start with a community resolution, which is a type of out‑of‑court settlement. They then escalate to conditional cautions or charges to appear before a court.
The force directs MOSOVO personnel to manually examine the electronic devices of registered sex offenders if consent is given by the individual in question. This allows for any activity that may breach the registered sex offender’s conditions to be quickly identified and dealt with.
The force carries out unannounced visits to registered sex offenders and makes sure that more than one offender manager goes on each visit to maximise intelligence-gathering.
The unit within the force that investigates the distribution and viewing of indecent images of children is known as the internet child exploitation team (ICET).
The ICET’s investigation activity is prioritised using the Kent internet risk assessment tool. This is used to assess the level of risk posed by a suspect who possesses and views indecent images of children on the internet. This includes the likelihood of them becoming a contact offender who commits sexual offences against children.
The ICET has a dedicated digital media examiner and a digital media investigator. The force told us that its capacity allowed it to triage 231 devices between 1 April 2023 and 1 October 2023.
The team uses software such as the Child Protection System and the ICAC Child On‑line Protection System (ICACCOPS) to identify the sharing of indecent images over the internet. When images are identified, software known as the child abuse image database (CAID) is used 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. All potential identifications are referred to the National Crime Agency. When a child can be readily identified, the force issues a document that records its concerns about the child, called a public protection notice. This is shared with partner agencies, such as social services, to instigate a multi-agency safeguarding approach for that child and any others that may be at risk, such as siblings.
Nottinghamshire Police is adequate at building, supporting and protecting the workforce.
Policing relies on the consent of the public to operate effectively. To achieve this, it is essential that the police are representative of the communities they serve. While improvements have been made across England and Wales, some specific roles and ranks still lack the diversity needed to properly represent communities. It is important that forces identify the barriers that prevent people from under‑represented groups making progress and take steps to address them.
During our inspection, we found that Nottinghamshire Police had identified some barriers to representation of minority groups in specialised roles, and was working to rectify them. The force has a diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) strategy, which is aimed at reducing disparities and creating a culture of inclusion in the workplace.
There is a good range of personnel networks across the force for staff and officers from under-represented groups. But these networks told us they hadn’t been consulted about the DEI strategy. The networks felt that they could do more to help the force support people from under-represented groups if there was better communication with senior leaders.
The force needs to formally develop its approach to support people from under‑represented groups if it is to retain and develop talented officers and staff.
Nottinghamshire Police has a tactical well-being board which oversees the provision of well-being initiatives and monitors the well-being of the workforce. But it doesn’t have a comprehensive plan to make sure effective progress is made on well-being. The force should produce clear, focused and evidenced-based plans to support its strategies and make sure progress is monitored.
One of the areas overseen by the tactical well-being board is sickness absence. We observed meetings on this issue, but found that activity to address officer and staff sickness was often quite generic, for example mental health courses and referral to counselling from an employee assistance programme. But the board doesn’t address underlying factors that might increase workforce sickness. We found no consideration of issues such as workloads, shift patterns or resourcing, to understand what lay behind sickness levels.
A lack of plans to support the force’s strategies was also apparent in other areas such as occupational health, where a plan was still being developed. It was also the case for diversity, equality and inclusion where the plan was being refreshed.
Understanding workplace pressures caused by workloads is key to maintaining a healthy workforce who can consistently perform what is asked of them. The force should:
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force builds, supports and protects the workforce.
The force has identified certain roles that require additional support which carry a higher risk to well-being, for example officers working in ICET.
The force has made good use of the trauma risk management (TRiM) process. Officers we interviewed were positive about the support they received after attending traumatic events. The force has trained inspectors, who carry out follow-up calls to officers and provide a good range of preventative and support measures. The force uses TRiM responders in the aftermath of any incident identified as traumatic. Officers told us about numerous examples of this being used after major incidents during the last year.
The force supports members of the workforce who have been assaulted. The workforce is aware of the force’s approach under an initiative known as Operation Hampshire, which deals with assaults on duty, and officers at all levels consider this to be supportive.
The force has an employee assistance programme which offers 24-hour access to telephone counselling for any member of personnel. It provides mental health support, as well as information services on anxiety, bereavement, stress and depression.
The force has a new occupational health unit (OHU) which provides support to improve the well-being of officers and staff. They are aware of this new provision and generally see it as an improvement on what was previously in place across the region. Waiting times to see an OHU practitioner have reduced.
The force provides support to student officers to help and retain them in the early stages of their career. This includes support from professional development officers and well-being passports. New recruits we spoke to felt well supported by the force. The force has invested in increasing the number of tutor constables, who provide mentoring, instruction and guidance to student officers when they are first deployed operationally.
We found that the force has a good understanding of neurodiversity. Conditions like dyslexia are identified in student officers. In these circumstances the force makes reasonable adjustments, such as providing dictation software which can be used when submitting written reports.
Nottinghamshire Police have developed stay interviews for student officers who are considering leaving the service. For those who do leave, the force provides leavers interviews in line with the national leaver’s framework. These were introduced in December 2022 to improve data collection on the reasons officers leave police forces. Within Nottinghamshire Police, the leavers interview is carried out by a first line manager and is aimed at identifying themes across the workforce.
The force has also developed ‘stay questionnaires’ for all officers. Themes identified from these are assessed and discussed at a recruitment and retention governance meeting.
At the time of our inspection, we found the force had only very recently introduced training and support for officers promoted to the rank of sergeant. The progression from the role of constable to sergeant is one of the most challenging, as constables have no experience of leading others within the organisation.
Sergeants told us that they felt they had been placed in the role with insufficient training and support to carry out all the varied responsibilities of a first line manager. Not all sergeants understood the force policies and processes they needed to effectively support officers and staff. This sometimes left them feeling unconfident and exposed when dealing with duties that were new to them.
Forces sometimes promote constables to sergeant on a temporary basis to cover supervisory shortages or provide them with development opportunities. These temporary sergeants have no training or other preparation to equip them for the role. Some sergeants told us that this gap in support made their period as a temporary supervisor very difficult to deal with.
The force accepts this gap in support. It had just introduced a sergeants foundation course at the time of our inspection in January 2024. We were told that the syllabus covers all aspects of the sergeant’s role and will equip officers with the necessary knowledge and confidence to carry out the role. We weren’t told the projected timescales for providing this course to all sergeants and prospective sergeants. We hope to see improvements once all sergeants have received this training.
Professional development reviews, which Nottinghamshire Police calls career conversations, 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.
The force has an established process for annual career conversations and has achieved a high completion rate. In the year ending 31 March 2023, the completion rate was 93 percent.
However, not all of the officers and staff we spoke to viewed this process as meaningful. Some commented that compliance with the process is based on pay enhancements, and viewed it as merely an administrative task required to move up performance-enhanced pay scales. Some described career conversations as only valuable for those seeking promotion, and not helpful for developing the skills required to move laterally into a more specialised role. Some members of the workforce told us that they had repeatedly mentioned training needs in these meetings which hadn’t yet been addressed.
The force may therefore wish to seek feedback from the workforce about the career conversation process to make sure it is relevant and valued by all officers and staff.
Nottinghamshire Police’s leadership and management is inadequate.
This is documented in an accelerated cause of concern issued to the force on 11 March 2024.
Chief officers in Nottinghamshire Police are committed to being visible to the workforce. We were told that chief officers communicate with staff and officers in several ways, including chief officer roadshows and online blogs. However, in our inspection we found that many staff and officers didn’t regularly see their senior leaders. Some couldn’t tell us their names, especially those working in the more remote parts of the force. Some of the workforce told us that they felt disconnected from their senior leaders and lacked confidence in their support.
The force’s current training programme for its leaders also needs to improve. The force told us they are developing plans to create a leadership academy, which will create a range of new training opportunities for leaders at all levels. It is still working on this, but it has clear plans in place and has already introduced new leadership training for its operational first line managers.
The force told us that it is planning to develop a wider range of training programmes tailored to an individual’s position within the force and their level of leadership.
Police leadership is a crucial factor that helps a force to perform and provide effective services through a well-led and motivated workforce. The force should make sure that its training plans are put in place at the earliest opportunity. This will make sure its managers have the necessary skills, abilities and capability to lead effectively at all levels.
The force isn’t currently making the most of the technology that is available and could help it increase productivity. This is restricting its progress. We were encouraged to see the use of digital solutions, such as Power BI. This can replace manual and time-consuming ways of collecting and presenting data with fully automated processes. However, the force lacks the capacity to fully develop this technology and introduce other digital solutions that would help it be more productive.
The force needs to create capacity for continual improvement, so it can make its processes more efficient and make greater use of technology. For example, it could replace time-consuming manual processes with robotic process automation, which can complete repetitive tasks more efficiently. The time saved by this would allow the workforce to be more productive and focus on more important tasks. This would help to meet the current and future demand challenges that the force faces.
The force has invested in developing a software system called NAPPS (Nottinghamshire Applications). This provides operational officers and staff with access to the force systems, processes, and data they need to carry out their roles efficiently. NAPPS was designed and developed by the force’s own ICT department at a significantly lower cost than buying existing software.
The force told us that developing NAPPS will save more than £1.1m over the first five years, compared to the costs of some alternative software. The force can expect further savings beyond this period, as there are no ongoing licence or development costs from any future changes the force may want to make to it.
The force has an innovative ICT department which has designed an application that provides the workforce with exactly what they need to carry out their roles more efficiently. This application can be easily adapted as their future needs change.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to leadership and management.
The force’s strategic planning process is driven by ‘Our pledge’, which is a ‘plan on a page’ that addresses the priorities set out in the PCC’s police and crime plan, ‘Make Notts Safe Plan 2021–25’. The force has an established meeting structure to oversee performance. However, its performance management processes need to be improved to make sure they use analysis and data effectively and efficiently.
The force has employed consultants called Process Evolution to help it understand its current and future demand based on existing data. This has provided the force with an understanding of its demands. But it couldn’t demonstrate that it has used that information effectively to support workforce planning decisions in a timely way. The force needs to develop clear plans to make sure it has the capability and capacity in the right places to meet both current demand and the changing nature of future demands. It is unclear whether the force can carry out this type of work without having to rely on external consultancy support.
The force needs to improve its analysis and create a comprehensive workforce plan based on accurate and reliable data. This will make sure it has the capacity and capability in the right places to meet future demand, specifically in areas where the data identifies demand pressures. The time frames for any changes the force plans to make should be clearly defined and communicated to the workforce.
Nottinghamshire Police is part of the East Midlands collaboration and works closely with the fire and rescue services, who it shares a headquarters with. It is part of several other regional collaborations: East Midlands Specialist Learning and Development Hub, East Midlands Legal Services and East Midlands Special Operations Unit.
The force previously participated in other collaborations, including for its HR, finance, procurement and some criminal justice functions. However, it assessed that these weren’t offering value for money and brought them back in-house. The only remaining collaboration of this nature is a regional forensic arrangement.
Beyond these examples, Nottinghamshire Police has no plans to proactively seek out or develop any other collaborations. Police forces have a duty to collaborate where it is in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness, and to keep collaboration opportunities under review. The force should do more to seek out further opportunities to improve services through collaboration, especially those which may help it achieve the savings it needs to provide a balanced budget.
The force displays an effective approach to financial management. The forecasts in its medium-term financial plan are based on realistic assumptions about future funding and expenditure.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, Nottinghamshire Police received £248m in funding. In line with other forces in England and Wales, it receives a combination of core grant from central government and local revenue raised through council tax precept which contributed a total of £84m to the force budget. This is about 33 percent of the force’s total funding. This proportion is within the normal range for forces in England and Wales.
The force received help from a maximum increase in its precept for 2023/24. The increase was £14.94 per band D property and was allocated to investing in improving its services and keeping the number of police community support officers (PCSOs) at 150. Despite this increase, the force estimates it will still have a budget deficit of £4.7m. The force has shown areas where efficiency savings will be made during 2023/24. It has also developed financial awareness training for senior leaders to provide better budget management skills and help it provide a balanced budget. The force has a good track record of making savings and is confident that its plans are achievable.
The force’s capital expenditure for 2022/23 amounted to £6.4m, which it used to bring about improvements in performance and efficiency. It invested £3.6m in its assets, including buildings, and £2.4m in its vehicle fleet. While it invested just £46,000 in IT through capital expenditure, the force finances its short-life IT assets (such as laptops) from revenue expenditure each year. This means that investment in IT is factored into its spending plans. Expenditure on IT is set to increase in future years to help the force be more efficient through the use of technology.
The force uses its reserves prudently, but budgetary pressures have created the need to draw on them frequently. The force holds general reserves in the region of 3.3 percent of its net revenue budget, which is considered an adequate amount.
In the year ending 31 March 2023, 4.4 percent of Nottinghamshire Police’s officers were in support roles. This was lower than expected compared to the average for forces in England and Wales.
Figure 8: Proportion of officers in support roles in forces in England and Wales in the 2022/23 financial year
Source: Police workforce England and Wales statistics from the Home Office
Note: The workforce data is based on the full-time equivalent workforce figures for police officers. It includes officers on career breaks and other types of long-term absence but excludes those seconded to other forces.
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:
Nottinghamshire PEEL assessment 2023–2025
You can find more about Nottinghamshire Police on our dedicated force page.
Nottinghamshire Police covers the county of Nottinghamshire, an area of 834 square miles. It currently has 2,387 officers and 1,355 staff, 157.60 PCSOs, 39.02 police staff investigators, around 85 special constables, 65 police support volunteers, 16 student placement volunteers and 131 police cadets.
Around 1.1 million people live in Nottinghamshire, primarily in the urban areas of Nottingham, Mansfield, Worksop, and Newark-on-Trent.
Concerns over Nottinghamshire 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.
