In 2023–2025, we carried out a PEEL inspection of Warwickshire 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 Warwickshire Police
More information about the PEEL assessments
Our inspection assessed how good Warwickshire Police is in ten areas of policing. We make graded judgments in nine of these ten as follows:
We also inspected how effective a service Warwickshire 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 Warwickshire Police in keeping people safe, reducing crime and providing victims with an effective service. We found sustained improvements in both 999 and 101 call handling. The force now answers most calls quickly. I commend the force for making these improvements.
However, I have serious concerns about how quickly the force responds to calls for service from the public after it has answered these calls. I am also concerned about the effectiveness of the governance structures that oversee how well the force protects vulnerable people.
Warwickshire Police is in a sound financial position. The force has made significant investments in recent years to make sure it has a stable infrastructure for the future. In the year ending March 2024, the council tax precept gave the force 39.7 percent of its funding. This provides some protection against fluctuations in central government funding. It should help the force to achieve the improvements needed that we set out in this report.
The force has improved the use of evidence-based policing and reduced reports of crime and antisocial behaviour in targeted hotspot areas.
It has also improved how it risk assesses calls. Our victim service assessment found that the force appropriately assessed and graded most crimes.
We also found that the force had improved how it investigates crime. As a result, it has increased the number of crimes closed where it has brought an offender to justice. This is encouraging, but the force needs to do more to make sure that all victims receive an appropriate level of service.
In our 2022 PEEL inspection report, we identified that the force wasn’t attending enough calls for service within its targets. We found a continued decline in performance in this area throughout 2024. The force has recently made changes to address this, but these haven’t led to significant improvements yet.
We found that inefficient processes and under-resourced departments were contributing to significant delays in the progression of investigations. I am concerned that the force has allowed this to continue, despite the inclusion of these delays on its risk register since 2024.
The force needs to make sure that its governance and performance structures are capable of quickly identifying and addressing any potential harm to vulnerable people. It is evident that the force is committed to achieving this. However, given the scale of the changes required, this is still work in progress.
In view of these findings, I will remain in regular contact with the chief constable and his team.
My report sets out the more detailed findings of this inspection.
HM Inspector of Constabulary
Using the College of Policing leadership standards as a framework, in this section we set out the most important findings relating to the force’s leadership at all levels.
The force appointed a new chief constable in December 2024, who had been the force’s deputy chief constable.
The force has improved the visibility and accessibility of chief officers. Officers and staff show confidence in the senior leadership team’s approach. The team encourages feedback from officers and staff. But the force could do more to reassure staff that they are valued.
The force doesn’t always use data effectively to identify and make improvements in key areas. It should make sure that governance processes and structures identify and manage any risks to the service it provides.
The force still doesn’t attend incidents quickly enough. This area should remain a priority for the force’s senior leaders.
The force has developed its training and development for ‘midline’ and frontline leaders. It is working on improving how it understands its workforce’s skills and uses this information to determine how resources should be deployed. But it should make sure it effectively addresses gaps in skills, such as the shortage of professionalising investigations programme level 2-trained investigators.
The force needs to develop a more welcoming and supportive environment for new staff and officers and make sure there is enough support for students and tutors. Increasing numbers of officers have resigned in recent years, and the force should take prompt action to retain staff in future.
More detail on Warwickshire Police’s leadership is included in the main body of this report.
The reducing crime assessment sets out what Warwickshire 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.
Police staff who work in the force control room identify vulnerable people through effective questioning and good use of the THRIVE model. They pass this information on to the right people for safeguarding.
The overwhelming majority of recorded grounds for stop and search are reasonable. Increasing the proactive use of stop and search could help to reduce crime in the future.
Problem-solving is a priority for the force. This helps to reduce crime. The force works in partnership with a wide range of other organisations on problem-solving, crime prevention and early intervention activity.
The force consistently sets clear aims, objectives and expected standards for investigations. It still needs to improve outcomes for victims by pursuing all appropriate lines of enquiry. The force needs to make sure it attends reports of crime quickly and carries out effective golden hour enquiries to gather evidence. This will help it reduce crime in the future.
The force uses bail well to protect vulnerable victims and reduce further crime. It carries out regular reviews and visits to monitor high-risk offenders. However, it must improve the way it safeguards victims through multi-agency risk assessment conferences. This will help it reduce crime in the future.
More detail on what Warwickshire Police is doing to reduce crime is included in the main body of this report.
This section describes our assessment of the service Warwickshire Police provides to victims. This is from the point of reporting a crime and throughout the investigation. As part of this assessment, we reviewed 100 case files.
When the police close a case of a reported crime, they assign it an outcome type. This describes the reason for closing it.
We selected 100 cases to review, including at least 20 that the force had closed with the following outcome type:
When a suspect hasn’t been identified and the victim declines or isn’t able to support further police action to identify the offender.
Although our victim service assessment is ungraded, it influences graded judgments in the other areas we have inspected.
The force needs to further improve the time it takes to answer emergency calls. It also needs to reduce the number of non-emergency calls where the caller hangs up before a handler answers. Call handlers usually use a structured process that assesses threat, harm, risk and vulnerability. Call handlers carry out checks to identify repeat or vulnerable victims but don’t always record the results.
Call handlers are polite and give victims advice on crime prevention but don’t always give scene preservation advice.
The force doesn’t always respond to calls for service within set timescales. It doesn’t always inform victims of delays, which means that victims’ expectations aren’t always met. This may cause victims to lose confidence and stop working with the force.
The force has effective crime-recording processes. It makes sure that most crimes are recorded correctly and promptly.
We set out more details about the force’s crime recording in the ‘Recording data about crime’ section.
The force doesn’t always investigate crimes in a timely way nor does it always complete relevant and proportionate lines of enquiry. However, the force supervises investigations well and keeps victims regularly updated. 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. In most cases, the force took victim personal statements. This gives victims the opportunity to describe how that crime has affected their lives.
When a victim withdraws support for an investigation, the force considers progressing the case without the victim’s support. This can be an important way of safeguarding the victim and preventing further offences from being committed. The force considers using orders designed to protect victims, such as Domestic Violence Protection Notices or Domestic Violence Protection Orders.
The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (‘the Victims’ Code’) requires forces to carry out a needs assessment at an early stage to determine whether a victim needs additional support. The force carries out these assessments and records all requests for additional support.
The force closes crimes with the appropriate outcome type. It records clear rationale for using a certain outcome, and this is effectively supervised. It asks for the victim’s views when deciding which outcome type to assign to a closed investigation. When appropriate, the force can provide an auditable record of the victim’s wishes. The force informs the victim of what outcome code has been assigned to the investigation.
Warwickshire Police is good at recording crime.
The Home Office Counting Rules, which provide the standard for crime recording in England and Wales, have changed since the last time we inspected the force for crime data integrity.
This change mainly relates to the way forces record violent crime. This means we can no longer compare the findings from this audit to those from previous audits.
We estimate that Warwickshire Police is recording 93.2 percent (+/- 2.5 percentage points) of all reported crime (excluding fraud).
We estimate that the force is recording 91.9 percent (+/- 4.3 percentage points) of violent offences.
We estimate that the force is recording 95.4 percent (+/- 3.1 percentage points) of sexual offences.
The force’s data for victims of crime shows that while age and gender are well recorded, ethnicity is less well recorded. Other protected characteristics aren’t well recorded. The force should be collecting this information to understand the extent to which each protected group is affected by crime, how this differs from those without protected characteristics and whether a different response is needed for these victims.
The force is failing to record all crimes when antisocial behaviour is reported by victims. We examined 50 incidents. Of these, 32 crimes should have been recorded, but only 21 were recorded. Victims of antisocial behaviour are often subjected to abuse and torment for substantial periods of time, and crime is often committed by their neighbours. Failing to record crimes and provide an effective service to tackle antisocial behaviour can mean victims live in fear in their own homes.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to crime data integrity.
The force records reported incidents of rape (known as N100s) effectively. We found 20 occasions where N100s should have been recorded and all 20 were recorded correctly.
However, more care is needed when recording crimes of rape. We found that 35 crimes of rape should have been recorded, but the force had recorded only 33 crimes.
Rape is one of the most serious crimes against a victim. It is important that the force records crimes accurately to make sure it gives victims the service and support they expect and deserve.
Warwickshire Police is adequate at using police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
Disproportionality refers to whether certain groups of people are affected by police action in a way that is substantially different from people not of that group. Many forces provide officers with cultural awareness training to improve policing for ethnic minority groups and improve trust and confidence within communities.
At the time of our inspection, Warwickshire Police hadn’t provided this training to all officers. It does provide training in adaptive communication techniques and cultural awareness for new officers joining through the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship.
For the year ending 31 March 2024, the force carried out 1,252 stop and searches. During that period, the force was 5.7 times more likely to stop Black or Black British people compared with White people. The national average is 3.6.
For the year ending 31 March 2024, 19.3 percent of Warwickshire Police’s use of force incidents involved people from ethnic minority backgrounds. People from ethnic minority backgrounds represent 14.3 percent of the force’s arrests and 10.9 percent of the local population.
A higher use of force compared with arrests and population data could indicate that force is being used more frequently on people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The force has taken action to improve its understanding of disproportionality. For the year ending 31 March 2024, we found that ethnicity wasn’t recorded in 22 percent of stop and searches. The force has introduced an app that mandates officers to record self-defined ethnicity on stop and search forms on mobile devices. This has reduced the number of forms where officers didn’t record ethnicity to 8 percent in January 2025.
The force examines data on disproportionality and has developed a new methodology to help it understand disproportionality better. The force told us this would include a more detailed analysis of recorded incidents to understand when officers have used powers as part of planned events or operations.
The force says it will check that individual officers aren’t stopping more people from ethnic minority backgrounds than others. It also plans to better analyse census population data to understand differences in proportionality in different areas. At the time of our inspection, this work was still in the early stages. We will continue to monitor the force’s progress in this area.
In our 2022 PEEL inspection report, we said the force should improve its external scrutiny of stop and search and use of force to make sure the powers are being used fairly and appropriately. This remains an area for improvement.
Community scrutiny of police powers can provide opportunities for the police to understand communities’ concerns and take steps, where appropriate, to improve policies, procedures and practices.
The College of Policing’s authorised professional practice for community scrutiny states that scrutiny panels should reflect the diversity of their local areas, including age, ethnicity, gender and social class.
Panel members do represent communities. However, we found that they don’t receive enough training to allow them to function independently. The force allows members to give feedback both during the panel meeting and anonymously after the meeting. But it should make sure that all panel members feel able to contribute during the meeting.
The force holds quarterly scrutiny panels to examine both stop and search and use of force. In 2024, the panels reviewed ten use of force incidents and nine stop search incidents in total for the year. This is too few. It undermines the panels’ ability to provide effective challenge that could lead to improved practice. Most officers we spoke to were unaware that the scrutiny panels existed. The panels hadn’t given them any feedback on the quality of their interactions with the public.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to police powers and treating people fairly and respectfully.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Warwickshire Police reported the highest national figure for injuries to subjects during the use of force. This equated to 8.6 percent of incidents resulting in an injury. The average of all forces in England and Wales is 4.4 percent.
The force provided some recent examples where pre-existing injuries had been recorded on use of force forms. And we saw cases where multiple officers submitted forms for the same incident. This could affect the accuracy of the force’s data. The force should carry out further work to make sure it doesn’t over-record injuries. This will allow the force to accurately assess the extent of injuries caused when it uses use of force powers.
In the same period, the force recorded the second highest rate of injuries to officers during use of force at 6.9 percent. The average of all forces in England and Wales is 3.8 percent.
The force provided recent examples where it had recorded injuries to officers that weren’t caused by an assault. These included incidents where officers had tripped or were injured unintentionally during an arrest. The force needs to assure itself that officers are appropriately trained and that it records injuries on use of force forms accurately.
Some student officers told us that they lacked confidence in using force and would rather be assaulted themselves than accused of using excessive force. Some officers are concerned about the level of support that forces provide for officers in these situations where there is intense public scrutiny.
The force should make sure that its data for injuries caused to both subjects and officers is reliable. It should make sure that it is providing training that gives officers the correct skills and confidence to use their powers effectively when required.
Warwickshire Police uses stop and search powers less often compared to other forces. In the year ending 31 March 2024, it increased its use of stop and search powers by 7.1 percent compared to the previous 12 months. In that period, the force completed 1,252 stop and searches. This represents 2 per 1,000 population and is lower than expected for forces in England and Wales. The force told us it had provided new stop and search training developed by the College of Policing to 455 of 637 relevant personnel.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force had a linked find rate (how often the item being searched for is found) of 45.7 percent. This is higher than expected. The average for forces in England and Wales is 25.1 percent. This suggests that, while the use of stop and search powers is lower than average, officers in Warwickshire use them effectively.
We reviewed a sample of 142 stop and search records from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2024. Based on this sample, we estimate that 93.7 percent (+/- 3.8 percentage points) of all stop and searches carried out by the force during this period had reasonable grounds recorded. This is broadly unchanged compared to the findings from our previous review of records from 1 January to 31 December 2021. During that period, we found 88.2 percent (+/- 4.6 percentage points) of stop and searches carried out by Warwickshire Police had reasonable grounds recorded.
It is important that officers fully understand the need to record a detailed written explanation of why they considered a search necessary. Stop and search powers are a valuable tool for preventing and detecting crime.
Of the records we reviewed for stop and searches on people who self-identify as from an ethnic minority background, 32 of 34 had reasonable grounds recorded.
Warwickshire Police scrutinises its use of force and stop and search powers. Force policy states that supervisors should review all encounters where these powers are used and inspectors should dip sample some of them. We found that supervisors routinely reviewed stop and search encounters by their teams. Officers told us that they received helpful feedback from their supervisors. The force collates the results of the dip sampling in a report and shares it throughout the force.
The force effectively oversees both stop and search and use of force at its police powers board. We observed a meeting of this board. The force also makes good use of a wide range of data to understand how it uses these powers and their effect on the public. For example, the force considers its disproportionality data. And it is working with faith leaders and young people to develop a short video to highlight their views on interactions with police. The video will be used to educate officers.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force recorded 3,288 use of force incidents. This was an increase of 59 percent on the previous 12 months, when it recorded 2,066 incidents. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it has increased its use of force but may suggest better recording.
We can estimate how many use of force incidents Warwickshire Police should expect by analysing the number of arrests. Each arrest would usually count as a use of force. Therefore, we would expect the number of times use of force is recorded to be at least as high as the number of arrests, if not higher. From this, we estimate that the force has failed to record at least 2,049 use of force incidents.
The force has introduced an app for recording use of force on mobile devices and has improved recording practice at custody suites. It now requires that officers submit forms before they leave the suite. The force has provided us with more recent data that suggests the number of forms submitted is comparable with the number of arrests.
In our last inspection report, we said the force needed to increase its use of body-worn video (BWV) to improve interactions between officers and the public. BWV is useful for gathering evidence but also in maintaining public trust and confidence in policing.
Force policy states that BWV should be used during domestic incidents, stop and search, use of force and use of Taser. It should also be used at the request of a supervisor or at any incident that needs to be evidenced. We found that officers throughout the force understood the policy well. They are aware of when and why they should use their BWV. They also understand how to store footage by marking it as evidential. The force holds this footage for longer than the minimum periods recommended by the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The force can live stream officers’ BWV footage to the control room so that incident managers can provide them with immediate support and direction. The force told us that this technology was used 82 times during January 2025.
Since our last inspection, the force has made BWV devices personal issue. Force data shows that Warwickshire Police has increased the use of BWV for stop and search and use of force incidents.
The force told us that in the year ending 31 March 2023, it submitted 1,955 use of force records and used BWV in 79.6 percent. In the year ending 31 March 2024, it submitted 3,441 records and used BWV in 85.5 percent.
The force also told us that in the year ending 31 March 2023, it submitted 1,214 stop and search records and used BWV in 76.7 percent. In the year ending 31 March 2024, it submitted 1,314 stop and search records and used BWV in 91.7 percent.
While this increasing use is reassuring, Warwickshire Police still needs to make sure that BWV is consistently used where mandated by its policy. The force should also make sure that footage is monitored so it can provide feedback to officers and identify themes that can be shared throughout the force.
Warwickshire Police is good at prevention and deterrence.
The force has provided a series of problem-solving training events over the past 18 months through its ‘webinar Wednesday’ programme. The force invites external organisations and staff and officers from other forces to take part. The sessions are recorded and stored in a library so staff and officers can view them on demand. They are located on a problem-solving hub on the force intranet alongside other materials that provide practical guidance.
The webinars have covered a wide variety of themes including how to use surveys, burglary prevention and national good practice. This is a valuable resource to promote evidence-based policing.
The force has developed an app to assist officers in creating problem-solving plans using the scanning, analysis, response and assessment model. The app provides prompts for each phase of the process. The app links to performance dashboards so the force can monitor progress.
This improved process means the force can increase its use of problem-solving, which will help increase consistency and improve oversight of progress towards achieving the aims of individual plans. It will also improve the force’s understanding of how it uses evidence-based policing to reduce crime and increase efficiency.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to prevention and deterrence.
In 2023, Warwickshire Police introduced a new prevention hub. It focuses on crime prevention and protecting people from harm. The hub includes officers with specialist skills in crime prevention who work with young people and are involved with civil interventions and problem-solving. These officers are co-located with partner organisations such as the Probation Service and Victim Support.
The prevention hub also includes a victim team. It works with high-risk, repeat and vulnerable victims to build trust. It encourages victims to work with officers through criminal justice proceedings. The team works with partner agencies, such as the local authority and fire service, to provide victims with practical support to improve their safety or security and help them to feel safer in their homes.
The force discusses victims at local monthly harm prevention meetings to make sure it fully understands vulnerability and has considered safeguarding measures. It considers using protective orders where relevant.
The force told us it received £810,000 Home Office funding for a hotspot policing programme in 2024. Under the initiative Operation Resolve, the force identified 18 hotspot areas around the county where serious violence and antisocial behaviour were most frequent. The programme aimed to make sure there was always a policing presence in these neighbourhoods. Patrols began in May 2024. The force told us there had been a 13 percent reduction in incident reports from the targeted areas. In April 2025, it began building these principles into standard practice. It hopes to use police volunteers and special constabulary officers to support the plan.
The force has submitted two bids to the Police STAR Fund, which supports local innovation and encourages collaboration in problem-solving in policing. One bid aims to improve how officers use mobile devices while in vehicles to increase the availability of data from the vehicle. The other bid is for funding to develop artificial intelligence that will push briefing and tasking notifications to officers’ mobile devices. These initiatives will help the force make the best use of officer time and focus activity on the locations and people identified as being at the most risk.
The force has a strategy for working with its communities that sets out planned activity. This will help it build relationships with its communities. In particular, the force intends to focus on building and strengthening relationships with children and young people, seldom-heard communities and online communities.
The force has a quarterly children’s and young people’s scrutiny panel, which first met formally in November 2024. The panel allows young people to review a range of police interactions by watching BWV footage. The force hopes to include young people who have experience of the criminal justice system to provide valuable insight into their experience and develop their trust and confidence in the police.
The force recently introduced a crime prevention initiative called Hero Mode On, which is aimed at young people. A series of videos encourages young people to challenge friends who are engaging in antisocial behaviour or crime. The force worked with a creative agency supported by the Prince’s Trust to draw on young people’s views. It posts the videos on social media platforms and targets them at young people in areas highlighted as hotspots for antisocial behaviour and crime.
The force has five diversity, equality and inclusion police community support officers who work with seldom-heard communities. They liaise with groups such as older people and people with disabilities as well as with people from ethnic minority backgrounds. The force organises activities, such as food and faith festivals and walk and talk events, to build relationships.
The force uses a communication platform called Warwickshire Connected. It sends messages to members of the public who sign up to the platform that are tailored to their local area. It also informs them when the force is carrying out planned events.
The platform can send messages in different languages. This may help the force communicate with some seldom-heard communities. But we found that safer neighbourhood teams weren’t using the platform’s full functionality. The force could benefit from reviewing its policy and guidance.
At the time of our last inspection, 4,700 residents had signed up to the platform. This has increased to 9,000. The force should continue to build on this increase to make sure the platform is as effective as possible.
Problem-oriented policing, also known as problem-solving, is an approach used to tackle crime and disorder. It involves detailed analysis of a problem and the creation of an evidence-based solution. Warwickshire Police use a scanning, analysis, response, assessment (SARA) model of problem-solving.
At the time of our inspection, the force had 26 live SARA problem-solving plans. These covered tackling crime, antisocial behaviour and organisational issues. Officers in safer neighbourhood teams manage most plans. We examined ten plans. We found that officers were updating progress and supervisors were reviewing plans on a regular basis.
The force has a problem-solving team that provides guidance and oversight of SARA plans. The team has developed a scoring system for each stage of the SARA process. It scores all plans and grades them as outstanding, good, adequate or requires improvement.
The problem-solving team shares examples of good plans through the force’s intranet. It uses examples of poor plans to generate positive learning outcomes. Some plans we reviewed were led by partner agencies. They examined issues including road deaths and drug-related crime. This shows that the force has built effective partnerships to address issues facing local people.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Warwickshire Police recorded 12.6 antisocial behaviour incidents per 1,000 population. This is within the expected range compared to forces across England and Wales (average of 16.4 incidents per 1,000 population across all forces).
The number of antisocial behaviour incidents in the force’s area has fallen consistently over the last three years. In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force recorded 17 percent fewer incidents (7,765 incidents) than the previous year (9,338 incidents).
In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force issued 34 antisocial behaviour orders to 7,765 antisocial behaviour incidents, giving a ratio of 0.4 percent. This is significantly lower than expected compared to other forces in England and Wales (where the average ratio is 1.4 percent across all forces). This was also apparent in the year ending 31 March 2023, which suggests that the force is a consistently low user of this particular power.
Figure 1: Ratio of antisocial behaviour orders issued to antisocial behaviour incidents across forces in England and Wales in the year ending 31 March 2024
Source: Data collection and analysis from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
Note: Antisocial behaviour orders include Criminal Behaviour Orders, Community Protection Notices, civil injunctions and dispersal powers (under section 34 of the Anti‑social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014).
Safer neighbourhood team officers told us that the force didn’t give them bespoke training on the powers available to them under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. The force expects them to ask for guidance from colleagues in the civil interventions team. We found some examples of neighbourhood officers using specific aspects of antisocial behaviour legislation to tackle longer-term problems. However, the force should make sure officers have the knowledge they need to make better use of their powers to deter crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour.
The force has specialist antisocial behaviour police community support officers in its safer neighbourhood teams. They attend antisocial behaviour incidents. The force visits or video calls all victims and completes risk assessments. Incidents that it grades as high-risk are subject to a problem management plan and prioritised. This makes sure that the force supports and protects members of the community most severely affected by antisocial behaviour.
The force has developed a commissioning portal to guide officers towards the most appropriate order in a situation. The portal provides the appropriate application. This may help to increase the use of antisocial behaviour powers and civil powers where appropriate.
Safer neighbourhood teams in Warwickshire Police are responsible for problem‑solving, crime prevention activity and building relationships with communities. These activities can be disrupted when officers are diverted to other duties, such as supporting response teams by attending emergency or priority incidents.
Neighbourhood officers told us that they were frequently called to emergency and priority incidents due to high demand. This is more common during the summer months and appears to have reduced more recently.
In our last inspection report, we said that the force should monitor and reduce the number of officers diverted from safer neighbourhood teams. Although it appears to have achieved this, the force is still not able to easily monitor how often officers are diverted from their main duties.
The communication portal Warwickshire Connected has the functionality to record this information. However, officers told us this function was removed and they weren’t given an alternative method of recording how often they were diverted from their core duties or whether this affected the neighbourhood activity they had planned.
The force needs to make sure it effectively monitors when officers are diverted from their main duties.
Warwickshire Police is inadequate at responding to the public.
In our 2022 PEEL inspection, we found that Warwickshire Police wasn’t attending incidents within expected timescales. It wasn’t updating victims about delays.
The force hasn’t improved in this area and is still failing to meet its own published targets.
Our victim service assessment found that the force met its attendance times in only 33 of 68 relevant cases. It informed callers of delays in only 15 of 31 relevant cases.
Force data shows an overall decline in performance for both emergency and priority incidents. However, the force didn’t have complete data, particularly in relation to priority incidents. These didn’t always have an arrival time recorded.
Attending incidents promptly is important to make sure that evidence is secured and victims and vulnerable people are safeguarded from harm. The force knows it must improve and has established a gold group to oversee the changes needed. But there isn’t yet any improvement from this activity.
Within six months, Warwickshire Police should:
During our inspection, investigating officers told us that the information handed over by officers responding to an incident was often poor quality with important statements and evidence missing.
System backlogs meant that for most of 2024, it took the force up to four weeks to allocate crimes for further investigation. This made it critical that evidence was gathered when the force first attended an incident.
The force needs to make sure that control room call handlers consistently give evidence preservation advice. It should also make sure that it allows officers enough time to complete initial enquiries when they attend incidents.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force responds to the public.
We found that control room call handlers checked to identify a repeat victim to inform their triage risk assessment in 55 of 62 relevant cases. The force used the information gathered by the call handler effectively in 21 of 25 cases. Repeat victims often need additional support from the police. It is important that the force promptly identifies and records repeat victims to make sure they receive the appropriate level of service.
We found call handlers checked if there was a vulnerable victim or vulnerable person in 64 of 70 relevant cases. Call handlers recorded that they had identified a vulnerable person in 44 of 57 cases.
The force has provided all control room staff with training in vulnerability. This included using the THRIVE model, carrying out further risk assessments when attendance at an incident is delayed and using a tool to provide guidance on different types of vulnerability.
The force has also put in place a quality assurance process that includes checking that personnel have identified vulnerability. In the year ending 30 September 2024, Warwickshire Police recorded 25 incidents involving a vulnerable person per 1,000 population, compared to the England and Wales rate of 20 incidents per 1,000 population.
The force didn’t provide us with data on the number of incidents involving repeat victims. It is unable to provide data on repeat victims of domestic abuse. Overall, our inspection found that there had been progress. But the force needs to make there is consistency in recording both repeat victimisation and vulnerability.
In June 2024, the force introduced a rapid video response (RVR) team in the control room. The force uses it to take initial statements from victims. It means victims can speak to an officer without having to go to a police station or have a police officer visit their home in a marked car. RVR can be used effectively in cases of domestic abuse where victims are concerned about the potential consequences of making a report.
We found cases in which the force used RVR for initial contact with the victim, but the subsequent investigation was delayed. We also found that team members didn’t always get enough information at the first opportunity, and some investigation handovers were poor. The RVR team is made up of response officers on a six-month rotation. They have completed Domestic Abuse Matters training. However, the force hasn’t provided them with additional training on domestic abuse or vulnerability for their RVR roles.
In the year ending 31 December 2024, Warwickshire Police received 162 emergency 999 calls per 1000 population. This is within the normal range compared to other forces across England and Wales. In the year ending 31 December 2023, the force answered 78.3 percent of its 999 calls within 10 seconds. For the year ending 31 December 2024, it increased this to 83.7 percent. The expected standard of forces in England and Wales is to answer 90 percent of 999 calls within 10 seconds.
This improvement is encouraging, and the force appears to have maintained this improvement since July 2024. However, it is still below the national target.
In the year ending 30 September 2024, Warwickshire Police received 289 non‑emergency 101 calls per 1,000 population. The average for England and Wales is 226. Higher levels of 101 calls may indicate that a force isn’t using alternative channels for the public to make contact or that callers are having to make repeated calls.
The force told us that in the year ending 31 December 2024, callers abandoned 19.6 percent of 101 calls before the force answered them. 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 had previously had abandonment rates as high as 40 percent, so this represents an improvement. It may be the result of the force introducing a call back system in July 2024. However, the force still needs to reduce the number of abandoned 101 calls. It should make sure it monitors the success of the call-back system. It should also make sure it can track callers who don’t answer returned calls or make contact a different way.
In our 2019 and 2022 PEEL inspection reports, we said that the force needed to improve its use of risk assessments. We are pleased to see it has improved in this area. It is now routinely completing risk assessments and recording them on incident logs.
The force uses the THRIVE risk assessment framework to identify risks and accurately determine the priority for each call. Between January and June 2024, it trained all control room staff on using THRIVE. In April 2024, it introduced call scripts, which have improved consistency.
We found that call handlers used a structured triage approach to assess risk and consider the needs of the caller or victim in 67 of 83 relevant cases.
The THRIVE record was an accurate and meaningful reflection of the circumstances of the call in 66 of 67 cases. We also found that the THRIVE assessments informed grading decisions. The force’s initial priority grading of the call was appropriate with the information obtained in 81 of 96 cases.
The force has recently introduced a RE-THRIVE risk assessment. Police personnel carry this out when officers are delayed in attending an incident.
Early in our inspection, we were told that the force carried out RE-THRIVE work during the early hours of the morning. This meant that the force rarely called victims back and didn’t refresh the information used to inform the risk assessment. The force has now changed this process. It reviews incidents where attendance is delayed at regular intervals of 1 hour, 8 hours and 18 hours. The force contacts victims to make sure it accurately understands if the level of risk has changed.
Warwickshire Police is adequate at investigating crime.
Warwickshire Police doesn’t always complete investigations in a timely way. It doesn’t always follow all appropriate lines of enquiry.
In 69 of 82 cases we examined, the force followed all appropriate and proportionate investigative opportunities from the reporting of a crime and throughout the investigation. And we found unjustified delays to the investigation in 16 of 100 cases. Overall, we judged 85 of 100 investigations to be effective.
We saw that high demand was creating backlogs of work in administrative and supervisory teams. The force told us that these issues delayed the allocation and progression of investigations for 21 days on average. Following its initial attendance at an incident, the force often doesn’t give victims meaningful updates, crime investigations aren’t progressed and suspects aren’t dealt with. Patrol officers told us that they were struggling to carry out thorough investigations due to ongoing pressure to attend incidents.
The force has made recent changes to its operating model that are aimed at addressing these issues. It should make sure that these delays don’t happen in future.
Warwickshire Police doesn’t always achieve acceptable outcomes for victims because it doesn’t solve enough of the crimes it investigates. The force needs to understand this issue and improve its outcomes.
In the year ending 30 September 2024, Warwickshire Police recorded 34,073 victim-based crimes. Of these recorded offences, the force assigned 8.5 percent an ‘offences brought to justice’ outcome. This is within the normal range compared to other forces in England and Wales.
Figure 2: Percentage of victim-based crime recorded by Warwickshire Police and all forces in England and Wales by selected outcome types in the year ending 30 September 2024
| Outcome types | Force outcome rate | England and Wales outcome rate |
| 1 – Charged/summonsed | 6.4% | 5.9% |
| 2 & 3 – Caution – youths & adults | 0.5% | 0.6% |
| 8 – Community resolutions | 1.1% | 1.7% |
| 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) | 0.3% | 0.7% |
| 14 – Evidential difficulties (suspect not identified; but the victim declines or is unable to support) | 8.6% | 5.8% |
| 15 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim supports police action) | 10.2% | 11.8% |
| 16 – Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim doesn’t support or withdraws support) | 21.6% | 20.4% |
| 17 – Prosecution time limit expired | 0.6% | 0.2% |
| 18 – Investigation complete – no suspect identified | 37.4% | 42.5% |
| 20 – Action undertaken by another body/ agency | 1.8% | 1.4% |
| 22 – Diversionary, educational or intervention activity | 0.3% | 0.3% |
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
Figure 3: Proportion of victim-based crimes assigned a ‘charged/summonsed’ outcome (outcome 1) by Warwickshire Police between the year ending 31 March 2015 and the year ending 30 September 2024
Source: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables from the Home Office
The number of offenders charged with offences across England and Wales has been decreasing for a notable period. Despite Warwickshire Police having a higher percentage of ‘offender charged’ outcomes than some forces, the proportion of cases where it achieves a good outcome for the victim remains low.
In the year ending 30 September 2024, 0.6 percent of victim-based crime was closed with the outcome ‘prosecution time limit expired’. This is higher than the average for forces in England and Wales for which data was available. This could indicate that the force doesn’t progress investigations quickly enough for summary-only offences (which are tried in a magistrate’s court within six months from the date of the offence).
We found evidence of delays to investigations. The force must continue to improve its outcomes to support and protect victims and bring offenders to justice.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force investigates crime.
The Victims’ Code sets out the minimum standard on rights, support and protection that organisations must provide to victims of crime. In our 2022 PEEL inspection report, we said the force needed to make sure it met the code’s requirements. During this inspection, we found that the force had made good progress in this area. It had completed a victim contract in 77 of 79 relevant cases. It adhered to the contract in 72 of 76 relevant cases.
The force recorded appropriate victim needs assessments in 77 of 80 relevant cases. Where a victim was entitled to an enhanced service, the force recorded this in 45 of 50 relevant cases.
The force considered a victim’s personal statement in 36 of 41 relevant cases. Victim personal statements are important as they give an opportunity for victims to explain how a crime has affected them.
The force has developed a Power BI dashboard for supervisors that helps them monitor the number of victims who opt out of the Victims’ Code. It helps them understand why victims aren’t engaging with the force.
These findings are positive, but officers also told us that the updates they provided to victims sometimes lacked substance. This is because investigations haven’t been progressed due to high workloads. The force needs to make sure it progresses investigations and gives victims meaningful updates.
Warwickshire Police has developed a ‘supervisor initial review’ app that supports supervisors with setting plans for investigations. Supervisors are expected to review investigations every 28 days. We found evidence of an appropriate investigation plan in line with authorised professional practice in 66 of 68 cases. A good investigation plan makes sure the force takes all proportionate investigative opportunities at the earliest opportunity and contributes to improved outcomes for victims.
We found that this approach was working well. Despite this, officers told us that after the force made an allocation decision, crimes were occasionally passed back and forth between teams.
The force carries out audits to improve investigation standards and discusses them at a senior level. This process has identified areas of learning and good practice. The force has been able to provide feedback to investigators. This helps it provide a good quality service to victims of crime.
In September 2024, the force introduced a central team of sergeants under Operation Invicto to improve initial investigations and reduce patrol officer workloads. This initiative has been successful. It has reduced officer workloads and has begun to improve the quality of initial investigations for volume crime.
The force made this a permanent feature in its operating model in April 2025. The force should make sure that it maintains the improvements it has made and continues to improve its compliance with the Victim’s Code.
If a victim of domestic abuse decides not to support a prosecution, police and prosecutors should consider whether it is possible to bring a prosecution without that support. This is called evidence-led prosecution. In our victim service assessment, we found that the force considered evidence-led prosecutions when victims didn’t feel able to support a prosecution in 25 of 25 cases.
When we spoke to officers, in particular those who work in specialist domestic abuse teams, they understood the importance of evidence-led prosecutions. We also found good examples of officers attempting to work with victims to regain their support for prosecutions.
The force uses a crime allocation model to make sure that the appropriate team investigates. However, some specialist teams don’t have enough qualified investigators to progress serious and complex crimes.
The force has plans to increase the number of accredited detectives at professionalising investigations programme (PIP) level 2. But at the time of our inspection, there were gaps in teams such as the child abuse trafficking exploitation team and the domestic abuse, rape and serious sexual offence team, both of which deal with some of the highest-risk investigations.
As of 31 March 2024, the force had 225 posts filled with accredited PIP level 2 investigators, which is 62 percent of the 363 needed. A further 64 officers were in PIP level 2 training.
The force needs to make sure that it increases its number of detectives. It also needs to make sure it provides officers with enough tutors to help them develop their skills. The force told us that a high number of trainee detectives had recently failed the national investigators’ exam.
Warwickshire Police requires improvement at protecting vulnerable people.
We found that the force’s processes caused crimes to be held in queues for allocation while it carried out administrative and supervisory reviews. These reviews added on average a 21-day delay to the allocation of investigations. During this time, often nobody was progressing the investigation as it was no longer in the attending officer’s workload.
To address this, the force introduced a process for investigators to ‘register an interest’ in investigations. This meant the crime remained in the attending officer’s workload until the force allocated the crime to an investigator. But the force hadn’t consistently communicated this process to frontline officers.
We found that around half of the crimes in the backlog had no registered interest. We also found cases where officers had added and then removed a registered interest. Response officers told us that they prioritised attendance at emergency incidents. Due to demand, they had little opportunity to progress the crimes for which they had registered an interest.
The force didn’t do enough to make sure the victims of crimes in the backlog were protected from further harm.
The force reassured us that no high-risk offences were in the backlog. However, we found the force made limited checks to make sure this was the case. We found cases where the force hadn’t safeguarded victims and cases where it hadn’t tried to arrest perpetrators, including perpetrators of domestic abuse.
This was a significant concern and an ongoing risk to victims. The force addressed this during our inspection by increasing resources in the teams responsible for clearing the backlog. It removed the backlog in early 2025, with most crimes being allocated to investigators.
This is positive. But the force didn’t manage the risk to victims between summer 2024 and early 2025, even though the problem was put on the force risk register in summer 2024.
The force has a strategy to support vulnerable people and a governance structure to oversee it. But as this example demonstrates, it is often unclear how these structures guide operational priorities and improved performance.
The force needs to make sure that its governance structures are good enough to fully understand and address risks to vulnerable victims so it can act quickly to address them.
According to SafeLives, Warwickshire Police should expect to discuss 880 cases a year at the multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC), based on the size of its population.
In the year ending 30 September 2024, the force discussed 1,145 cases. The force also told us that it was the largest referring body to MARAC and referred, on average, 54 percent of the cases it discussed. The force is responsible for chairing meetings.
We observed MARAC meetings and found the force wasn’t considering all appropriate actions. The MARAC made decisions to accept risk without developing action plans to reduce harm. The force has a MARAC steering group and an operating procedure, but we found that these weren’t always informing practice or driving improvements.
At the time of our inspection, the force told us it was reviewing MARAC processes and would implement improvements by April 2025. It needs to make sure that all victims who meet the criteria for safeguarding are provided with the range of interventions MARAC can offer. The force should satisfy itself that partner organisations are fully involved in decisions on the acceptance of risk. It should consider how it monitors the quality of decision-making in this area through the steering group.
In our 2022 PEEL inspection report, we highlighted that the force central referral safeguarding unit (CRSU) had a backlog of referrals. At that time, we found 70 vulnerable adult cases, 102 child abuse cases and 87 medium-risk domestic abuse cases awaiting full assessment.
Since then, the force has made some positive changes. It now reviews all standard risk assessments. And it searches the system daily to identify all risk assessments that haven’t been correctly assigned to the CRSU. These measures have, however, increased the team’s workload and assessments are taking longer to be processed by the CRSU.
During our inspection work in September and December 2024, we saw that the oldest medium-risk Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment awaiting review was nine days old.
On 7 February 2025, the oldest cases were 14 days old. There were 213 medium‑risk child cases, 153 medium-risk domestic abuse cases and 53 vulnerable adult cases awaiting review. The force prioritises high-risk cases and only two were awaiting review. However, in total, 574 risk assessments were still awaiting review.
We reviewed 20 standard-risk and 30 medium-risk Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment forms. Three of the medium-risk forms involved non-fatal strangulation and other high-risk indicators. The force should have graded these cases as high-risk.
In the year ending 30 September 2024, the force had categorised around 10 percent of domestic abuse investigations as high-risk. The average for all forces in England and Wales was 21 percent. Incorrectly graded high-risk cases could be in the backlog of referrals and not dealt with as quickly as they should be.
Where cases are delayed, the force isn’t sharing information quickly enough with relevant organisations. This prevents vulnerable people from getting the help they need. The force should make sure that the CRSU is appropriately resourced and that team members are prioritising workloads according to risk.
The force has taken steps to understand the views of victims and use these to inform the services it provides. But some of these activities are in the early stages of development.
In 2023, the force set up a team to improve its response to vulnerability. It has carried out work to improve police personnel’s understanding of trauma and the effect of victim-blaming language. The Positive Directions group, a Vanguard (PDF document) project, has provided training to 200 frontline officers.
The force has focused on making sure the voice of the child is considered and recorded. However, it recognises it still has work to do. Officers working in the force control room’s rapid video response team, which holds video calls with victims so they don’t have to come into the station or have an officer visit their home, don’t always speak to the children of domestic abuse victims.
The force told us it planned to improve how it gathers the perspectives of vulnerable victims in 2025. The force is liaising with SafeLives, the charity Refuge and independent domestic violence adviser services to work with the victims of rape and serious sexual offences as well as domestic abuse victims. The force plans to develop this work to create a panel for victims and survivors to feedback their experiences.
There are still gaps in how the force collects the views of vulnerable victims and shows how it uses those views to improve its service. The force should make sure this is addressed.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force protects vulnerable people.
The force tracks activity against strategic vulnerability plans and has some methods for measuring success. The plans don’t define specific key performance indicators, but the force examines the use of ancillary orders, rape and domestic abuse conviction rates, the number of crimes where victims have withdrawn support and information it receives from the Crown Prosecution Service.
The force has a strategic improvement plan for Operation Soteria. It is well developed and updated. The force has improved its service to victims of rape and serious sexual offences as a result. The force is updating its violence against women and girls service delivery plan in line with national requirements. It has assigned a lead to each aspect of the plan who will be responsible for achieving its aims.
The force holds a steering group that considers violence against women and girls and another that examines rape and serious sexual offences. They are well attended and well chaired. Guest speakers share insight into issues such as abuse of girls in schools and elder abuse.
Members of steering groups discuss examples of good practice seen in other organisations and advise how they can be adopted by the force. However, the force is yet to implement some of these initiatives and make the needed improvements to the service it provides.
The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS), also known as Clare’s Law, gives people the right to ask police if their partner has a history of committing abusive or violent offences. The force should see people requesting this information within 10 days and make any disclosure of previous offending within 28 days.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Warwickshire Police recorded 25 DVDS ‘right to know’ applications. This equates to 1.1 applications per 10,000 population. This is lower than expected compared to other forces across England and Wales (4.1 applications per 10,000 population).
The force should increase awareness and use of the scheme both internally and externally.
The force processes most DVDS applications within the 28-day statutory deadline. We examined 10 applications that were older than 28 days. We found that the force had tried to contact the person at risk and delays were due to the person’s unavailability. In four of the ten cases we reviewed, the force closed them because they couldn’t contact the person at risk.
A panel makes DVDS disclosure decisions. Domestic abuse safeguarding officers make the disclosures in most cases. Where the force considers a person is potentially at high risk of harm, control room staff will tell a patrol officer to provide the disclosure as a priority.
In 21 of 22 of the relevant cases we examined, the force considered ancillary orders, such as Domestic Violence Protection Notices, Domestic Violence Protection Orders and Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs), where appropriate. Officers in domestic abuse teams make good use of orders alongside bail to provide additional protection to victims.
The force includes details of existing Domestic Violence Protections Orders in daily tasking and briefing documents. Officers are told to complete checks and deal with breaches. The force has increased its use of these orders. In the year ending 30 September 2024, it applied for 65 orders. In the year ending 31 December 2022, it applied for 26.
In the year ending 30 September 2024, the force had only three full SPOs granted at court. This is equivalent to 2.8 full SPOs per 1,000 population. But the force told us that it was increasing its use of these orders. At the time of our inspection, it had 13 active orders approved by the court. The force doesn’t use interim SPOs very often. In the year ending 30 September 2024, it issued 4 (3.8 per 1,000 stalking offences).
The force has introduced a stalking screening tool created from a College of Policing template. The tool tells officers and staff what information they need to get from the victim to inform the level of risk. It also tells them what steps to take to safeguard the victim. The force believes this has contributed to the increased use of SPOs.
The force has co-located officers and staff working in protective services with partner organisations, including local authority safeguarding teams.
The force is one of the first to participate in the Government’s initiative to strengthen multi-agency working via its multi-agency child protection team. The team is based at the Leamington and Nuneaton justice centres. Since December 2024, the team has been responsible for all child protection decision-making in Warwickshire. It makes sure that child protection thresholds are applied consistently, regardless of which team has a concern. The force hopes the team will act quickly to protect children from harm both inside and outside the home.
Warwickshire Police is adequate at managing offenders and suspects.
Officers working in the online child sexual exploitation team have completed a five-day bespoke training course. The course covers investigations, digital forensics and the psychology of the offender.
The College of Policing doesn’t offer a course specific to this role. Warwickshire Police is only the second force in England and Wales to have designed a course of this nature. The force expects that this will improve both investigation quality and the service provided to victims of these types of crime.
The force has limited oversight of standard and medium-risk wanted suspects and the specific risks that they pose to the public. The force doesn’t consistently manage the prioritisation of the arrest of wanted people.
Officers told us that the force often didn’t pursue suspects for arrest due to high demand on investigators. At the time of our inspection, the force told us it had 628 outstanding suspects.
The force previously had access to a system it shared with West Mercia Police that prioritised standard and medium-risk offenders awaiting arrest or other action. This ended in 2022. The force is still working on a dashboard as its alternative.
Additionally, in the year ending 12 October 2020, there were 170 wanted suspects whose details had been circulated on the Police National Computer for more than six months. In the year ending 01 March 2022, this had increased to 274.
The force has started to address this. In the year ending 5 June 2024, it reduced the number of wanted suspects to 245. But it still has more work to do to bring that number down further. Some of these offenders are wanted for serious offences, such as violence, homicide and rape. And 78 wanted suspects have been circulated on the Police National Computer for 37 months or longer. This is too high.
The force should make sure that it applies enough scrutiny to the prioritisation of suspects. This would reduce the risk of them re-offending and harming the public.
The child abuse image database contributes to the fight against online child sexual exploitation and abuse. It was developed by the Home Office in collaboration with the police and other industry and technology partners.
Warwickshire Police’s policy is that where children make indecent images of themselves, the force can treat it as a safeguarding concern rather than as a criminal matter. If the image has only been sent to one other person, the force doesn’t upload it to the database.
The force isn’t following National Police Chiefs’ Council guidance with this approach. It may mean that other offences involving the child aren’t quickly identified. This may mean that the child isn’t appropriately supported and safeguarded.
Warwickshire Police shares the staff that grade indecent images of children with West Midlands Police. Warwickshire Police has access to a victim identification officer through this collaboration. It should make sure that this arrangement provides enough support to upload all images to the child abuse image database.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to how well the force manages offenders and suspects.
During our inspection, officers showed that they understood the requirements of bail legislation under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
We would expect to see an increase in bail after October 2022, as changes to the bail legislation removed the presumption that released under investigation (RUI) was the default position when releasing suspects from custody.
Warwickshire Police increased both pre-charge bail and RUI between the years ending 30 September 2022 and 31 March 2023. Since then, the force’s use of RUI has steadily declined from 1,549 uses per 1,000 arrests to 192 uses per 1,000 arrests in the year ending 31 March 2024.
During the same period, use of pre-charge bail initially also dropped but began to steadily increase between the years ending 30 September 2023 and 30 September 2024, when the force recorded 3,821 uses per 1,000 arrests. We expect that the total bail numbers will exceed arrest numbers as suspects are often arrested and bailed for multiple offences.
The force has developed an app for bail requests and extensions. This has improved monitoring. The app promotes understanding of bail legislation and encourages protection for victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault in line with Kay’s Law. The force told us that its record management system no longer allowed it to measure the number of bail cases that have lapsed to RUI. The force should address this to make sure there are no inappropriate lapses where victims may need safeguarding.
Officers and staff from the sexual offender management unit (SOMU) carry out checks on registered sex offenders in accordance with the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice. The force routinely carries out unannounced and double-crewed visits, where having two offender managers reduces the risks to officers.
The teams managing sexual and violent offenders also follow authorised professional practice for risk assessments and risk management plans. A senior officer must authorise any deviation from the guidance. The force mitigates any risk to the visiting officers.
The force gives personnel working in the SOMU and the online child sexual exploitation team clear guidance and working knowledge of preventative and ancillary orders, such as Sexual Harm Prevention Orders and Sexual Risk Orders. Officers we spoke to were confident about applying for these orders and recording and investigating any breaches.
We examined how the force manages cases involving offenders who access indecent images of children. In most cases, officers and staff checked with relevant organisations, such as children’s social services, whether children were at risk. If they identified a child as being at risk during an investigation into online child abuse, they made appropriate referrals to children’s services.
We also found that the force used discretion when taking enforcement action against suspected offenders who are under 18. The force provides a diversionary activity for young people involved in peer-to-peer sharing of images to educate them on the risks involved and deter them in the future. At the time of our inspection, the force couldn’t demonstrate how successful this intervention had been.
The force signposts people it arrests in relation to an indecent image investigation to mental health services and other support organisations. The force also gives suspects replacement mobile telephones and family support packs. The force checks on their welfare after enforcement.
The Police National Database (PND) is a national information management system. Police forces can share information across borders to prevent crime and make communities safer.
In the records that we reviewed, we found no evidence that the force was using the PND. The force doesn’t complete routine PND checks on all monitored offenders in the community, including those that are reactively managed.
Officers working in SOMU teams told us the force didn’t have enough PND licences and hadn’t trained enough officers to use the system. The force only carries out PND checks routinely for high-risk offenders, newly released offenders and offenders managed under multi-agency public protection arrangements. Force intelligence teams support offender managers to carry out these checks.
By not routinely checking the PND for all offenders, the force could fail to identify increasing risk, as it may miss information provided by another police force. Warwickshire Police should make sure it has enough licences and officers trained to use the PND within SOMU teams.
Warwickshire Police requires improvement at building, supporting and protecting the workforce.
Since our last inspection, the force has improved its well-being provision for its workforce. But staff and officers can’t always access it because of varying demand and resourcing across areas and teams.
For example, officers in some areas can access gym facilities during their shift, but officers in other areas can’t. Staff and officers in some specialist teams told us their well-being was affected by workforce shortages and high demand. They often work long hours.
The force needs to demonstrate it clearly understands what factors positively or negatively affect workforce well-being, including the effects of stress. And the force should demonstrate that it uses this information to allocate resources to different areas and teams.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, Warwickshire Police had a 3.6 percent rate of long-term sickness absence as a proportion of full-time equivalent police officers. This was higher than expected compared to other forces in England and Wales. High levels of sickness in teams can have a negative effect on remaining staff.
The force should make sure it balances operational need with the well-being of staff by equitably distributing resources and access to well-being provisions across all teams as far as possible.
An increasing number of officers left the force between 2021 and 2024. In the financial year 2021/22, 28 full-time officers left. This rose to 72 in the year 2022/23 and to 84 in the year 2023/24.
Several officers told us they planned to leave the force because it was difficult to establish a healthy work-life balance. We carried out a survey of the workforce and found 8.3 percent (47 of 569 respondents) wanted to leave the force as soon as possible and 11.1 percent (63 of 569 respondents) wanted to leave within the next 12 months. We were told that student officers often struggled with the time commitment required to study for their degree alongside the responsibility of an officer’s role. Officers with more than five years’ service told us they were becoming disillusioned, felt the force didn’t value their skills and did little to encourage them to stay.
The force has recently taken a problem-solving approach to student officer retention. This appears to be comprehensive, but it hasn’t yet implemented its recommendations.
The force recognises that officer attrition has had significant financial implications and is committed to addressing the issue. At the time of our inspection, the force had recently introduced interviews designed to intervene before officers take the decision to leave. Most leavers didn’t have exit interviews. This has affected the force’s ability to understand and address the reasons officers are leaving.
The force should make sure it has a full understanding of why officers choose to leave and improve the support given to them to encourage them to stay.
The force needs to better understand the barriers that prevent officers and staff from developing and progressing. The force has a positive action strategy but needs to be clearer about how it will achieve the strategy’s objectives. The action plan in support of the strategy doesn’t contain clear actions, action owners or timescales for completion.
The force has some initiatives to support officers and staff from under-represented groups to develop. However, not all members of the workforce know about them. The programmes offered are largely external, with some only open to personnel selected to be part of the force’s promotion programme. The force provides many development opportunities for the whole workforce, rather than targeting under-represented groups.
The force has trained some supervisors on helping officers and staff from under‑represented groups to progress their careers. However, overall awareness of how to support this part of the workforce is inconsistent and limited.
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 increased support for officers and staff working in high-risk roles. This includes pre-screening to make sure candidates are prepared before taking up posts in teams such as the child abuse trafficking exploitation team or the online child sexual exploitation team. It also includes annual stress assessments. The force has recently introduced breaks for investigators who are experiencing high levels of stress by moving them temporarily to another role. However, it has been limited in using these breaks due to demand and resourcing pressures in some high-risk roles.
The force’s well-being team actively monitors incidents to identify officers who may have been exposed to psychological trauma. The force provides support through a system of ‘demobilise and defuse’. It holds an initial conversation shortly after exposure to trauma and a formal debrief a few weeks later. The force has trained sergeants to carry out demobilise and defuse conversations and debriefs.
However, the force hasn’t trained all control room supervisors. We found control room personnel weren’t always able to access formal incident debriefs.
The force should make sure it offers the opportunity for debriefs to all staff, officers, volunteers and special constables who are exposed to traumatic incidents.
The force provides leadership training for sergeants and police staff equivalents in the form of two programmes: a newly developed first-line leadership (FLL) course and a sergeant passport to lead course.
The FLL five-day course is aligned with the new College of Policing curriculum and covers leadership and coaching, effective communication, handling conflict, leading people and other aspects of leadership. The force enrols officers on the FLL course who hope to be promoted.
The passport to lead course is a two-day course and covers the basic knowledge needed to supervise staff. The force provides it to acting and temporary supervisors, as well as those who aren’t in its ‘talent cohort’ – a group of staff and officers it has selected for its promotion programme.
The force told us that 219 sergeants and police-staff equivalents have attended the FLL development course. It plans to continue to develop its first-line leaders and make sure all have access to this important training, including those in temporary positions.
Since our last inspection, the force has refreshed its performance development review (PDR) process and tried to make PDRs feel more valuable to the people completing them.
In the year ending 31 March 2024, 85 percent of the workforce had completed a PDR. This was an increase from 67 percent in the previous 12 months. The force has introduced an internal monitoring process that examines the quality of PDR objectives as well as overall completion rates. Force data indicates it assigned meaningful objectives to 93 percent of the workforce. We spoke to many officers and staff who had completed a PDR with their manager within that time frame. But in our workforce survey, only 70.7 percent of respondents (402 of 569) told us they had completed a PDR in last 12 months.
We saw evidence that the force uses information from PDRs to understand the skills of its workforce and identify training needs. The force has introduced a new talent survey linked to PDRs where personnel can record existing skills and express a desire for either progression or a new role at the same grade. At the time of our inspection, the completion rates for these surveys were low. The force was exploring ways of improving this when it repeats the survey for 2025/26.
Warwickshire Police’s leadership and management requires improvement.
Since our last inspection, the force has reviewed its performance framework and adopted a pillar-based structure aligned with its ‘Fit for the future’ strategy. Despite these changes, we found that strategic risk management processes weren’t always effective.
When a force identifies a significant risk to maintaining performance or providing services, it records it on the force risk register. This process is designed to make sure that any action taken to reduce the risk is recorded and senior leaders can oversee progress and make decisions when needed.
But we found that the force had identified and recorded some risks that remained unresolved for considerable periods of time. These included concerns that the new operational model might not be a success and the backlogs in the investigation management unit.
The force must review its governance processes to make sure it identifies and addresses all strategic risks and operational issues much more effectively. This will help it to anticipate and respond to changes in demand and risks more effectively.
The force has access to a large range of performance and management information. It has systems to supply that information effectively.
But the force doesn’t make the best use of its data to understand productivity or areas for improvement performance. It is still using spreadsheets and other manual processes to gather, record and supply information in areas such as resource management.
The spreadsheets produced to monitor and improve performance are inconsistent. The force isn’t using data consistently to manage workloads, monitor and address backlogs of work or plan for the future.
An example of this is the force not making the best use of the force management statement to support its planning processes. We found that this document didn’t contain enough detail or data to support its statements, assumptions and projections about future risks.
The force should improve its processes for recording, checking and understanding its data to improve productivity.
The force needs to make sure that its operating model and workforce planning process can identify where it needs additional resources. And it needs to make sure that it provides resources to meet current and future demands across all areas.
In our 2022 PEEL inspection, we identified the force’s operating model as an area for improvement. The force introduced a new operating model in 2023, but we still found some areas that faced demands that exceeded their capacity. The force’s failure to fully address that area for improvement continues to negatively affect its performance and the service it provides. The force has planned changes, and these should take effect later in 2025.
For example, at the time of our inspection, the force had backlogs in the investigation management unit. We also found delays in the crime control centre, which took up to three weeks to process its work. The central referral and safeguarding unit had 574 cases awaiting review. We were told that the unit often relied on overtime to meet its normal daily demands.
We also found that in some specialist areas, such as investigations, the force hadn’t provided the trained staff they needed. We identified this as an area for improvement during our last inspection. Response officers working 12-hour shifts told us that they had to regularly work overtime to meet demand towards the end of their shifts because there was no overlap between teams.
The force needs to make sure it is more responsive to changing demands to meet them more effectively. It must assure itself that it has the right number of people with the right skills in the right places to provide its services without relying on overtime to create the additional capacity.
In this section we set out our main findings that relate to leadership and management.
The force has strategic plans in place that consider the police and crime commissioner’s police and crime plan. This strategy is called ‘Fit for the future’ and communicates the force’s priorities to its workforce.
The force introduced a performance structure aligned with these strategic priorities, which allows it to measure progress and demonstrate performance against them.
The force understands what is important to its communities. It gathers their views through its public confidence survey. The force told us it has used the results to help develop new strategic plans to be published in 2025. The new strategic plan will make sure the force is able to focus on making improvements in areas that reflect its communities’ needs.
The force communicates with its workforce through various methods, both online and in-person, to provide important information. Members of the workforce told us that chief officers were very visible and regularly visited different stations to speak with them. We were also told that other senior leaders often interacted with their teams and offered updates, answered questions and recognised good work. These regular interactions are helping to create a positive workplace environment.
The force is focusing on improving its leadership by developing its skills to help create a positive culture and improve performance through with well-led, motivated teams. To achieve this, it has created a leadership training programme tailored to the different leadership levels.
So far, 219 of its officers and staff in supervisory roles have completed the FLL programme. The midline leadership programme began in January 2025. The force has plans to provide this training to all eligible leaders so that they have the skills and abilities needed to lead effectively at all levels.
The force has a dedicated business change team that leads on project work under the Empower Change initiative. Over the past two years, the team has successfully completed 56 projects. These have improved internal processes and operations. The team has an ambitious plan for further improvements.
The force manages these projects effectively and has robust processes to evaluate their benefits. For example, an automation project in the vetting unit has saved the equivalent of two full-time staff by replacing repetitive manual tasks. This has improved productivity and helped the team focus on other priority work.
Operational officers and staff use mobile devices with force-developed software that provides easy access to systems and processes. However, while some software is very well designed, the workforce told us about some limitations that affected their efficiency. These included issues with entering data into their electronic pocketbooks and searching for data, such as carrying out Police National Computer checks. The force needs to improve the capability of its mobile devices so members of its workforce can be more productive while working in their communities.
The force manages its finances well, but it should oversee its overtime expenditure more effectively. In the year ending 31 March 2024, the force received £153 million in funding but overspent its officer overtime budget by more than £1.5 million. This isn’t sustainable. More broadly, the force has based its medium-term financial plan on realistic assumptions about future funding and levels of expenditure.
In line with other 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 year ending 31 March 2024, the precept contributed a total of £61 million, which equates to 39.7 percent of the force’s total budget. This is higher than the average amount of income most forces receive from precept. The force received help from a 4.7 percent (£13) increase per band D property in the precept for 2024/25. It used this funding to maintain and improve its services.
Despite this increase in funding, the force still predicted a budget gap of £0.6 million in 2024/25 and forecasts budget gaps in following years. It plans to cover this using reserves in the short term and then efficiency savings and collaborative arrangements.
The force has a good track record of finding efficiencies and identified £5.7 million of savings between the beginning of the 2021/22 financial year and the end of the 2023/24 financial year. And it has found areas where it can make a further £2 million of savings to help it produce a balanced budget in the years ahead.
Reserves fall into two categories. The force has a general reserve and earmarked reserves that are held for specific purposes, such as capital investment. The force plans to keep a general reserve of £6 million to cover its risks. This is approximately 4.5 percent of the force’s net revenue budget, which is considered an adequate amount. The force has an ambitious capital programme and at the time of our inspection, planned to invest £10.6 million during 2024/25. The force told us that this would be used to improve its IT, replace its vehicle fleet and maintain police buildings. The force sensibly manages its reserves. At the time of our inspection, it anticipated a total reserve of £12 million at 31 March 2025, which included its general reserves and those earmarked for future investments.
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:
Warwickshire PEEL assessment 2023–2025
You can find more about Warwickshire Police on our dedicated force page.
Warwickshire has been a standalone force since early 2022. Following significant transformation of our ICT onto a modern and stable infrastructure and moving our control room to a new purpose-built building, a new operating model was introduced in 2024. In March 2025 Warwickshire Police had a record 1123 police officers, 72 PCSOs and 808 police staff, with further intakes planned.
The current force policing plan (Fit for the Future) comes to an end in 2025. We have commenced the ‘Building our Future Together’ programme, informed by the voices and views of our people, our partners and our public. We will build a new force vision, new force values and a new comprehensive policing plan that will ensure Warwickshire Police delivers the very best policing services possible within the resources and funding available to us. Financially, the force’s position is strong, and various options exist to deliver against the MTFP savings in a way that will not significantly damage service delivery.
Read more from Warwickshire Police
Warwickshire Police prevents crime well, but must improve its response to the public
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.
