An inspection of how effective police forces are in the deployment of firearms

In this inspection we examined how effective police forces are in the deployment of firearms, including specialist munitions. We did this by answering the following questions:

• How well do policies, structures and processes comply with relevant guidance and legislation?
• How effectively do forces work together operationally across force boundaries?
• How effective are forces in the selection, training and deployment of tactical firearms advisors, TFCs and SFCs?

We visited nine police forces in England and Wales between November 2022 and January 2023. These included a range of forces from each region in England and Wales. They included metropolitan and rural forces.

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Police forces are effective in the deployment of firearms, new report finds