Publication of HMICFRS PEEL inspection

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Service (HMICFRS) has today published the report of its PEEL Inspection of North Yorkshire Police.

The PEEL inspection covers the areas of Effectiveness, Efficiency and Legitimacy across a number of sub-headings. The inspection was completed in October 2022.

HMICFRS has confirmed their grading of our performance as follows:

• Good - Engaging with and treating the public with fairness and respect
• Adequate - Preventing crime and anti-social behaviour
• Requires Improvement - Responding to the public
• Requires Improvement - Investigating crime
• Requires Improvement - Protecting vulnerable people
• Adequate - Managing offenders and suspects
• Requires Improvement - Building, supporting and protecting the workforce
• Inadequate - Strategic planning, organisational management and value for money

It should be noted that with the change of grading structure from the previous PEEL report it is not possible to make direct comparisons between the grades awarded and those of previous years.

Commenting on the report Lisa Winward, Chief Constable, said: “The publication of the HMICFRS PEEL inspection report shares the findings of an independent and detailed audit of the force and I value and welcome the scrutiny of the inspectors and thank them for their work. The report highlights a number of areas that the force delivers well but also reports on a significant number of areas that require improvement. A number of these relate to the corporate capacity and capability of the organisation linked to workforce planning, governance, performance management, financial planning, and the overall efficiency and effectiveness of our shared enabling services.

“They told us that while the right actions might be taking place on the ground by our people, they were not able to find sufficient evidence of how this was directed and overseen through our governance structure. The Inspectors told us that every single person they spoke to was committed, fully engaged in their work and doing a really good job in difficult circumstances. They told us that our people take pride in being part of North Yorkshire Police and that there is a strong sense of belonging in the force.

“Since we received the hot debrief from HMICFRS in October 2022, we have been working at a pace to address the issues that they have raised so we can focus on our core responsibilities to the public.

“The Organisational Improvement Plan that we have put in place focuses on achieving the standards required to deliver a good service to our communities. The force has been through a significant period of change since our last inspection in 2018, and in particular to our corporate services where our inadequate grading has been identified. We are investing heavily to make these changes.

• The Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner has already approved £1.85M investment into our Force Control Room and we are already seeing the benefits of this investment with an average of 72% of 999 calls being answered within 10 secs in Feb 2023 compared to 46% answered within 10 secs in July 2022.
• We have improved the average time for immediate attendance at urban and rural incidents by over 2.5 minutes from February 2022 (16.8 mins) to February 2023 (14.2 mins).
• We are building up our Safeguarding team with 21 additional posts being added in phase 1 of the programme.
• We have invested in our fleet with 63 new vans being rolled out in the coming months to support our front line officers in servicing calls from the public effectively.
• We have committed £400k to cutting our digital forensics backlog with an ambition to achieve a 50% reduction in the backlog by the end of June 2023. This will ensure that mobile devices will be turned around within much shorter timescales.
• We have introduced training in diversity and inclusion as well as a new First Line Leader Programme and Middle Manager Programme.

“These are particular examples but right across the force we are working to implement a greater level of leadership oversight and performance management on our processes and systems.

“It is worth adding that the Inspectors also found good examples of innovative police work. They particularly highlighted our work with other organisations to divert young people away from offending and to reduce the vulnerability of people becoming victims of crime; a great example of our early intervention work. They noted that our workforce understands the importance of treating the public with fairness and respect. That the force is undertaking effective investigations and that most investigations are well-supervised. They also report that we are effective in apprehending and managing suspects and offenders to protect the public from harm.

“We are implementing an effective improvement plan that I believe will significantly improve our performance across the whole range of HMICFRS metrics and will deliver an improved service to our communities. As the safest place in the country, I can assure the communities of North Yorkshire and the City of York that we remain absolutely committed to keeping you safe, and feeling safe.”