His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), the official watchdog for police forces, has placed Nottinghamshire under “enhanced monitoring”.
HMICFRS said that Nottinghamshire Police “needs to improve how it manages, supervises and carries out effective investigations, and make sure that victims get the support they need.”
It also said that “the force doesn’t have adequate processes, planning or governance arrangements in place to monitor performance effectively or identify areas where improvement is required.”
Explaining the decision, HM Inspector of Constabulary, Roy Wilsher, said: “We move police forces into our enhanced level of monitoring, known as Engage, when a force is not responding to our concerns, or if it is not managing, mitigating or eradicating these concerns.
“The Engage process provides additional scrutiny and support from the inspectorate and other external organisations in the policing sector to help the force improve and provide a better service for the public.
“Nottinghamshire Police has been asked to urgently produce an improvement plan and will meet regularly with our inspectors. We will work closely with the force to monitor its progress against these important and necessary changes.”
The inspectorate has made 11 recommendations, five of which must be implemented immediately:
- review how it manages crimes and make sure that supervisors understand how to use its crime management systems;
- review all crimes which appear to have inadequate supervision, to identify suspects and assess the level of risk to the public they pose;
- review all crimes where victims haven’t received a regular update to assess their needs;
- allocate those crimes for investigation on the basis of seriousness and level of risk; and
- develop its workforce plan to make sure it has effective processes in place and enough officers and staff to help it manage current and future demand.
Six other recommendations must be implemented by 30 September. It says that the force should make sure:
- supervisors review investigations effectively to reduce delays and make sure that officers and staff pursue all reasonable investigative opportunities;
- it creates investigation plans where applicable;
- it uses outcome types appropriately, in accordance with force and national policies, which lead to satisfactory results for victims;
- officers and staff carry out a victim needs assessment where appropriate;
- governance arrangements for programmes for change are effective and that project teams have the capacity to run change projects efficiently, such as the need to review its operating model; and
- senior leaders have access to accurate data and analysis to identify areas where performance needs to improve.
Responding to the announcement, the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, Kate Meynell said: “I recognise the serious nature of the HMICFRS findings. I have taken urgent action to address the immediate concerns raised and have ensured that all of the initial recommendations that relate to our investigations and support for victims have been completed.
“I have tasked a dedicated team of detectives to carry out a thorough review of all of the crimes identified by HMICFRS. This review has found that all of these crimes are being managed by specially trained officers, with supervisors overseeing the progress we make. The review did identify that in two per cent of cases there was not an update from a supervisor recorded on our system, but this does not mean there was no investigative activity being undertaken.
“Victims of crime are at the heart of everything that we do. The team have reviewed all of the cases identified to ensure that victims of crime are receiving regular updates and that these are being correctly recorded. Although the frequency of updates for victims is not specified in the national Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, our target is to provide updates for victims every three weeks. We achieve this in 95 per cent of cases, but we are not complacent and will focus our efforts to improve in this area.” She added: “I fully acknowledge that our force has work to do to achieve our vision of being an outstanding force that we can all be proud of. I am fully committed to working with HMICFRS and we will work tirelessly to address their concerns and deliver the best possible service for the people of Nottinghamshire.”