PEEL Assessment 2023-25: Essex Police

The force still needs to improve how it records equality data The force’s data for victims of crime still shows that age and gender are well recorded, ethnicity is less well recorded, and other protected characteristics are hardly ever recorded. The force should be collecting this information to understand the extent to which crime affects each protected group, how this differs from those without protected characteristics, and whether a different response is needed for these victims. Essex Police

The force should improve its governance, performance monitoring and auditing of vulnerability, to effectively protect vulnerable people The force oversees progress of a nationally accepted action plan to support improvement and response plans across vulnerability. But its governance arrangements don’t have enough focus or structure for the force to understand all of the risk being managed and respond appropriately to concerns. The force makes some use of performance data to track progress, but this should be strengthened. We found that the governance structure for the force's response to domestic abuse was fragmented. This left the force without oversight of some aspects of this important part of policing. The force is one of the lead agencies of the multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC), where partners meet to discuss how to keep high-risk victims of domestic abuse safe. At the start of our inspection, we couldn’t find a senior officer with responsibility for this important work. This meant the force wasn’t sufficiently aware of how the MARAC processes were functioning. For example, in the year ending 30 September 2024, 2,050 cases were discussed at MARAC meetings in Essex. This is lower than the 3,120 recommended by the domestic abuse charity SafeLives, based on the size of the local population. This suggests that information about all appropriate cases may not be shared between partner agencies. The MARAC processes increase the safety of victims and their children. Following our feedback, the force aligned responsibility for MARAC to senior officers. Effective governance processes make sure that procedures are being followed. They should identify and resolve issues before they arise. But we came across an example where the force only identified a systemic failure in the protection of vulnerable adults after a death. Frontline officers should send a referral form to a specialist team within Essex Police, who should then review the case and pass details of vulnerable adults on to local authority safeguarding teams. The force told us that 26.3 percent of the reports written by frontline officers in a 12-month period weren’t sent in the required way to this specialist team, and 14.9 percent were never received by them at all. Failing to pass on information about vulnerable adults prevents partners from making sure they are safeguarded. Despite this, Essex Police chose to review only 306 of 547 relevant cases. Senior officers told us that a new process had been introduced to make sure these reports were automatically sent to the specialist team. This was not the case. A new process had been designed but was still awaiting implementation. The force and its officers and staff are committed to protecting vulnerable people. We saw many examples of good oversight, auditing and use of performance data. But these two examples show that the force needs to make sure the breadth and quality of its governance, performance monitoring and auditing is at a level that allows it to identify and address issues consistently. Essex Police

The force should make sure it has compliance monitoring processes for suspects on conditional bail and improve its use of Domestic Violence Protection Orders in appropriate cases The force has a good understanding of the use of pre-charge bail with appropriate conditions to safeguard victims. This is an important tool to protect not only domestic abuse victims, but also victims of other types of serious crime such as child abuse and sexual offences. But the force doesn’t consistently monitor suspects who are on bail with conditions, set by the police or courts, to make sure they are abiding by these conditions. This places the responsibly of reporting any breaches of bail conditions on victims, who may be traumatised or afraid. In our 2021/22 PEEL inspection, we said that the force should make sure that preventative orders are considered in all appropriate cases. Since then, the force told us it has implemented better processes to achieve higher levels of applications for Domestic Violence Protection Notices and Domestic Violence Protection Orders ( POs). The force also has processes to monitor perpetrators’ compliance with these orders. In the year ending 30 September 2024, the force was a low user of DVPOs. It only applied for these important orders in 0.76 percent of recorded domestic abuse-related crimes. Levels of applications did improve between 30 June 2023 and 30 June 2024, but in the three months to 30 September 2024 began declining. The force needs to make sure that it applies for DVPOs in all relevant cases. Essex Police

The force should introduce processes to monitor the quality and timeliness of police referrals for all vulnerable children, review these cases for cumulative risk and arrange for strategy discussions to be swiftly convened when necessary We found inconsistent processes for sharing information between the force and children’s social care teams. The force had one method for Thurrock Council and Southend-on-Sea Council, and a different approach for Essex County Council. Officers used to input information directly into Essex County Council records management systems. This meant they weren’t creating a record of any referral within police systems. There was no oversight, supervision, quality assurance, formal research, triage or tracking of these referrals. This lack of oversight meant the force wasn’t promptly and systematically contacting Essex County Council to initiate joint strategy meetings when necessary. These kinds of delays can result in safeguarding interventions not being put in place, with children left at risk of harm unnecessarily. We also found cases where police and social care staff should have carried out joint visits to see children, but they hadn’t. We were told that the force had been working extensively with Essex County Council’s children’s social care to improve how information is shared. In January 2025, the referral process changed. A report is now sent by officers to Essex Police’s child triage team. They review and develop the report to the same standard found in other parts of the force area. This allows police to rapidly identify if it is necessary to arrange a strategy discussion. The force committed funding to Essex County Council’s children’s social care so that police referrals can be added to council systems each morning. A small team of officers and staff – known as the children and families’ hub - have been co-located within council buildings to improve communication and access to information. There are no plans for this new hub to carry out the role of a multi-agency safeguarding hub, which we found to be working well in Thurrock and Southend-on-Sea Councils’ areas. The force should make sure that it works effectively with its partners to keep children safe in all three council areas. Essex Police

The force needs to make sure all personnel working in multi-agency safeguarding roles have suitable training Safeguarding vulnerable people of any age can be complex. It is important that officers and staff with this responsibility have the skills and training necessary to provide a high-quality safeguarding response. Personnel should be able to correctly identify and reduce risk and arrange an appropriate multi-agency response. During our inspection, we spoke to many committed and knowledgeable officers and staff. In some teams, guides had been developed to help new starters. Personnel routinely work with partners to safeguard vulnerable children and adults. But, apart from training for detectives working to protect children, we found there was no formal training in place for personnel in safeguarding roles. The force should make sure that officers and staff responsible for protecting vulnerable people have sufficient training to carry out their role effectively. Essex Police

Supervisor ratios for officers and staff managing registered sex offenders are too high and need to be lowered, particularly at a time when the force is embedding necessary changes All police, probation and prison services use the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) database to manage the risk posed to the public by convicted sexual and violent offenders. The lead agency risk assesses the offender in partnership with other agencies, using all available information. Police use an active risk management system to establish the risk level when they are the lead agency, and then develop a risk management plan for the offender. The risk management plan details how the risk will be managed by all partner agencies, including the probation service. While the force had a local system to monitor the number of overdue active risk management system assessments, risk management plans and visits to offenders’ homes, this didn’t reflect the information held on iSOR. This meant that senior officers thought the force’s management of sexual and violent offenders (MOSOVO) process was working well, but this was not the case. The force responded quickly to concerns we raised and has made some improvements, but more is needed to effectively manage the risk these offenders pose to the public. Essex Police should visit all offenders regardless of whether the force or probation service is the lead agency. The police have the power to enter homes and carry out checks in accordance with court orders that restrict an offender’s activity, such as Sexual Harm Prevention Orders. The force hadn’t been doing this systematically and was instead prioritising cases where it was the lead agency. This meant it could miss a change in behaviour that may put the public at risk. The force has improved its use of ViSOR. It has received support from other forces to understand how best to use the system. But, at the time of our inspection, there were still delays in the system being updated and errors identifying who the lead agency was. We will monitor with interest its plans to trial technology to help offender managers record information from their visits in a timelier manner. The force makes sure its management of sexual and violent offenders department is kept at full strength and tries to maintain an appropriate ratio of offender manager to 50 offenders. Each of these managers has a supervisor. An imbalance in team sizes means the workload of these supervisors is very different. The force told us that in one area supervisors were responsible for supervising the management of 236 offenders compared to 517 in another. The number of offender managers they supervised varied between 5 and 13 officers and staff members. The force provides some support to the busiest supervisors, but they were still having to work extra hours to carry out their role. Supervisors need the time to support offender managers as they carry out the extra work generated by increased focus on all offenders, regardless of who the lead agency is. The force needs to make sure supervisors have a manageable number of reviews to complete. This will allow them to provide meaningful oversight of the risk posed by offenders in the community. Essex Police

The force needs to maximise its available capacity and capability to improve services in key areas In our 2021/22 PEEL inspection, we highlighted the force’s inconsistent resourcing. The lack of understanding of capacity and skills in key areas was putting pressure on the workforce and affecting the service provided by Essex Police. The force has carried out strategic analysis of demand and uses its force management statement process to assess capacity and capability. It has focused its continuous improvement programme on key challenge areas including local policing, investigation and custody provision. But during our inspection, we found that developing the capability of the workforce and having sufficient capacity remains a challenge. The force doesn’t have enough investigators accredited at Professionalising investigations programme level 2. The force plans to fill this gap, but projects that, it still won’t have achieved the required number by 2030. The force has shifted resources to manage demand in the domestic abuse investigation teams, but some of these officer redeployments are only temporary. And at the time of our inspection, just under half of the officers dedicated to domestic abuse investigation had completed the necessary training. The force should make sure that the capacity and capability of its workforce matches demand, with officers and staff using their skills fully and deployed to best effect. Essex Police

The force needs to improve how it records crime when antisocial behaviour personal is reported The force is failing to record enough crimes when antisocial behaviour is reported by victims. We examined 50 incidents classed as antisocial behaviour personal. Of these, seven crimes should have been recorded, but only three were actually recorded. Victims of antisocial behaviour are often subjected to abuse and torment for substantial periods of time. Failing to record crimes and effectively tackle antisocial behaviour can mean that victims live in fear in their own homes. Essex Police

The force needs to improve its training to make sure officers understand and properly record the use of stop and search powers During our inspection, we reviewed a sample of 189 stop and search records from 1 August 2023 to 31 July 2024. On the basis of this sample, we estimate that 79.9 percent (+/- 5.7 percentage points) of all stop and searches carried out by the force during this period had reasonable grounds. This is broadly unchanged compared to the findings from our previous review of records in 2022, when we found that 85.7 percent (+/- 4.9 percentage points) of stop and searches had reasonable grounds recorded. Of the records we reviewed for stop and searches on people who self-identify as being from an ethnic minority background, 40 out of 44 had reasonable grounds. Officers should ask the person being searched how they define their ethnicity and record this. In the year ending 31 March 2024, 30 percent of the records submitted by Essex Police didn’t record the person’s self-defined ethnicity. This means that Essex Police’s understanding of disproportionality is reduced, as it only uses officer-defined ethnicity in its analysis. The force believes this stems from officers’ lack of confidence in asking this question and plans to address this through training. A supervisor should formally oversee all records of stop and search. The force has strengthened its approach to make sure this happens consistently. The force also carries out more detailed checks of the body-worn video recordings of some stop and search encounters. Previously, these weren’t being completed in line with force expectations. This meant that opportunities to improve were being missed, until senior officers held individual supervisors and their managers to account. The force needs to make sure that it continues to increase the number of more detailed checks it carries out, and that it allows officers to learn from these checks. Officers are required to provide a detailed written record of the grounds for the search and other key information. Supervisors who review these records should be trained to assess officers’ performances and give effective feedback. The police’s use of stop and search is a valuable tool in preventing and detecting crime. However, if a force can’t show it uses stop and search fairly, there is a real risk to the public’s trust and confidence in these powers. Essex Police

Essex Police should improve processes to make sure it understands and effectively scrutinises how its officers are using force Essex Police doesn’t have sufficient internal scrutiny of all its use of force to identify opportunities to learn and improve. The force has robust processes to review instances of police dog bites, the use of Tasers, and when force is used within a custody area. It also looks to identify learning from complaints made by members of the public and when officers are assaulted. But there is no process to review when force is used in other circumstances. The force requires officers to routinely use body-worn video on duty. This means that, the majority of the time, there is a recording of officers’ use of force. Supervisors should review some of this footage to make sure interactions are lawful, fair and respectful. The public supports Essex Police by scrutinising how its officers use their stop and search powers. But, at the time of our inspection, these scrutiny groups were only able to give their views on force used during a search. Essex Police should increase the types of use of force that are subject to external scrutiny and use this learning to inform officers’ training. Essex Police

The force should consistently identify crimes and incidents that relate to antisocial behaviour and complete effective risk assessments We found that the force is inconsistent in identifying antisocial behaviour linked to cases when they record other types of crime or incident. This means it isn’t always carrying out effective risk assessments, which help inform how the force should deal with a case. Local policing team officers who attend reports of antisocial behaviour incidents aren’t correctly identifying medium and high-risk cases. Sometimes, control room personnel will provide the attending officers with background information about the caller, suspect or location, which is held on police systems. But officers are often expected to find this information themselves. During our inspection, we were told that officers are generally not doing this. This means that officers aren’t always identifying repeat and vulnerable victims, a key element of the risk-assessment process. By failing to carry out adequate, consistent risk assessments, the force isn’t always giving victims the support they need. The force has a meeting chaired by a senior officer, which should review high-risk and repeat antisocial behaviour cases. But this meeting relies on incomplete data due to the lack of consistent identification of antisocial behaviour and the flawed officer risk assessments. This means that the force’s scrutiny processes fail to make sure that victims receive the robust level of police investigation, problem- solving and safeguarding support required. Essex Police

The force needs to consistently use problem-solving tools, and systematically record and learn from this activity In our 2021/22 PEEL inspection of Essex Police, we said that the force needs to do more to evaluate its approach to problem-solving and tackling crime. The force hasn’t responded quickly enough to this area for improvement. This means that victims may be let down, and the force is failing to effectively learn what does, and does not, work. The force has instructed all neighbourhood policing officers and staff to complete online training, and provided problem-solving training to many officers. The force is planning to enhance its training provision and has appointed an officer to a new dedicated training role. Encouragingly, we found that problem-solving was seen as something everyone in the force should be doing. In July 2024, the force introduced a problem-solving hub, which, as well as providing guidance, should hold a record of all finalised and ongoing problem-solving plans. At the time of our inspection, there were 56 plans stored on this hub. Its purpose is to allow those dealing with new problems to draw on the experience of others as they develop formal plans, using a recognised model based on scanning, analysis, response and assessment. We found that some of these plans lacked detail, while others had been in place for a long time without being refreshed or reviewed by a supervisor. Officers and staff we spoke to demonstrated an awareness of problem-solving techniques. But the value of consistently using formal plans and the force’s recording process, wasn’t accepted by everyone. Essex Police

The force needs to reduce the number of non-emergency calls the caller abandons because they aren’t answered In the year ending 31 December 2024, the force told us that 26.73 percent of calls to its non-emergency 101 number were abandoned. As set out by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in its 2020 National Contact Management Strategy principles and guidance, forces with a switchboard should aim to have an abandonment rate lower than 5 percent. A high abandonment rate of non-emergency calls may mean that callers go on to make inappropriate calls to the 999 system. It also means that a force has a degree of risk that isn’t understood or addressed, as the content of any abandoned call and the risk it may have contained is unknown. This was an area for improvement in our 2021/22 PEEL inspection. During this inspection we found that the force analyses data to help understand why people hang up. It checks to see if the caller followed advice given in a recorded message and reported the incident using its online system. But it still needs to take steps to reduce the number of calls that are abandoned. Essex Police

The force doesn’t consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims The force isn’t always achieving acceptable outcomes for victims of crime. The number of crimes that it solves following investigations is low. The force needs to understand why this is, and work to achieve better outcomes for victims. been revised since. British Transport Police and City of London data are excluded from the England and Wales rate. Total police-recorded crime includes all crime (except fraud). For a full commentary and explanation of crime and outcome types please see the Home Office statistics. been revised since. Victim-based crimes are defined as all police-recorded crimes where there is a direct victim, such as an individual, an organisation or corporate body. In the year ending 30 June 2024, Essex Police recorded 128,679 victim-based crimes. Of these recorded offences, 11.6 percent were assigned offences brought to justice outcomes. This was within the normal range compared to other forces in England and Wales. We found that the force scrutinises outcomes at its performance and crime standards board meetings. This allows senior leaders to understand performance and what improvements may be needed to give victims better justice. In the year ending 30 June 2024, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned each outcome by Essex Police was in the normal range for forces in England and Wales, except for outcomes 21 and 22. In the year ending 30 une 2024, the force’s rate of assigning outcome 21 (suspect identified, further action not in public interest (police decision)) for victim-based crimes was 0.0 percent, which was lower than typical for forces in England and Wales, where the average was 0.6 percent. The force only applies this outcome after consideration by a decision-maker in its central team. In the year ending 30 une 2024, the force’s rate of assigning outcome 22 (diversionary, educational or intervention activity) for victim-based crimes was 1.3 percent, which is higher than expected for forces in England and Wales. The force’s use of this outcome has reduced since the year ending 30 September 2023, when it stood at 1.9 percent. The force reviewed how it was using this outcome to make sure it was only used in the correct circumstances. Essex Police has an operation to reduce the theft of motor vehicles. A key part of this is to bring more offenders to justice. This involves officers and staff across the force, including specialist investigators, working in a co-ordinated way. For example, by checking cargo containers awaiting export through the ports and identifying organised crime groups responsible for vehicle theft. Increased performance focus on this type of crime and the introduction of minimum standards of investigation are significant parts of this operation. Essex Police

The force should make sure it carries out a victim needs assessment where appropriate In our last inspection of Essex Police, we found that the force needed to make sure it complied with the requirements of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime ('the Victims' Code'). The force hasn’t made enough progress in this area. In 85 of 100 cases examined during our latest victim service assessment, the force was judged to provide a good level of service in line with the ictims’ Code. But we found limited use of victim needs assessments. These happen early in a case to determine if a victim needs any extra support during the investigation or later in court. They were clearly recorded in only 30 of 74 relevant cases. Where a victim was entitled to an enhanced service, it was recorded in only 29 of 45 relevant cases. The force told us of the introduction of an action plan to improve performance in this area. But, during our fieldwork, we found that while officers were aware something needed to change, they were unclear what was actually required and why. It is important that the force understands victims’ needs so it can give them the right support. Essex Police