PEEL Assessment 2023-25: Leicestershire Police

The force needs to attend calls for service in line with its published attendance times and make sure the caller is updated if there are delays The force doesn’t always respond to calls for service within its target timescales. In our victim service assessment, we found that attendance was within the required attendance time in 44 of the 75 cases we reviewed. The force only updated callers of delays in attendance in 12 of 25 cases. And officers received effective supervision in 18 of 33 cases we reviewed. A delayed response can lead to the force missing opportunities to safeguard victims and/or collect evidence. The force recognises that the ability to meet its published attendance times is still an issue. It is trying to improve by taking measures through Operation Got, including reviewing where officers are based, but there is only limited evidence to suggest that sustained improvements are being made. If Leicestershire Police can’t attend incidents within the times it says it will and doesn’t always inform victims of delays, this can lead to a loss in public confidence. Leicestershire Police

Leicestershire Police needs to consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims The force isn’t always achieving acceptable outcomes for victims of crime. The number of crimes it solves following investigation is unacceptably low. The force needs to better understand the barriers to successfully bringing offenders to justice. It needs to achieve better outcomes for victims. 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. Between the year ending 31 March 2023 and the year ending 31 March 2024, the proportion of victim-based crimes assigned Outcome : ‘Evidential difficulties (suspect identified; victim does not support or withdraws support)’ by Leicestershire Police decreased from 22.1 percent to 13.6 percent. This value is lower than expected compared to other forces in England and Wales. Leicestershire Police

The force needs to make sure processes are in place to proactively monitor protective orders and bail conditions Where a perpetrator is the subject of protective orders or police bail, we found that officers responsible for investigations aren’t proactively monitoring for breaches and compliance. This means the responsibility falls on the victim to report breaches. We found some pockets of good practice within the Artemis team, which is responsible for investigating online child abuse. We also saw good practice in the enforcement of protection orders and bail for the most high-risk perpetrators of domestic violence. But overall, we didn’t find a consistent force-wide approach. Failing to monitor police bail and protective orders defeats the purpose of applying them in the first place and doesn’t provide the level of safeguarding that victims of crime should expect. This in turn undermines confidence in the police. The force should make sure that there are consistent processes in place to monitor protective orders and police bail. It should also make sure that breaches are prioritised to safeguard the victim. Leicestershire Police

The force must improve its review of risk assessments for standard risk domestic abuse incidents so these are accurate and involve timely referrals to support Officers who have attended a standard risk domestic abuse incident complete an initial risk assessment. These risk assessments are called Domestic Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour-based Violence risk assessments. Leicestershire Police

The force should make sure it is effective at managing demand and can show it has the right resources, structures and processes in place to meet demand across the force We found the force generally had good planning processes in place to make sure that the priorities of the police and crime commissioner were reflected in the priorities and actions of the force. But we also found that the force wasn’t always responding to incidents and crime promptly. The force didn’t have an accurate understanding of unplanned abstractions in its neighbourhood policing department. Abstractions are where personnel are diverted away from their main duties. We also found a large number of vehicles requiring servicing at police headquarters. Officers we spoke with stated that the lack of available vehicles was making it harder for them to meet demand. Many first-line supervisors told us that they lacked the capacity and experience to make improvements in performance in line with force priorities and to properly support the officers and staff they were managing. The force’s planning should support it to respond to incidents promptly. The force should also make sure it allocates demand to appropriately trained and experienced officers. Leicestershire Police