PEEL Assessment 2023-25: South Wales Police

The force needs to improve how it classifies incidents reported to it The force is failing to consistently classify all incidents reported to it. This means that it is difficult to identify some incidents where crimes may need to be recorded. Fully classifying incident records means that they can be examined and assessed to see if a crime should be recorded. Failing to classify incidents fully means that crimes are sometimes missed. South Wales Police

The force needs to make sure that officers and staff have sufficient skills and experience to carry out quality investigations Our previous inspection identified that the force needed to fulfil its plans to train, develop and retain personnel who investigate crime. In the year ending 31 March 2023, only 55 percent of investigator posts in South Wales Police were filled by personnel qualified to professionalising investigations programme (PIP) level 2. PIP level 2 is the minimum level of competence for investigators of serious and complex crime recommended by the College of Policing. South Wales Police

The force should increase its consideration and use of preventative orders to safeguard vulnerable people in all appropriate cases In the year ending 31 March 2023, South Wales Police recorded 30,157 domestic abuse related crimes. This equated to 23 domestic abuse related crimes per 1,000 population. This was higher than the rate across all forces in England and Wales of 15.8 domestic abuse related crimes per 1,000 population. Despite this, in the same period, the force applied for 30 Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs), which equated to 2.3 DVPOs per 100,000 recorded domestic abuse related crimes during that period. This was lower than the England and Wales average of 19 DVPO applications per 100,000 recorded domestic abuse related crimes. The force, therefore, applied for DVPOs in only 0.1 percent of all cases of domestic abuse related crimes, which was lower than expected compared to other forces across England and Wales. In the year ending 31 March 2023, South Wales Police recorded 2,798 stalking offences, which equated to 2.1 offences per 1,000 population. This was similar to the average across all forces in England and Wales of 2 offences per 1,000 population. During this time, the force made only one full Stalking Protection Order application at court, which was granted. Orders such as these help keep vulnerable victims safe from offenders while victims make more permanent plans to keep themselves safe or seek help from services such as independent domestic violence advisers. Failure to apply for protective orders where appropriate denies victims this opportunity and potentially places them at risk of greater harm. The force has recently recruited a stalking co-ordinator and a preventative orders officer. It has also provided training to the workforce about how to apply for orders. These are positive steps, but it isn’t yet possible to assess whether this recruitment and training will result in an increased number of successful protective order applications. Innovative practice South Wales Police

The force needs to make sure it consistently complies with the required legislative processes and timescales of the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme Our last inspection identified that the force needed to meet the nationally recommended time limits for making disclosure decisions under the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme. The force has centralised its management of the scheme within its safeguarding and public protection command. It has refreshed guidance to make sure that all personnel involved in the process understand their responsibilities. A data dashboard now helps supervisors to closely monitor timeliness at every stage of the process and to identify when they need to use members from other teams to minimise delays. We found that inspectors had reviewed the progress and safeguarding risks of each case we audited. We found that in most areas, almost all applications awaiting disclosure decisions were within the national 28-day limit. But in Cardiff, 44 disclosure decisions were overdue. The force’s disclosure rate within the time limit is 38 percent. The multi-agency joint inspection of child protection arrangements in Bridgend in June 2023 found that personnel didn’t always fully understand the force’s Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme process. It also found that they didn’t progress applications in a timely manner. The force has made encouraging progress but needs to demonstrate sustainable improvement in promptly informing applicants of the information it needs to make decisions about their safety. South Wales Police

South Wales Police provides instant and effective guidance to help its workforce safeguard vulnerable people, including stalking victims The force knows that it needs to improve the safeguarding of stalking victims. It has developed an app to help personnel carry out stalking and domestic abuse risk assessments and refer victims to advice and commissioned services. At the time of our inspection, the force had recently introduced the app and had yet to evaluate its effect on referrals. The force is also adding more functionality to the app for other types of incidents involving vulnerable people. South Wales Police

The force needs to record all crimes that involve vulnerable people The force doesn’t record all crimes in cases involving child protection or vulnerable adults. In our audit, we found that the force should have recorded 38 crimes but had only recorded 22. It is important that the force keeps accurate records and records crimes against vulnerable victims. This helps to make sure that crimes are fully investigated, offenders are brought to justice and crime data is complete. South Wales Police

The force needs to improve how it records crime when antisocial behaviour targeted at an individual is reported The force is failing to record nearly all crimes and tackle problems when victims report antisocial behaviour personal. We examined 50 incidents involving antisocial behaviour targeted at individuals that had been closed with that classification. Of those, only 2 of the 15 crimes that should have been recorded were. Victims of antisocial behaviour can be subject to long-term abuse and torment, often from neighbours. Failing to record and tackle antisocial behaviour and crime can mean victims live in fear in their own homes. South Wales Police

The force still needs to improve how it records equality data The force’s data for victims of crime shows that age and gender are well recorded. However, ethnicity is less well recorded and other protected characteristics aren’t recorded. The force should be collecting this information to understand the extent to which each protected group is affected by crime, how this differs from those without the protected characteristics and whether a different response is needed for these victims. South Wales Police

The force needs to make sure it complies with the requirement from the National Police Chiefs’ Council to record all use of force. It needs to make sure its data is accurate and robust so it can understand the reasons for any disproportionality In the year ending 31 March 2022, the force recorded 20,595 use of force incidents, which corresponds to 15.7 incidents per 1,000 population. This is a 10.9 percent decrease compared to the previous year when 23,116 incidents were recorded. We would expect the number of times use of force is recorded to be greater than the number of arrests. South Wales Police recorded 16,748 arrests in the year ending 31 March 2022, which is consistent with this expectation. Officers we spoke to could explain their understanding about when their use of force needs to be recorded, but some were unaware of any process to make sure this happens. Some officers and supervisors told us that technical difficulties sometimes make it difficult to attach use of force recording forms to the force crime and incident recording system. Therefore, it can’t be guaranteed that the force records every use of force properly. We also found that although the force publishes data about use of force incidents on its website, it was difficult to find data about force used on people with disabilities. South Wales Police

The force needs to make sure it answers emergency calls quickly enough In the year ending 30 June 2023, South Wales Police received 186 emergency 999 calls per 1,000 population. This was in line with other forces in England and Wales. In the same period, the force answered 76.1 percent of its 999 calls within ten seconds. This is below the expected standard of answering 90 percent of calls within ten seconds. The force told us that more recent data shows that the percentage of 999 calls being answered within 10 seconds has improved slightly but remains below the expected standard. Emergency calls for service must be answered promptly so that police officers are sent to protect victims or investigate crimes quickly enough. Otherwise, the force may miss opportunities to bring offenders to justice on behalf of victims of crime. The force has plans to improve its contact management operating model and call-handling performance. We would encourage the force to make sure that these plans are implemented. a force and the time taken by that force to answer the call. South Wales Police

The force needs to attend calls for service in line with its published attendance times In our victim service assessment, we found that the incident response time was within the required attendance time in 64 of the 79 relevant cases we examined (whether downgraded or not). The force publishes its expected time frames for officer attendance at incidents. Those requiring urgent attendance are graded 1 and should be attended within 15 minutes. Non-emergency calls for which attendance should be prioritised are graded 2 and attendance is expected within 1 hour. We found that the force’s average attendance time for grade 2 priority calls that weren’t associated with domestic abuse was 1 hour and 11 minutes. However, domestic abuse related grade 2 priority calls took more than twice as long to attend – an average of 2 hours and 23 minutes. In addition, too many domestic abuse related calls were held by the control room for over an hour before officers were dispatched to help victims. The force told us it is doing work to fully understand why the time taken to reach victims of domestic abuse is longer. This has led to improvements. This action should be kept under rigorous review. We also found that although call handlers and missing persons specialists often correctly assessed the risk of harm to missing people, there were still lengthy delays before allocating officers to help find them. This delayed response means that the force may miss opportunities to safeguard victims and collect evidence that could help bring offenders to justice. The force has published its commitment to tackling violence against women and girls. But by delaying its attendance at domestic abuse incidents, the force may risk losing the confidence and support of victims. South Wales Police

The force needs to effectively identify, investigate and supervise vulnerability and crime associated with incidents that officers don’t attend The force control room has an incident resolution team (IRT). The IRT is responsible for triaging and resolving non-urgent (grade 4) incidents, which officers should normally attend within 24 hours. The IRT is responsible for dealing with grade 2 incidents that call takers think might be suitable for resolution on the phone rather than by deploying officers to attend. We found examples of incidents for which the risks to victims had been assessed superficially or not at all by call handlers or IRT staff. Often, crimes relating to domestic abuse involving children and antisocial behaviour weren’t identified. Our victim service assessment also identified that the force fails to record almost all crime linked to antisocial behaviour reported to it. Staff told us that the IRT has a target to finalise 75 percent of incidents every day and that any incident will be closed after three unsuccessful attempts to contact the caller. We found several examples where this had happened. This is contrary to the force’s own policy, which states that this shouldn’t happen where there are opportunities to identify or investigate crimes. We also found tasks that appeared to have been assigned to individual IRT staff when they were away from work for a number of days. This meant that investigations on behalf of victims were likely to be delayed. The control room and IRT have a dip sample-based quality assurance and supervision process. But we found that most performance improvement feedback was given via email and not in person. We saw examples of officers failing to carry out thorough risk assessments, with no apparent follow-up supportive action. Unless the force effectively identifies and supervises the investigation of vulnerability and crime at an early stage, it can’t be confident that all crime will be recorded and victims protected. Innovative practice South Wales Police

The force doesn’t consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims South Wales Police solves an unacceptably small number of crimes following investigation. The force needs to understand the issue and work to achieve better outcomes for victims. In the year ending 30 June 2023, South Wales Police recorded 88,466 victim-based crimes. Of these recorded offences, 10.1 percent were assigned an ‘offences brought to justice’ outcome. This is within the normal range compared to other forces in England and Wales. of our inspection and may have been revised since. British Transport Police and City of London data is excluded from the England and Wales rate. Total police-recorded crime includes all crime (except fraud). our inspection and may have 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 a corporate body. South Wales Police