PEEL Assessment 2023-25: Staffordshire Police

The force should improve its understanding of the use of force In year ending 31 March 2023, Staffordshire Police recorded 4,238 incidents where force was used. We can estimate how many uses of force should be expected by looking at the number of arrests. Each arrest would usually count as a use of force, so we would expect the number of times use of force is recorded to be at least as high as the number of arrests, if not higher. But over the same time frame, Staffordshire Police recorded 12,123 arrests. This would suggest the force is failing to record the use of force consistently, by at least 7,885 incidents. In the year ending 31 March 2023, Black and ethnic minority groups made up 10.8 percent of the recorded use of force incidents and 11.7 percent of arrests. This may indicate that not all use of force incidents with people from ethnic minority groups are being recorded. We also found that the recording of use of force incidents that resulted in an officer being injured may not be accurate. Data provided by the force was sometimes contradictory, with one set of data showing the force as having the highest proportion of officer assaults in the country. Data the force shared with the Home Office suggests that in the year ending 31 March 2023, 7.8 percent of use of force incidents in Staffordshire Police resulted in the officer being injured. This was higher than expected, compared to the 3.6 percent average seen across forces in England and Wales. But other data held by the force showed a lower proportion of assaults on officers following use of force. Staffordshire Police

The force should make sure that sufficient support is provided to student officers and their tutors During our inspection, recently recruited officers told us that they felt welcomed when they first joined the force. In our PEEL workforce survey, 88.3 percent of respondents who were new recruits (196 of 222) felt their line manager nurtured an environment of trust and confidence. However, we were also told that the force doesn’t have enough tutors with sufficient experience and training to meet the demand. The force told us that it has the highest percentage of student officers nationally. Some tutors have to carry out back-to-back tutoring sessions. Tutors didn’t always feel well supported, and felt there was a lack of central co-ordination of the demand they were dealing with. We were also told that inexperienced officers were being accredited as tutors, and that some officers were persuaded to become tutors as a condition for receiving a driving course or other training. We were also told of an example when a new recruit witnessed inappropriate behaviour by a tutor which wasn’t effectively dealt with. In our PEEL workforce survey, 10.1 percent of respondents (75 of 742) felt they had been bullied or harassed while in work. Out of 42 respondents who reported bullying or harassment, either formally or informally, 21 told us that no action had been taken. Staffordshire Police

The force’s operating model should allow it to effectively respond to priorities and assess current and future demand The force should make sure it is effective at managing demand and can show that it has the right resources, processes and plans in place to meet that demand. In our inspection we found that the force has increased its understanding of its performance, and of the demand that performance needs to meet. But we found that the current operating model has created an uneven mix of capability and capacity within the county and city local policing teams. The force is using inexperienced officers to investigate high-risk and complex crimes for which they may not be sufficiently trained or experienced. The force’s crime allocation policy, which it calls its ‘crime continuum’, allocates investigations to either response teams or the criminal investigations department depending on how complex the investigation is expected to be. This means that some crimes whose high level of risk or complexity only becomes clear during the investigation remain with response teams, who are mostly trained only to professionalising investigations programme level 1. This includes the majority of high-risk domestic abuse crimes. The force is aware of this issue, and planned to make sure that at least 70 percent of its response officers were non-student officers. But due to success in recruiting new officers, 70 percent of response policing teams are currently students, and hence in their first three years of service. They are also frequently taken away from their frontline duties to carry out their university work. But we noted that the force has worked with its academic partners to reduce the amount of university work that requires students being taken away from frontline duties. Staffordshire Police

The force needs to reduce the number of non-emergency 101 calls that are abandoned The force told us that in the year ending 31 March 2024, 24.4 percent of calls to its non-emergency 101 number were abandoned by callers before they were answered. This is an improvement since our last inspection. However, as set out in the 2020 national contact management strategy principles and guidance, forces with a switchboard should aim to have an abandonment rate of below 5 percent. High abandonment rates for non-emergencies may result in a lot of callers going on to make inappropriate calls to the 999 system. It also means the force has a degree of risk that isn’t understood or addressed, as the content of any abandoned call and the risk related to it is unknown. The force has improved its understanding of exactly when the caller hangs up during the call. Using that information, it can estimate whether the abandonment has been prompted by the automated interactive voice response system providing suggestions for alternate ways of contacting the force, such as through the website. But the force still lacks a full understanding of whether callers are using alternative methods to contact the force once they have abandoned their calls. The force is investing in a technological solution for answering common queries that don’t require police attendance, such as members of the public calling for updates on crimes. We will continue to assess the force’s efforts to reduce abandoned calls and provide a better service to the public. Staffordshire 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 timescale in 63 of the 87 relevant cases we reviewed. The force only updated callers about delays in attendance in 9 of 24 cases. And deployments in response to a call was effectively supervised in 26 of the 39 relevant cases we reviewed. If the force isn’t attending incidents within its target times and isn’t informing victims of delays, victims could lose confidence and disengage from the process. The delays in attendance primarily occur in grade 2 incidents, those that aren’t emergencies but still require an officer to attend. These should be attended within two hours. However, the force’s data about attendance times for grade 2 incidents may be misleading due to its policy for domestic abuse incidents. When an appointment is made to attend a grade 2 incident at a later time, it is usually downgraded to grade 3. However, the force keeps all domestic abuse incidents at grade 2, even if an appointment has been made, to make sure they continue to be treated as urgent. Because grade 3 incidents have a longer timescale than grade 2 incidents, this approach may make the force’s average attendance times for grade 2 appear longer than they actually are. The force should make sure it understands the full range of factors contributing to high attendance times for grade 2 incidents. The force should also improve the effectiveness of its supervision of deployments. This will help staff to provide timely updates when delays occur. The force plans to reassess its grading policy, which determines the target timescales for attending incidents, in the coming months. Staffordshire Police

The force needs to make sure that risk is reassessed for incidents that are awaiting attendance At the time of our inspection, we found that incidents awaiting attendance were placed in queues while they waited for a unit to be assigned to respond to them. For the first 24 hours that an incident is awaiting attendance, the force contact centre is responsible for managing the response. After that, ownership and management of the response is transferred to local policing teams and their supervisors. This responsibility includes understanding any changing circumstances that might increase or decrease the risk to callers. Staffordshire Police

The force isn’t always achieving the right outcomes for victims of crime Staffordshire Police doesn’t always achieve acceptable outcomes for victims, as it doesn’t solve enough of the crimes it investigates. The force needs to understand this issue and improve its outcomes. In the year ending 31 December 2023, Staffordshire Police recorded 76,199 victim-based crimes. Of these, the force assigned 10.5 percent of these offences an outcome in the ‘offenders brought to justice’ category, such as a charge, summons or caution. This is within the normal range compared with other forces in England and Wales. 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 December 2022 and the year ending 31 December 2023, the proportion of victim-based crimes to which Staffordshire Police assigned the outcome ‘evidential difficulties (suspect identified, victim does not support action)’ (outcome 16) decreased from 30.8 percent to 27 percent. This is still higher than expected compared with other forces in England and Wales. We found that the force understands the outcomes of crime. Effective oversight of these is provided by performance meetings, including the Quality of Investigations Board. The force also carries out thorough audits of its investigations. This allows senior leaders to understand what leads to better outcomes and what improvements might be needed to give victims better justice. The force has been improving the quality of its investigations through training and additional support for investigators and supervisors. The number of offenders charged with offences across England and Wales has been decreasing for a notable period of time. Despite having a higher percentage of positive outcomes than some forces, the proportion of cases where Staffordshire Police achieves a good outcome for the victim remains low. The force must continue to improve its outcomes in order to support and protect victims, and bring offenders to justice. Staffordshire Police

The force needs to make sure it is using outcomes appropriately The force doesn’t always close crimes with the appropriate outcome type. During our inspection, we found it had applied the correct outcome in only 55 of the 85 relevant cases we reviewed. We also found that the force has a backlog of crimes that still need to have an outcome assigned to them. The force has been clearing this backlog by using staff from its crime bureau to review and close crimes and assign outcomes. This process means that correct outcomes are assigned. But the force should make sure it continues to reduce the backlog so it has a more complete understanding of the outcomes of crime, and to remove finalised crimes from investigators’ workloads. The crime bureau also makes sure that all crime reports are assigned the correct outcome, not just those in the backlog. The force told us that compliance rates have improved since this work began earlier in 2024. The correct application of outcomes is essential for effective performance monitoring. If the force incorrectly applies outcomes, then it cannot understand what contributes to certain outcomes, such as victims declining to support prosecution or suspects not being identified. This could undermine its progress in achieving better results for victims. Staffordshire Police

The force should make sure timely investigation plans are created, with supervisory oversight, so that all investigative opportunities are taken During our inspection, we spoke to investigators and reviewed their investigations. We found that the force has clear standards for how investigations should be carried out and supervised, and that supervisors often provide effective support, which is an improvement since our last inspection. But there are still some investigations where the initial investigation plans and supervisory reviews could be better. Staffordshire Police

The force should effectively co-ordinate victim feedback in to improve its services During our last inspection, we advised that the force should collect victim feedback and use this information to improve its services. During this inspection, we did find some examples of this being done, such as trainers using a video of a member of public describing their experience of being arrested and detained in training courses. We also observed vulnerability training that including victims giving accounts of their experiences to police attendees. And we found that some victim feedback is obtained from third sector colleagues such as independent domestic violence advisors and independent sexual violence advisors. But formal and routine collection of victim feedback is limited. The force has recently reintroduced surveys of domestic abuse victims. But it should make sure it collates feedback from a range of sources, analyses it, and uses it to guide the direction of service improvements. Staffordshire Police

The force should make better use of ancillary orders to support and protect vulnerable people The force should increase its consideration and use of preventative orders, such as Domestic Violence Protection Notices (DVPNs) and Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs). And it should create systems to monitor and prioritise breaches of these orders to better safeguard vulnerable people. Staffordshire Police