Select Committee on Transport Minutes of Evidence


Memorandum submitted by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary

INTRODUCTION

  Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Transport Committee inquiry on the effectiveness of traffic policing in England and Wales. HMIC is uniquely positioned to comment on this aspect, both from operational and strategic levels, because of its long history of inspecting police forces and its role in providing the Home Secretary and other stakeholders with professionally informed views on policing issues.

  This submission sets out HMIC's views on the areas relating to traffic policing subject to examination by the Transport Committee.

1.  THE STRUCTURE AND ROLE OF HMIC

  1.1  The principal role of HMIC is to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of policing and law enforcement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland through assessment and inspection of police organisations and functions, for which it has responsibility to ensure:

    —  performance is improved;

    —  good practice is spread; and

    —  standards are agreed, achieved and maintained.

  It is also a key part of HMIC's role to provide advice and support to criminal justice partners and the tripartite partners (Home Secretary, Chief Officers and Police Authorities).

  1.2  Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMCIC) is the principal police advisor to the Home Secretary and fulfils a pivotal role in advising Ministers and Home Office officials on aspects of policing, on both operational and strategic matters. He also supports the Home Secretary in the selection of senior appointments through his chairing of both the Police Leadership Development Board and the Senior Appointments Panel.

  1.3  The HMIC work programme is extensive and increasing demands reflect those placed on the police service generally. Some of this work is described within this report; however, the most visible aspect and perhaps the area in which HMIC is most recognised is its inspection programme, the guidance and advice which flows from it and the production of inspection reports. Focused force inspections, thematic inspections, Basic Command Unit inspections and Best Value review inspections all form part of the programme to drive improved performance within the Police Service. The whole inspection programme is designed to provide support where it is most needed and is informed by an annual comparative Baseline Assessment of all forces.

2.  SUMMARY OF HMIC'S ACTIVITY

  2.1  HMIC is one of the key organisations driving improvements within policing and over the years has fully supported the Government's efforts to reduce casualties. HMIC is fully engaged at all levels within the Home Office and with ACPO on road policing, with HMIs or staff officers contributing to shaping policy and developments.

  2.2  Through a combination of the national community safety plan, the national strategic assessments and the professional expertise which exists within the organisation and its partners, HMIC seeks to identify key priorities for inspection. Using the environmental scanning of the day, one such area was that of road policing.

  2.3  During 1998, HMIC undertook a thematic inspection, which resulted in a report entitled "Road Policing and Traffic". This highlighted a requirement to

    "integrate road policing and traffic officers into core policing and ensure strong and open channels of communication in both directions for information and intelligence".

  The report also called for monitored strategies, based on local needs with structures and suitably trained, experienced resources to meet aims and targets; local commanders held responsible for intelligence-led delivery (with consistent prosecution policy) alongside multi-agency partners; positive action to increase diversity of staff; and investment in technology.

  2.4  Since 1998, HMIC has conducted a further 36 separate thematic inspections on all aspects of policing including Police integrity (1999); crime and disorder (Calling Time on Crime 2000); police visibility and accessibility (Open all hours 2001); training matters (2002); diversity matters (2003); modernising the Service (2004); child abuse prevention and investigation (Keeping safe, Staying safe 2004).

  2.5  In 2004, changes meant that performance information was provided to HMIC as a customer of RDS and the Home Office. Currently, only casualty figures for those killed or seriously injured from road collisions exist and that is for the purposes of the 2010 casualty reduction targets. Some further data is collected by the Home Office but this is limited for any meaningful performance assessment in comparative terms.

  2.6  HMIC's principal methodology for inspection is the Baseline Assessment and this is used to monitor efficiency and effectiveness across a range of 27 policing functions and activities including road policing. It operates through frameworks of questions and standards expected providing self assessments and incorporating the views of other regulators and partners. Following an annual high level comprehensive assessment of strengths and areas for improvement, a tailored programme of inspection activity is set for each force. The results of the baseline assessment for 2005 are detailed later in this paper at Section 4.

3.  ACPO NATIONAL ROADS POLICING STRATEGY

  3.1  In January 2005, the Department for Transport, the Home Office and Association of Chief Police Officers launched their national strategy to set roads policing in the context of overall police work, establish the issues which are a continuing priority for road policing, and identify the principles which should underpin operational practice and the development of policy. The strategy focuses on:

    —  Denying criminals the uses of the roads by enforcing the law.

    —  Reducing road casualties.

    —  Tackling the threat of terrorism.

    —  Reducing anti-social use of the roads.

    —  Enhancing public confidence.

  3.2  The strategy is now part of the delivery of the National Policing Plan. It is recognised that few performance indicators exist and there are proposals within the strategy to develop indicators of outcome.

  3.3  In order to receive a "fair" grading within Baseline Assessment, considered as acceptable performance, forces must have a strategy for road policing based upon the national document.

4.  BASELINE ASSESSMENT

  4.1  In 2005 Baseline Assessments were conducted including roads policing. The self-assessment was carried out before the launch of the above national roads policing strategy, however the assessment fieldwork was carried out after this date.

  4.2  Some five forces were graded as Excellent, 27 as Good, 11 as Fair and none were graded as Poor. Of the 27 frameworks assessed, road policing revealed the 4th best performance nationally. Frameworks on tackling Level 2 criminality and investigating major crime were among the worst performance assessments. The forces graded Excellent for road policing were:

    —  Avon and Somerset.

    —  Hampshire.

    —  Metropolitan.

    —  Staffordshire.

    —  West Midlands.

  4.3  The West Midland Police is the only one of this group that has a roads policing unit (RPU) devolved to each operational command unit (OCU), the remainder have centralised units.

  4.4  With regard to the focus of the inquiry, the assessment revealed a number of key judgements through its framework of questions that may assist:

Is there a systematic approach to determining the resources needed for roads policing? (BA Question 7)

  HMIC identified effective leadership with regards to Road Policing at Chief Officer level in 90% of forces questioned and where significant improvements were necessary in one force, action plans were developed. The resourcing to this function ranged from 1.5% of force establishment to 9.1%. However, this did not impact upon the assessed performance. Training was being delivered to roads policing staff in all forces and evidence was found of specialist crime training being provided to improve the investigation of road deaths as one example.

4.5  Does the force have a roads policing strategy that fully supports and is integrated with other force strategies, including the crime strategy? (BA Question 2)

  HMIC discovered 70% of forces questioned were deemed to have clear, well formulated strategy in place. There was some room for improvement in wider consultation. Only one force needed significant review. All of these documents took account of the national strategy.

4.6  To what extent is roads policing activity intelligence-led? (BA Question 8)

  HMIC revealed 74% of forces questioned were found to have an effective intelligence-led approach. The National Intelligence Model was embedded in RPUs of many forces with resources being tasked appropriately at all levels. Ten forces required some development in this regard.

4.7  Have roads policing performance targets been met and how well does performance compare with other forces? (BA Question 3) Are the arrangements for roads policing -ie, centrally managed or devolved—sufficiently clear to enable effective, co-ordinated delivery? (BA Question 4)

  HMIC found 63% of forces questioned were found to have well formulated processes and culture for monitoring Roads Policing performance. Of the 19 forces questioned on their 2010 casualty reduction target, all reported they were on track to achieve it.

4.8  Does the roads policing strategy set out the relative emphasis on different activities? (BA Question 5) How well is performance measured and managed? (BA Question 6)

  Good use of technology was found in 78% of forces questioned, the remainder (eight forces) did require a degree of review of such use. Clear evidence was found of good exploitation of technology and technical support in the form of automated number plate recognition (ANPR), speed detection equipment and road crash investigation.

4.9  To what extent does the force engage with external partners in relation to roads policing and casualty reduction? (BA Question 11)

  93% of forces questioned were found to have well established and effective partnership arrangements in relation to reducing road casualties. Evidence was found of improved relationships with criminal justice partners.

5.  PROTECTIVE SERVICES REVIEW

  5.1  In June 2004, the then Home Secretary commissioned HMIC to provide a professional assessment of whether the present 43 force structure is the right one to meet the challenges posed by the present and future policing environment.

  5.2  Central to our approach to this work was the concept of protective services, which had its origins in the discussion raised by the Home Office/Strategy Unit report in 2004 on the nature of policing services at different levels. At force, regional and national/international level they suggested that the police protect the public, for example by dealing with serious organised crime & terrorism. This is in contrast to local policing where police work with the public at the neighbourhood level in tackling anti-social behaviour, or where the police work for the public in dealing with volume crime. [1]

  5.3  The focus of protective services necessitated the development of a new methodology for assessing individual force capability and capacity in the following key areas[2]:

    —  Major Crime (homicide).

    —  Serious, Organised and Cross Border Crime.

    —  Counter Terrorism and Extremism.

    —  Civil Contingencies.

    —  Critical Incidents.

    —  Public Order.

    —  Strategic Roads Policing.

  5.4  Within this context "capability" refers to an organisation's ability to provide a service to an agreed standard. "Capacity" refers to how much of that level of service can be provided.

  5.5  The assessment methodology itself is based on the series of templates that were developed in the Mind the (Level 2) Gap report. Each protective service is assessed in relation to standards identified with ACPO on; intelligence (what do we know about the issue); prevention (what are we doing to stop this); and enforcement/resolution (what ability do we have to intervene effectively). The assessments obtained from the review were combined to provide each force with an overall rating for each protective service that was scored on a rating system of 1-4 as follows:

    1.  Only reactive capability demonstrated.

    2.  Reactive capability, with only limited proactive capability demonstrated.

    3.  Reactive capability, with significant proactive capability demonstrated.

    4.  Reactive capability with comprehensive proactive capability demonstrated.

5.6  The Findings

  Overall the findings were stark—very few forces assessed fully met the required standard. It was also apparent that size matters: larger forces were more likely to have much greater capability and resilience whilst, in many cases, smaller forces found it hard to provide the services to an acceptable standard. It was also apparent that being bigger was not enough to guarantee strong protective services. The environment (situation) also mattered. For example, the presence of cities, ports, or events (ie repeated exposure to risks and challenges) also enhance the repertoire of protective services that forces offer the public. Able leadership was also influential in that it allowed smaller forces to punch above their weight on these issues.

  5.7  This trend was also evident in relation to our findings from the assessment of Roads Policing, albeit the correlation was less marked than in the other six protective services. Relative to most of the other protective services Roads Policing can be considered to have scored well, albeit at a national level the average rating fell between a "2" and a "3" and thus did not show sufficient capability and capacity overall. It rated well in relation to "enforcement" and "prevention" functions, but the use of intelligence and information was generally weak and was confined to the gathering and analysis of collision statistics. In particular, many of the forces assessed had no intelligence analyst dedicated to this function. A significant number of forces also had a separate tasking and co-ordinating process for roads policing units and where they were tasked it was generally towards roads policing or reassurance issues rather than tackling Level 2 criminality.

  5.8  Where Roads Policing did appear within Strategic Assessments, the focus was primarily on casualty reduction, with limited or no consideration of tackling Level 2 criminality and terrorist activity on the roads. In some cases, forces that had a high profile for roads policing issues, did not feature it within their policing plan.

  5.9  Where forces had maintained a distinct Roads Policing Unit (RPU) the focus was towards casualty reduction as this is the only area in which there were, and are, clear performance indicators. In addition, the historic role of traffic policing has focussed on enforcement of vehicle related offences and this mindset was still evident within some forces, particularly within centralised RPUs. One force with a centralised unit demonstrating good practice was Thames Valley, with these officers focusing on both casualty reduction and tackling criminality.

  5.10  However, it was also the case that some RPUs suffer from what HMIC has termed "double hatting", which occurs when specialist officers hold dual roles or responsibilities. In many smaller forces RPUs are also often responsible for the provision of firearms cover and the review identified an unfortunate example of the complications that can arise whereby in one force, officers were required leave the scene of a fatal road traffic accident on a major road to deal with a firearms incident because there were no other adequately trained resources immediately available.

  5.11  The work of the Central Motorway Patrol Group (CMPG), a collaborative enterprise between the West Midlands Police, West Mercia Police, Staffordshire Police and Warwickshire Police, has also achieved good results, balancing the desire to address criminality whilst maintaining a focus on casualty reduction. On the debit side, however, there were concerns around infrastructure, procedural and human resource constraints and these have undermined the overall perception of effectiveness.

  5.12  It should further be noted that "Closing the Gap" undertook a detailed analysis of the benefits, or otherwise, of collaboration and concluded that under current policing structures it does not offer an effective or efficient model for gaps in Level 2 services. The experience to date is that management costs are high, the functionality of operational support systems is low and governance problematic. Present progress, practice, and governance together with the fact that some are sceptical of the value of change suggests that at best, progress will be complex, slow and of limited impact. The position is best summarised by one of the contributors to this element of the review who simply stated "any success we have cannot be compared to how much better we would have done if managed by one organisation".

  5.13  The investment of forces into specialist assets such as firearms seems directly attributable to size. In some cases informal arrangements have developed into a permanent service, allowing forces to chose to under-resource in this roads policing area (one force assessed provides ARV cover to their neighbour every night shift, without recompense).

5.14  Building on Good Practice

  One clear benefit of the protective service assessments is that they allowed HMIC to identify key critical success factors. With regards to roads policing high performing forces generally:

    —  Consider the range of national road policing priorities including denying criminals use of the roads network.

    —  Effectively and pro-actively target these resources, through analysis and profiling, to preventative and enforcement activity towards casualty reduction and tackling criminality.

    —  Have developed a robust performance regime which ensures effective measurement of the contribution these resources make to force priorities.

6.  CONCLUSION

  6.1  While there is room for improvement across the country, this framework area of the Baseline Assessment is viewed as positive with less risk than other policing functions given limited HMIC resources. The Protective Services Review provided a countrywide intrusive inspection that added to our knowledge and confirmed our position on roads policing.

7 March 2006



1   Police Reform: A joint Home Office/Strategy Unit project-Summary Report, p 11 (2004). Back

2   These were agreed upon following consultation with ACPO and an analysis of the 2004 National Strategic Assessment. Back


 
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