Inspectorate report shows Staffordshire Police continues to improve

Against the backdrop of many forces seeing their gradings reduce in this current inspection window, it sees Staffordshire Police emerge as one of the most improved forces in the country.

This positive inspection follows the force being removed from HMICFRS’ ‘Engage’ enhanced monitoring process in May following improvements to specific areas of our service.

In particular, the Inspectorate has rated us as ‘Good’ in preventing and deterring crime and antisocial behaviour and reducing vulnerability.

It has further rated the force as competent or ‘Adequate’ in the following areas: police powers and treating the public fairly and respectfully, managing offenders and suspects, building, supporting and protecting the workforce and leadership and force management.

But it also says we need to do more in the areas of responding to the public, investigating crime, protecting vulnerable people, with these three areas rated as requiring improvement.

Since our last full inspection over two years ago, we have been focused on improving all our areas of policing by adopting a back-to-basics approach to ensure we focus on delivering the best possible service to our communities – answering emergency calls faster, arresting more criminals, solving more crimes and further improving our local policing model. 

We have seen improvements in the amount of time it takes us to answer 999 calls, how we identify vulnerable callers and how we ensure they get the right support, right away. Investments in our control room and the introduction of new processes and teams mean we now answer the majority of 999 calls in less than 10 seconds, a 15-second improvement from two years ago.

HMICFRS has recognised that we need to do more in reducing wait times for our non-emergency 101 service and we already have plans in place to enhance this service through investing in more staff and adopting cutting-edge technology, to ensure it’s a response we are proud of.

We’ve also invested heavily in a new public protection unit to provide more officers to tackle the most serious crimes, such as serious violence and sexual assault, which have a lasting impact on vulnerable people.

We are well underway in addressing the Inspectorate’s challenge to us as to how we respond more consistently and effectively to reports of domestic abuse. We are currently working on a new approach that will significantly reduce the time it takes to respond to grade 2 domestic abuse-related incidents. We have also already implemented a seven-step plan which seeks to improve our

You can read more on our PEEL report here