Source · HMICFRS

PEEL Assessment 2023-25: Cambridgeshire Constabulary

12 March 2024 PEEL Force Inspection 3 recommendations 2 causes for concern 5 areas for improvement

PEEL 2023-25 inspection findings for Cambridgeshire Constabulary

Applicable forces

Causes for concern

Concern Open The constabulary must improve how quickly it answers emergency and non-emergency calls In the year ending 30 June 2023, the constabulary answered 80.1 percent of 999 calls within 10 seconds. This was lower than the 90 percent level expected of forces in England and Wales. But since then, the constabulary’s performance has got even worse. In September 2023, it only answered 71.2 percent within 10 seconds. In the year ending September 2023, the constabulary told us that callers abandoned 32 percent of calls to its non-emergency 101 line. This abandonment rate relates to 101 calls that the constabulary has already answered and risk assessed. It then determines if a call is an emergency and whether the caller is vulnerable. Lower-risk calls are then placed in a queue for call handlers to answer. The constabulary’s messaging system asks people to hang up and report online. But the constabulary can’t measure if callers hang up because of the long waiting times or because they choose to report online instead. And it can’t measure if people report online because they are following the system’s advice. The constabulary is actively working with its phone providers to make sure the phone system can start providing this data. Every three months, senior leaders examine call handling data. They call back some people who hung up to find out why they abandoned their call. They also survey call handlers to check that they dealt with callers appropriately. The constabulary should use performance data to understand what is going wrong and improve how quickly it answers calls. ottinghamshire Avon and Somerset Lincolnshire Cumbria reater Manchester Leicestershire Cleveland Cheshire yfed Powys orfolk Humberside West orkshire Cambridgeshire South orkshire Staffordshire Thames Valley Hertfordshire Essex orthamptonshire went orth Wales Suffolk South Wales Surrey West Midlands Warwickshire West Mercia Merseyside Sussex evon and Cornwall ent orset urham orthumbria Metropolitan Police Hampshire erbyshire Wiltshire Lancashire orth orkshire Bedfordshire loucestershire Proportion of calls answered in under seconds Target of calls should be answered in under seconds Cambridgeshire Constabulary

Concern Open The constabulary isn’t managing risks posed by registered sex offenders in the community Our inspection found that police personnel regularly visit registered sex offenders on their own. This is contrary to authorised professional practice. This is because meeting registered sex offenders individually makes personnel vulnerable to grooming. Senior leaders told us that visits like this only occurred after risk assessments and with oversight from supervisors. But more junior personnel told us this was common practice to deal with heavy workloads. To provide effective oversight, the constabulary should hold regular meetings to examine its performance and the data available on it. This should set out the backlog’s size, the risk posed by these cases and the most overdue visit. We found that performance data is held at a local level and contains the total number of overdue visits at each risk level. But it doesn’t show how overdue visits are or the specific risks in individual cases. Senior leaders don’t routinely see this data. This stops them taking good decisions to give staff the resources and support they need. Leaders must have clear oversight of performance information like this. This will make sure they can understand risks, backlogs and whether individual visits are taking place. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

Recommendations

R1.1 Open Improve its ability to answer public calls by placing enough police personnel with the right skills and experience in its demand hub. Within six months, Cambridgeshire Constabulary should:. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

R1.2 Open Make sure it answers a higher percentage of emergency calls more quickly. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

R1.3 Open Make sure it answers a higher percentage of non-emergency calls, so callers abandon them as rarely as possible. 19. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

Areas for improvement

AFI The constabulary doesn’t consistently achieve good outcomes for victims Cambridgeshire Constabulary doesn’t always achieve acceptable outcomes for victims. It doesn’t solve enough of the crimes it investigates. The constabulary needs to understand this issue and improve outcomes. In the year ending 30 June 2023, Cambridgeshire Constabulary recorded 59,919 victim-based crimes. It assigned . percent of these offences an ‘offenders brought to justice’ outcome, compared to . percent in the year ending September 2022. This 10.8 percent figure is much higher than expected compared to other forces across England and Wales. The constabulary should improve its recording of victims’ decisions, including why they stop supporting investigations. It should also make sure it records if personnel considered evidence-led prosecutions. These are cases the police continue with, even though victims don’t support it. The constabulary usually doesn’t consult victims before it decides which outcome to assign to a case. Our victim service assessment found that it only consulted victims about this in 39 out of 57 cases we reviewed. We also found that the constabulary tried to progress without the victim’s support in only six of nine relevant cases. By not pursuing prosecution on behalf of victims, it may have missed chances to get results for them. The constabulary should improve in both areas. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

AFI The constabulary should make sure personnel involved in multi-agency work understand their roles and have the necessary skills and training to do them When we inspected the multi-agency safeguarding hub and the child exploitation hub, we found that some supervisors had limited experience in safeguarding. The constabulary had no formal safeguarding induction or training for people in these roles. This meant that some don’t have the knowledge they need. These same staff attend important meetings about children at significant risk of harm. In addition, this might mean these personnel don’t understand their role or those of other agencies in multi-agency work. It could make it harder for them to assess risk and lead safeguarding activity. To keep children and adults safe, personnel must have good working knowledge or experience of safeguarding. We told the constabulary about our findings. It is now creating a new training programme. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

AFI The constabulary should make sure police personnel who chair multi-agency conferences are suitably trained and senior A multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC) is a meeting which discusses domestic abuse victims at high risk of serious harm or murder. Many partners attend these meetings. This includes the police, health and housing agencies, the Probation Service, independent domestic violence advocates and specialists from the voluntary sector. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

AFI The constabulary should improve how it manages individual performance so that it can effectively develop its people We found mixed views about how the constabulary manages individual performance. Police officers told us that, unless they want a promotion or move to a specialist role, they see little value in it. Officers told us they only complete a performance review because it is linked to pay rises for the first seven years in the role. They also only complete the parts needed to get a pay rise. We heard this from constables and sergeants across the constabulary. In January 2022, the constabulary presented findings from a review of its culture. This asked the workforce about leadership, fairness, well-being and whether the organisation supports them and trusts them to do their jobs. A key finding was that leaders should be responsible for developing those they manage. But there was a consensus that personal development isn’t a priority. Performance reviews and one-to-one meetings rarely took place. The review also found that supervisors often change roles. This meant that many personnel felt little interest from leaders in supporting their needs. Our PEEL workforce survey ran from 12 June 2023 to 7 July 2023. It found that, of people who had a formal professional development review in the last year, only 149 of 316 said it was a good development tool. This is just 47.1 percent. And only 58.2 percent (184 of 316) said they valued the process. Cambridgeshire Constabulary

AFI The constabulary should make sure it can scrutinise poor performance in its demand hub, management of sexual offenders and violent offenders, and paedophile online investigation team In our inspection, we found that the constabulary is focused on improving performance. This was having positive results. However, we still found poor performance in some parts of the constabulary. In the demand hub, we found that callers abandon one in three 101 calls. But personnel didn’t have the information needed to understand why this figure was so high. The constabulary is looking to improve its telephone data to deal with this. In July 2023, we found that the paedophile online investigation team had large backlogs. This meant it had many children in need of safeguarding. The paedophile online investigation team is now completing work to reduce backlogs. But after this work is complete, it must make sure it has a good sense of its current and future demand. In the management of sexual offenders and violent offenders team, we found leaders didn’t have the information they need to effectively review performance and risk. This meant they couldn’t assess the risks created by missed visits to registered sex offenders. The constabulary should make sure it has the information needed to scrutinise performance. And it should make sure it can respond to changes in performance. This will help it provide the best possible service to the public. Cambridgeshire Constabulary