Source · HMICFRS

PEEL Assessment 2023-25: Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

23 July 2025 PEEL Force Inspection 10 areas for improvement

PEEL 2023-25 inspection findings for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

Applicable forces

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

Areas for improvement

AFI The constabulary needs to improve officer awareness of reasonable grounds to make sure they are using stop and search powers fairly During our inspection, we reviewed a sample of 244 stop and search records from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2024. Based on this sample, we estimate that 81.1 percent (+/- 4.9 percentage points) of all stop and searches carried out by the constabulary during this period had reasonable grounds. This is broadly unchanged compared to the findings from our previous review of records from 1 January to 31 December 2021 where we found that 79.2 percent (+/- 6.2 percentage points) of all stop and searches carried out by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary had reasonable grounds. Of the records we reviewed for stop and searches on people who self-identify as from an ethnic minority background, 38 of 45 had reasonable grounds. The constabulary has improved its training on reasonable grounds for stop and search but has more to do. Reasonable grounds feature as part of the stop and search module in the constabulary’s operational leadership course. However, there is still a lack of continuing professional development at constable level. Annual mandated public and personal safety training includes stop and search role plays that add realism to the training. But this training doesn’t sufficiently cover consideration of reasonable grounds prior to an encounter. The constabulary needs to consider how it can improve compliance rates in this sensitive area of policing. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary needs to improve the functionality of its operating model to better manage demand The constabulary’s move to a new area model has had a positive effect on performance. It has also helped the constabulary to have better focus and control of personnel and assets at local level. But the change hasn’t been without its challenges. Key operational areas of the constabulary, including response, neighbourhood and investigative policing, have at times been severely stretched. Officer shortages in response teams have affected arrival times on scene, while neighbourhood policing team officers have often needed to fill the gaps in response teams. This has reduced their ability to carry out their problem-solving and community-focused activities. Some specialist investigative teams, such as those dealing with rape and serious sexual offences or child abuse cases, have also been disproportionately affected by personnel shortages. This has led to high case workloads. The problems were particularly acute in the summer of 2024 when demand for service increased. During our inspection, we found that the constabulary was using overtime extensively to manage demand. This isn’t uncommon and can be appropriate but is also a symptom of being under resourced. The constabulary has learned from the negative effects that summer 2024 demand had on both operational performance and officer and staff well-being. It has comprehensive plans in place for summer 2025, which it is confident will lead to improvements in both areas. These include improvements in the processes behind resourcing to better manage allocation of duties, annual leave and days off. The demand issues that the constabulary is facing have been compounded by weaknesses within its crime allocation model. The constabulary has removed its central crime resolution team, which has reduced its ability to complete investigations that involve only limited enquiries. Instead, it now has a central triage process that sees all crimes, except those that can be immediately finalised, sent to local units for further investigation. This has led to a significant increase in investigations, especially for neighbourhood policing team officers who at times struggle to manage high caseloads. The constabulary is actively reviewing its crime allocation processes to help it to deal with more crimes at source. This should reduce the number of crimes being sent on for further investigation. We will monitor for improvements over the coming months. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI To protect neighbourhood policing activity, the constabulary needs to reduce crime workloads of neighbourhood officers and the number diverted from their core duties In our 2021/22 PEEL inspection, the constabulary received an area for improvement relating to the high number of officers diverted from neighbourhood policing to support other teams. Many neighbourhood police officers were managing high crime workloads as well as supplementing personnel levels in response teams. It is reassuring that since then, with the office of the police and crime commissioner’s support, the constabulary has created 99 dedicated neighbourhood officer roles known as ‘local bobbies’. These officers aren’t diverted from their core duties to other teams and have a manageable investigative workload. They are assigned specific areas made up of one or more local wards. Their primary role is to tackle local issues, working closely with community safety partnerships to identify the best problem-solving approach. However, their ability to act has been reduced by a lack of support from the wider neighbourhood policing team (NPT). This support is essential to make sure that local policing objectives are achieved. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary needs to attend calls for service in line with its internal targets and update the caller if there are delays in attendance The constabulary doesn’t publish attendance targets, but it has an internal target of 15 minutes to respond to emergency calls. During our inspection, we found that it wasn’t always attending calls for service quickly enough. We found that it attended 40 of the 63 cases we reviewed within its attendance time frame. This means it may be missing opportunities to keep communities safe. We also found that the constabulary wasn’t always updating callers if there were delays in attendance. It updated callers if there was a delay in only 15 of the 27 cases we reviewed. Updating callers is particularly important as the constabulary isn’t getting to incidents as quickly as it would like. The constabulary should have the right levels of oversight to improve how it responds to incidents. If it doesn’t understand how good it is at answering calls and responding to incidents, it will find it more difficult to improve the service it provides. Innovative practice Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary needs to make sure there is effective supervision of deployment decisions, especially in its use of video technology The constabulary gives victims the option to report some crime types via video technology. It has moved away from using this as an immediate deployment option (rapid video response) to offering it as a scheduled appointment. We found examples of scheduled video appointments being offered in cases that weren’t appropriate, including high-risk domestic abuse cases and allegations where children were either present or victims. Many of these cases lacked any supervision to assess the deployment decision, including when the call grading had changed from the initial point of contact. The constabulary uses the structured THRIVE model to assess risk and check for victim vulnerabilities, but it should make sure that there is appropriate oversight of this information to inform deployment decisions. Since receiving our feedback, the constabulary has introduced greater supervisory oversight of the use of video technology. We will continue to monitor the effect of these changes. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary has improved its level of contact with victims of crime The constabulary has created an online victims’ portal to better support victims of crime. It consists of a self-service portal that allows victims to log in and access information about their case and rights as a victim. They can also request contact from the officer in the case. The constabulary told us that the victims’ portal had been very successful and achieved a 14 percent higher satisfaction rate for victims than in cases where the portal wasn’t used. Since going live in March 2024, the constabulary told us that around 10,000 people had signed up to the portal and around 40,000 messages had been sent. This, in turn, has reduced demand on the constabulary’s 101 non-emergency number, which is often used by victims of crime who are asking for updates. The constabulary has integrated this process with its crime recording system so that messages from victims appear directly on a crime investigation report. It is used for a range of crime types but not crimes linked to domestic abuse or sexual offending as these often require a more enhanced level of victim support. The constabulary told us that it was aiming to extend this process to these crime types and was working with a group of forces to share development costs. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary doesn’t consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims The constabulary doesn’t always achieve acceptable outcomes for victims of crime. The number of crimes it solves following investigations is low. It needs to understand the issue and work to achieve better outcomes for victims. In the year ending 30 June 2024, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary recorded 130,733 victim-based crimes. Of these recorded offences, 12.5 percent were assigned an ‘offences brought to justice’ outcome. While low, this was within the normal range compared to other police forces in England and Wales. 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). For a full commentary and explanation of crime and outcome types, please see the Home Office statistics. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary should improve its governance of the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme to make sure disclosure outcomes are accurately recorded on its systems The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, also known as Clare’s Law, allows the police to disclose information to a victim or potential victim of domestic abuse about their partner’s or ex-partner’s previous abusive or violent offending. The scheme has two elements ‘Right to ask’ allows an individual or relevant third party (for example, a family member) to ask the police to check whether the person in question has a violent or abusive past; ‘Right to know’ allows the police to make a disclosure on their own initiative if they possess information about the violent or abusive behaviour of a person that may affect the safety of that person’s current or ex-partner. We found that the constabulary made effective decisions on when to disclose information and contacted those at risk in a timely manner. However, its recording processes are poor, with the existence of duplicate entries and some records that aren’t being shown as complete. This means that the constabulary’s data is inaccurate, so it doesn’t know how many disclosures it has made or when. This may affect future disclosure decisions but also means the constabulary can’t assess the effectiveness of the scheme. The constabulary is aware of the recording issues and is taking immediate steps to improve both data quality and officer compliance in completing records. We will monitor for improvement over the coming months. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary has improved its management of failure to appear at court arrest warrants but needs to do more to find and arrest those offenders Until a few months ago, failure to appear at court arrest warrants were managed within the constabulary’s management of sexual offenders and violent offenders teams. These teams had limited opportunities to develop intelligence on outstanding offenders. The constabulary’s intelligence function now manages these, where a small team of officers and staff aims to locate outstanding offenders. It does this by using police and partner organisations’ databases such as those of local authorities. The problem remains that there is limited activity to arrest these offenders. They are often regarded as less of a priority than outstanding suspects for live police cases. There are occasional weeks of action known as Operation Relentless. These include successful targeting of those wanted at court. But outside these events, little is progressed. Consequently, the constabulary told us that the number of warrants had remained relatively static at over 1,000, although January 2025 was the first month when the number of warrants executed exceeded the number of new warrants coming in from court. The constabulary needs to apply greater focus to actively looking for and arresting those who are subject to a failure to appear at court arrest warrant. Equally, it needs to increase efforts to work with the Crown Prosecution Service to have some historical warrants correctly rescinded at court. This, in turn, would reduce the number of persons shown as wanted on warrant. Innovative practice Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

AFI The constabulary has an effective process for scrutinising performance but needs to make sure data is used correctly to support the process The constabulary has an effective governance structure in place with clearly defined performance meetings at all levels that hold managers to account. It uses data to support the process, including Power BI products that provide usable information to managers. However, data gaps and inaccuracies are also present across various systems. These have a negative effect on performance and productivity. We found gaps in data on the use of body-worn video, use of force and Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme rates, among other things. Equally, limitations in the constabulary’s computer-aided resource management system have led to capability and capacity shortfalls in frontline teams. These limitations have also made it difficult for officers and staff to take time off at times when capability and capacity levels were in fact sufficient. At the same time, where data has been available and indicated underperformance, the constabulary hasn’t always responded effectively. For example, the constabulary failed to properly consider and act on data that showed a continuing rise in officers not having up-to-date public and personal safety training. Equally some neighbourhood policing team officers had unmanageable crime workloads, yet the constabulary took the time to introduce processes to properly identify and support them. The constabulary should make sure it has all the information it needs to optimise performance. And it should make sure its leaders better address changes in performance. This will help it provide the best possible service to the public and better support its workforce. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary