Source · IOPC Learning Case

Recommendation - West Yorkshire Police, July 2023

West Yorkshire Police Ref: 2022/177810 Recommended 6 Jul 2023 Response due 31 Aug 2023

Death and serious injury

We identified organisational learning from a death or serious injury review.

Recommendations

1 total

Recommendation 1

The IOPC recommends that West Yorkshire Police conduct a review of how the force uses MOE (Method of Entry) equipment. This review should include evaluating how officers access MOE equipment, especially in relation to where this equipment is stored and how the inventory of equipment is recorded. West Yorkshire Police should also develop and implement a force policy document on MOE equipment. This recommendation follows a DSI investigation concerning West Yorkshire Police’s response to a concern for welfare report. It had been reported that a male had threatened to take his own life. West Yorkshire Police arrived at the male’s property but could not gain entry for eighteen minutes due to the initial attending officers not being equipped with MOE (Method of Entry) kit. The DSI investigation concluded that the lack of MOE equipment had led to a delay in the officers gaining access and that had they gained access sooner, then it is likely they would have encountered the male alive. During the DSI investigation it was also established that West Yorkshire Police do not currently have a force policy in place with regards to MOE equipment.

Addressed to: West Yorkshire Police

Linked bodies: West Yorkshire Police

Accepted

Force response

Recommendation accepted: The force does accept the recommendations and recognises the need for an MOE policy. We will be conducting a full review of the deployment and management of the equipment. Learning and Organisational development along with Local Policing will create the MOE policy with appropriate governance structures embedded to ensure the policy is followed. As this policy will focus on MOE force wide it will also include our specialist operations teams who also operate across the 5 Policing districts. The review will be wider than the storage, maintenance, and availability of the kit, we will be exploring opportunities from an initial contact and despatch position to see if we can potentially include an MOE prompt within the question set taken at the point of call prior to officers being despatched. A draft Policy has been prepared, this will now need to go out for wider consultation with it being a new Policy. It will then be sent to the JNCC for ratification which we expect to be completed by the end of this year.