Bedfordshire Police continues to improve its performance in
keeping people safe and reducing crime, the police inspectorate
has said.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue
Services (HMICFRS) graded Bedfordshire Police’s performance
across eight areas of policing and found the force was
‘outstanding’ in one area, ‘good’ in in four areas, ‘adequate’ in
one area and ‘requires improvement’ in two areas.
HMICFRS said the areas requiring improvement included how the
force handles calls from the public and appropriate supervision
of investigations.
Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary Matt Parr
said:
“Bedfordshire police has improved across a number of areas and
performed well in keeping people safe and reducing crime.
“I congratulate the force on being the first to achieve an
outstanding grade for the way it manages offenders and suspects.
It has demonstrably reduced reoffending for serious offences like
burglary and those involving domestic abuse. The force works well
with other organisations to achieve these reductions.
“I am pleased to see that the force is still performing well in
relation to stop and search. Its external scrutiny panel is
important in making sure officers act with integrity and maintain
public confidence. The panel consists of local residents and
provides robust scrutiny of stop and search encounters, reviewing
footage from officers’ body-worn video and giving feedback on
this. The force is very open to this feedback and monitors trends
so it can find ways to improve.
“These arrangements have again led to the force having impressive
results in our stop and search audit. I congratulate the force on
this achievement.
“However, the force still needs to work on its supervision of
investigations, and on providing a consistently effective contact
service with the public.
“Bedfordshire Police is aware of areas where it needs to improve
further, and I am encouraged by its focus on the tasks ahead.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- For further information, please contact the HMICFRS Press
Office on 07836 217 729 or HMICPressOffice@hmicfrs.gov.uk.
- The Bedfordshire Police PEEL 2020/21
report (police effectiveness, efficiency
and legitimacy) will be published on
the HMICFRS
website at 00:01 on Wednesday 13 April
2022.
- In 2014, we introduced our police effectiveness, efficiency,
and legitimacy (PEEL) inspections, which assess the performance
of all 43 police forces in England and Wales. Since then, we have
been continuously adapting our approach and this year has seen
the most significant changes yet.
- We are moving to a more intelligence-led, continual
assessment approach, rather than the annual PEEL
inspections we used in previous years. We have also
changed our approach to graded judgments. We now assess forces
against the characteristics of good
performance, and we more clearly link our judgments to
causes of concern and areas for improvement.
- We have also expanded our previous four-tier system of
judgments to five tiers. As a result, we can state more precisely
where we consider improvement is needed and highlight more
effectively the best ways of doing things.
- However, these changes mean that it isn’t possible to make
direct comparisons between the grades awarded this year with
those from previous PEEL inspections. A reduction in grade,
particularly from good to adequate, does not necessarily mean
that there has been a reduction in performance, unless we say so
in the report.
- More information about the new PEEL assessment
framework 2021/22 is available on our
website.
