18 June 2004
Some of the largest police forces in England and Wales – and their chief constables – will come under intense scrutiny from the Home Office over the next 12 months, after failing to improve their performance in spite of extensive help from Whitehall.
Public Finance has learnt that seven forces, including Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, both large urban units, are the cause of 'continued concern' at the department following the publication of the first 'league tables' for the sector on June 14.
The other forces are Cambridgeshire, Cleveland, Humberside, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire.
The seven will now be strictly monitored before the next set of tables in 2005.
The new performance ratings, known as baseline assessments, cover 16 key police functions and are carried out by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary on the 43 forces in England and Wales.
Although those seven forces were not the only ones to be heavily criticised, Home Office sources have confirmed that each had already been working in partnership with the Police Standards Unit and the HMIC to improve its performance before the data were released.
'It is quite obvious from the HMIC's reports this week that these forces have failed to improve to the level we want them to reach, and they will be closely monitored,' a department spokesman confirmed.
An eighth force that had also been working with the authorities, Avon and Somerset, reacted positively to government help. Its baseline assessments show it rated 'excellent' in three out of the 16 functions and 'good' in 11. The other grades available for each function were 'fair' or 'poor'.
Continued Home Office scrutiny will come as a major blow to the seven forces involved. Cambridgeshire, led by chief constable Tom Lloyd, and Humberside, led by David Westwood, are already under pressure following criticisms of the handling of the Soham murders investigations. Cambridgeshire's ability to handle 'major incidents' was rated as 'poor', and Humberside's merely 'fair'.
Other skills assessed by the inspectors included forces' ability to tackle serious crime, burglary, calls from the public and work with other government agencies.
However, Sir Keith Povey, chief inspector of constabulary, said he felt the Home Office would not exercise its new powers to sack chief constables and send in 'hit squads' to improve failing forces.
The Home Office spokesman added: 'We're talking about getting these people up to scratch and we're way off that extreme interventionist stage.'
Among the top-performing forces, Lancashire, Northumbria, Staffordshire, Kent and Suffolk scored the highest number of 'excellent' grades.
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