The most vulnerable people must get the support they need at the time they need it, says Staffordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis following an inspection report on Staffordshire Police.
Mr Ellis has highlighted the needs of protecting vulnerable people after an inspection published by the HMIC, called Police effectiveness 2015 (Vulnerability), found “urgent improvement” was needed in several areas to ensure Staffordshire Police kept vulnerable people safe. The inspection report said Staffordshire Police had a “poor approach” to formally assessing the risks faced by domestic abuse victims.
The report also said Staffordshire Police needed more effective processes to assess the potential risk to vulnerabilities.
Mr Ellis said: “The HMIC report raises serious issues but also highlights anomalies with the way inspections are undertaken by HMIC focusing solely on an individual service, at a time when there is a drive towards closer co-operation and joint working across public services.
“Staffordshire Police must accept there are failings in the way they deal with and support some vulnerable people, specifically in relation to domestic abuse. These failings are not minor issues and the Chief Constable has accepted the need to significantly improve the force’s approach and ensure that the most vulnerable get the support they need at the time that they need it.
“This is even more troubling because, as part of internal governance arrangements, my office highlighted eight months ago the need for police to be more consistent with assessing the risks to individuals using the force’s DIAL (Domestic Incident Assessment Log) process.
“That has clearly not been addressed adequately, leading to an inconsistent approach. The Chief Constable has accepted the failure and ensured more rigorous processes – and people have been put in place to address the issue.
“But Staffordshire Police has also been judged by HMIC as identifying twice as many vulnerable victims than the average of all police services across the country. A person reading or hearing that sentence could draw the conclusion that most police services are not identifying vulnerability or that the numbers of vulnerable victims in Staffordshire are twice the national average.
“It also follows a recent OFSTED inspection in Stoke-on-Trent which assessed the multi-agency approach, including Staffordshire Police, to domestic abuse and missing children. That report suggested all was well.
“In the end, the first priority must be the safety of vulnerable individuals. Staffordshire Police must improve their consistency of approach when identifying potential risk. This does, however, also raise the problem with single agency inspections when more integrated working across multiple public services is becoming more normal practice.”
This is the OFSTED inspection report the Police and Crime Commissioner refers to in his quote above.
This is the HMIC inspection report, Police effectiveness 2015 (Vulnerability), on Staffordshire Police, which was published on December 15, 2015.
