FOREWORD

The Inspectorate has enjoyed another demanding and successful year with a full programme of force and thematic inspections being delivered. The flexibility and goodwill of HMIs and all our staff are such that time was produced to carry out other important tasks, at the request of the Home Secretary, Ministers and others that could not have been predicted as the inspecting year commenced. This necessary flexibility and goodwill I recognise as a reflection of the police service itself and of its willingness to respond to the immediate and unpredictable.

Such is the vicarious fascination of people, irrespective of their backgrounds, with policing that police officers, police operations and police failings, real or perceived, fill so many column inches of our newspapers and so many minutes of news, features and fiction on the nation's broadcast media. It was therefore professionally disappointing for the Service to absorb day-to-day the evidence to the Macpherson Inquiry into the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence. The hard hitting report subsequently published should have come as no surprise to the wider Service. Much of the impact of that report and its recommendations reflected the findings of the HMIC thematic inspection of community and race relations (Winning the Race 1997). It was doubly disappointing therefore that such little progress has been made when HMIC conducted a follow-up inspection to Winning the Race. Many of the lessons of Macpherson were already there to learn.

The key point of Macpherson and the Inspectorate work is that the Service must place community and particularly race relations at the core of its thinking, at the hub of the wheel of its day-to-day operational activity. It should be a manifestation of the maturity of the institution that is policing that the service should:

• recognise the special needs of visible ethnic minorities as its customer and tailor its approach to meet those needs;
• attract and retain a much greater number of visible ethnic minority officers at all levels of the Service and ensure their careers are properly developed.

Whilst it is possible to present these goals individually, the underpinning point is that they are inextricably linked. No declarations of intent, no matter how voluble or persuasive the rhetoric, will attract black or asian recruits in the necessary numbers unless the Service has established a pattern of service delivery to those minorities which is seen as meaningful and responsive to their needs. Equally, until the sight of a black or asian police officer in the neighbourhood and until the sight of a black/asian superintendent in the local paper is no more unusual than the sight of black nurses or doctors in the local hospital, there will remain a credibility gap whatever the effort to alter the structure of service delivery.

I am convinced that the Macpherson imperative, supported by the recommendations, check lists and good practice identified in the thematics (Winning the Race series), will now take the Service forward. I have been heartened by the reaction of the ACPO presidential task force and the concentration of effort and activity in many forces. The Lawrence Steering Group, chaired by the Home Secretary, drives forward and monitors progress against the Home Secretary's action plan produced in response to the Macpherson recommendations. The maintenance of good community and race relations, and the provision of a service to visible ethnic minorities tailored to their needs are crucial to the maintenance in reality of the treasured doctrine of policing by consent.

The supplementary reason for its headline status is that it should be a source of pride within the Service that it has developed the ability to respond positively to well founded criticism. Overwhelmingly the response to inspections, either at force level or in response to thematics, is both considered and positive.

For the most part it has been a reassuring year to witness and advise the Service as it prepared for the future without neglecting the imperatives of the present. This is the third year that I have referred to resource pressures and now the situation is much clearer. Forces will have to identify efficiency gains of 2% which must be channelled transparently into front-line service delivery. I am confident that, whilst there will be varying degrees of difficulty from force to force, such gains will be achieved during 1999/2000. The Service must overcome its problem of the past whereby gains were achieved in productivity or enhancing quality of a particular service without a sufficiently tangible audit trail. The Service does it: it must prove it.

The absence of audited proof of the efficiency achievements of the past few years does not mean that progress was also absent. In recognising that earlier progress and, in confidence of success regarding this year's 2% target, I have concerns that the challenge to find further opportunities in future years will prove extremely testing.

My confidence in the future is based on experience of the recent past. It is reassuring that in dealing with almost 18 million incidents (2.5 million requiring an immediate response) a generally high standard of service was maintained. The public satisfaction with the service received remained high and broadly consistent over the past five years with 92% of burglary victims expressing satisfaction as well as 90% of those taking advantage of enquiry facilities at police stations. Confidence in the police service as an institution also remains high.

The faith of the Service at all levels to partnership working is tangible. There are impressive examples of both commitment and innovate thinking throughout England and Wales. Solid foundations are being laid that will be a sound base for the push towards a reduction in crime. Despite the decline in overall police numbers it is to the credit of chief constables, in further reducing management overheads, that there are more constables than there were five years ago.

Preparation for the disciplines of the Best Value regime will be a significant feature of strategic activity in the current year. The regime will be operative in 2000/2001 and, as forces prepare, so does the Inspectorate. HMIC will have a primary role in informing the process of certification of the Best Value plan by the Audit Commission. Along with other developments Best Value has necessitated a changed approach to force inspection next year. HMIC is currently developing a standards based diagnostic model for inspection which is underpinned by the rationale of risk assessment. The new approach will lead to a tighter focus on areas of vulnerability in forces with the aim, over time, of raising the standard of all forces to the level of those in the top quartile. This will mean that some forces are not visited so regularly but, as a safeguard, no force will remain uninspected on the ground for more than 3 years. I am convinced that the revised approach will make better use of HMIC resources and be of greater benefit to forces who may struggle in particular areas of their task.

In preparation for the challenge of achieving overall reduction in crime it is important that the Service learns the lessons and gathers the inspiration from its success in reducing the incidence of burglary of people's homes. A decade ago no commentator would have seen such a reduction as a possibility. Not only can it be done, it has been done over five successive years including a 19% decrease in the last 2 years alone. It has been achieved through better use of intelligence, more innovative deployment and use of resources and by drawing in the skills, commitment and resources of others through partnership.

Imaginative use of technology also played its part. There is still more to be gained from developments on the threshold. A sophisticated and modern radio infrastructure, significant expansion of the DNA database and capitalising on the actual and potential rewards to be gained from the National Strategy for Police Information Systems (NSPIS) will, I am convinced, make a substantial contribution to crime reduction. Consequently, I am delighted that funds are being made available to take forward these important initiatives.

I am confident that chief constables, police authorities and their staff will deliver on crime reduction over time providing that other parties fully play their part in the effort. The police culture, despite protestations around funding and unremitting demand, prefers success and no force relishes the prospect of failure. The response to targets has been widely positive but in the course of the year targets have been marked by their proliferation. The formulation of overarching aims and objectives was a helpful and overdue development in setting out the various component activities that are the business of policing. The transparent links between those aims with those of the Home Office and the rest of the criminal justice system provided a useful context. However, I share some of the concerns of chief constables that there is an expectation that enhanced achievements will be expected across the whole range of objectives in addition to priorities and targets arising from other sources. Mediocrity of achievement across the many should make way for inspirational success against the few.

It will be no surprise to readers of my annual report that leadership is a constant feature. The familiar perennial figures prominently again this year. Leadership features strongly in the year's thematics as it did in the Macpherson report. The Service has produced, and is producing, excellent leaders and it is important that it continues to do so and reaches a position that all chief officers attain the standard of the best. The best leaders make a significant difference, make and sustain progress, whilst others fail to recognise the difference and are remote brakes on progress.

I am pleased that HMIC is represented along with ACPO, the Association of Police Authorities and the National Black Police Association on a working group to improve all aspects of the identification, selection and training of the future leaders of the Service. HMIC, with its functional responsibility for the Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates is carrying out a major piece of research, with extensive consultation, to identify improvements to a scheme that is in need of revision.

HMIC has great faith in the benefit of partnership working between inspectorates. Joined-up approaches to the prevention of crime and disorder demand joined-up inspection. Our thematic on Child Protection is a product of such collaborative working and a multi-disciplinary study to identify blockages in the youth justice system resulted in a quickly accomplished yet incisive product. The mutual professional respect between HMIC and the Audit Commission continues to prosper and leads to reciprocal benefits as evidenced by jointly working through the inspection and audit approach for Best Value. I welcome the introduction of the Inspectorate Forum made up of the Heads of Inspectorates involved in improving local services under Best Value. The Forum will prove a useful body to discuss the scope for more joint working and a useful platform to develop arrangements for inspection across organisational boundaries.

The requirements of Best Value will result in a new relationship between HMIC and individual police authorities. Hitherto HMIC had no locus in inspecting the activity of police authorities although some of the criticisms in inspection reports, including thematics, were unavoidably implicit observations on aspects of the police authority role. The Best Value regime places the statutory duties on police authorities as well as giving HMIC a role in inspection and certification of Best Value. I recognise the concerns of the APA and individual members of police authorities but believe that, such is the mutuality of our respect, any transitional difficulties will prove more apparent than real.

The future of policing is both a challenge and an opportunity. It is required to deliver more, with greater professionalism and without significant increases in resources. The scrutiny of its activity will continue to be penetrating and unrelenting from political, journalistic and customer perspectives. A great deal is asked of a comparative few. I am conscious that front-line police officers have to pick up very quickly the strands of complexity of the policing task. I am conscious, as are the HMIs, that it is they who take the risks of errors of judgement at times of human crisis or physical violence. That is why the focus of our criticism centres on issues that chief officers and middle management can, and have a duty, to resolve. The experience of HMIC is that front line officers are best led and supported where the stance of chief officers and middle managers is both proactive and necessarily intrusive. It is not, and should not be, a necessary consequence of the proven benefits of devolvement and empowerment of individuals that corporacy is eroded. The need to ensure corporacy, particularly in key areas such as standards of integrity and appropriate service delivery to minorities, is paramount.

It is also a principal reason why I look forward to appropriate decisions being taken about the future of police training including National Police Training (NPT). HMIC completed an exhaustive and critical thematic on police training during the year which, I was pleased to note, was given due weight in the thinking of the Home Affairs Committee in their inquiry and report on the same subject. I look forward to decisions being taken in the Home Office and elsewhere that will formulate the future of police training. A notional contract has to be fulfilled. The public, chief constables and others rightly expect their police officers to be diligent, professional and appropriate in their attitude. Officers are entitled to a similar expectation of timely and effective training to develop their skills, to fine-tune their professionalism and to reflect on their attitudes. The time has come when the mutuality of expectations must be satisfied.

I am grateful to chief constables, police authorities, the many members of staff and the staff associations who have responded so positively to the inspection process throughout the year. The HMIs share my awareness that, without the openness and collective responsiveness found in forces, inspections would prove much more difficult and the outcome less valuable. I am confident that the leadership of the Service will respond to the many challenges of the future and translate them into opportunities. I am equally confident that HMIC is itself prepared to seize the parallel opportunities of the future of inspection as a critical support for the Service. That confidence makes it a personal and professional pleasure to be able to remain in post until the end of the year 2000. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to oversee the completion of our thematic programme and to guide HMIC through the inspection challenge provided by Best Value.

Sir David J O'Dowd
CBE QPM BA MSc CIMgt

HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary

We welcome your comments on this site. Prepared 1 November 1999