HMICFRS inspection findings – June 2025

Today, Tuesday 10 June, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has published its findings from a PEEL (Police Effectiveness, Efficiency and Legitimacy) Inspection of Warwickshire Police.

The report follows an inspection from November 2024 to January 2025 and identifies areas of good work and progress on challenges, while also highlighting areas for further improvement. 

The report’s gradings found us to be ‘good’ in two areas, ‘adequate’ in three, ‘requiring improvement’ in three and ‘inadequate’ in one. 

Chief Constable Alex Franklin-Smith said: “Despite highlighting some of the excellent work and progress we’ve made, the HMICFRS inspection results demonstrate that at the time of inspection we were not where we needed to be in our response and investigation measures.

“We are pleased to see we have been positively recognised in the report on a number of key areas, including preventing and deterring crime, reducing reoffending, improving crime outcomes and our commitment to problem-solving.

“We were already taking steps to improve and have been working closely with HMICFRS in the months since the inspection.  We have changed how we respond and investigate and now have additional officers and staff in our investigation teams. This has resulted in a better response and outcome rates. New working practices help us to manage ever increasing demand and reduce the risk to victims of crime.

“Our positive outcomes on residential burglaries doubled between February 2024 and February 2025, with our burglary charge rate higher than the national average. We are also the best performing police force in the country for adult rape charge rates.

“Between April 2024 and March 2025 we also saw a 10% decrease in antisocial behaviour and a 13% decrease in serious violence in targeted hotspot areas thanks to Op Resolve, our dedicated programme to tackle these issues.

“Overall, in the past year our investigation standards and outcome rates have improved considerably, going from less than 8% to now routinely being 15%.

“Our ambition is to become an organisation that is known for policing excellence. Many of the foundations that will enable this to happen have been built in the last few months, and the HMICFRS inspection results provide valuable steer for our areas of focus.”

How we are improving:

Responding to the public 

So far in 2025, we have dealt with more than 10,150 emergency incidents, with April and May being our busiest months. We have achieved a continued improvement in response times over the last few months.

• We now consistently answer at least 90% of 999 calls in ten seconds.
• Our crime detection rates are the highest since 2021.
• Between October 2024 and May 2025 our average emergency response time improved by 16.5%.
• Between October 2024 and May 2025 the percentage of emergencies that we attended in less than 20 minutes improved from 61.9% to 71.9%.

Underpinning these improvements are several factors:

• A new and dedicated response function, under a new Chief Inspector role, responsible for driving performance across response teams.
• New processes for surging additional resources at times of very high demand to help us to get those who need us most, more quickly. 
• A new Rapid Video Response (RVR) team meaning victims or witnesses can complete video appointments with officers within 24 hours of the initial report. The feedback from users of RVR so far has been very positive.
• A new Central Investigations Tasking Team (CITT), specialising in investigations thus allowing response officers to focus more on responding to incidents quickly.

We’ve also been working to improve our 101 waiting times - using new systems such as Livechat, Call Back Assist and a triage desk, as well as smarter processes in how we use our specialist staff.

Protecting Vulnerable People

We have already initiated significant pieces of work to improve how we protect vulnerable people.

• An immediate uplift of investigators into our Protective Services teams - with eight extra investigators now working in our Domestic Abuse and Rape Team.
• A clear and measurable Vulnerability and Public Protection Strategy is in progress, which will take and implement national learning, and build a force-wide approach to protect vulnerable people. 
• A full review of our multi-agency approach to managing risk and safeguarding victims and their families so that the force, and regional partners, can deliver the most effective services to vulnerable members of our community.
• A review of productivity to develop solutions to current and future risks and issues, including areas such as investigative resilience and services to victims.
• We’re already using data more effectively to gather and apply insight into the volume of cases.

We continue to evolve our investigation model through continuous improvement and data driven insight.

People

HMICFRS has highlighted the success of our investment in leadership development, and we’ve been working hard to continue to embed our People Plan and health and wellbeing focus.

Technology advances continue, giving our people more time to focus on preventing harm, engaging with communities and supporting victims and vulnerable people.

We have led the way nationally, being the first force to deploy iPhones and our Nexus Power App, which has not only enabled our officers to capture key data while on the go but has also inspired other forces to transform their frontline operations. 

And we’ve successfully rolled out new workforce channels to improve our digital connectivity and engagement across the force.

• We have further developed our risk framework and are operating an updated approach.
• We continue to develop and deliver on our data strategy – developing a data lake where we will have a unified view of key data across systems.
• We’ve made changes to our operating model through this year’s business planning and budget, establishing the business team and a new approach to investigations.

Officer retention

We have introduced interviews to provide an opportunity for those thinking of leaving to discuss their reasons with an independent person, to look for solutions ahead of resignation.

Specifically in relation to student officers, a problem-solving approach has produced a number of recommendations which are in the process of being implemented.  These include a review of the attraction and recruitment process, the tutor model and looking at the demand on student officers after they join.

For more information about the PEEL process, and to read the full report, visit: His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.