Performance and Measurement

Summary

Gwent Police serves the area of the south-east corner of Wales, which comprises the city of Newport and the county boroughs of Torfaen, Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly. The area has a population of just over 550,000, with the majority of residents living either in the former coal-mining valleys or in the larger conurbations of Monmouth, Pontypool, Cwmbran and Newport.

Gwent is an area of stark contrasts: the rural areas of Monmouthshire are primarily given over to farming, tourism and forestry, while Newport is an increasingly prosperous city with a multi-ethnic community, a thriving night-time economy and a growing commercial and industrial sector. Many areas of Gwent previously relied on mining and heavy engineering and, as these industries have declined, so high levels of deprivation have emerged, most notably in areas of Caerphilly, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent.

In the 2006 baseline assessment, the force was predominantly graded as Fair, although volume crime performance was Good. The force is now concentrating on improving qualitative performance and has introduced Neighbourhood Policing as a means of delivering a more citizen-focused service. Neighbourhood Policing was one of the core elements of the 2007 inspection process, and the force is making progress in this area. There are 135 wards in Gwent, and these form the basis of 96 neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods are clustered in 22 inspector-led sections, each of which is supported by a uniformed response team. Gwent has recruited its full allocation of 119 PCSOs, and there are an additional ten jointly funded by Torfaen County Borough Council.

The 2006/07 inspection concentrated on the four disciplines within the Protecting Vulnerable People domain. Gwent achieved an acceptable standard of service in the areas of investigating domestic violence, missing persons and public protection. However, the inspection identified deficiencies in the investigation of child abuse, specifically in the areas of audit and review, risk management, supervision and staffing levels and training. In March 2007, the force initiated a comprehensive service improvement review of the Protecting Vulnerable People domain, the findings of which are currently being implemented.

The force has traditionally performed well in terms of volume crime investigation. However, during 2006/07, there have been further improvements in terms of both the number and proportion of offences brought to justice and the rate of sanction detection. Overall crime levels have continued to fall, and there have been reductions in the rates of acquisitive crime and life-threatening and gun crime; however, levels of violent crime have largely remained stable. User satisfaction levels have also remained fairly stable, although there have been variations in different categories. The ACPO team emphasises the importance of volume crime performance, but balances that by championing the need to focus on the customer as a means of providing a quality service. In order to achieve this, the force has embarked upon an organisational change programme built around the LISTEN model of customer service.

In conjunction with the police authority, the force held a series of priority and target-setting workshops in November 2006. The workshops reviewed the feedback from consultation and assessed emerging priorities in order to inform the development of the local policing plan targets for 2007/08. All the priorities that were identified reflect the shared vision of enhancing the more qualitative aspects of service delivery while sustaining performance in more ‘hard-edged’ areas like crime investigation, file quality and call-handling performance. There is a focus on improving satisfaction levels for the victims of anti-social behaviour, particularly in terms of keeping people informed.

In order to ensure that the force is positioned to match resources to priorities, the Chief Constable is leading the ‘Staying Ahead’ project. This project is designed to redefine the shape of the organisation to meet future demands, in line with the force’s vision of ‘Delivering Safer Communities’. All four Welsh forces are collaborating to provide sustainable protective services to common standards, based on the solid foundations that have been laid by Operation Tarian, a long-standing initiative to tackle Level 2 crime across the three southern Welsh forces.