HMICFRS update on the inspection of Lincolnshire Police

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has today (6 December) published a letter following the recent inspection of Lincolnshire Police. The official report will follow in April 2025.

The letter places Lincolnshire Police into the enhanced monitoring process, ‘Engage’ in relation to five causes of concern. HMICFRS explains Engage as being introduced: “If a force is not responding to a cause of concern, or if it is not succeeding in managing, mitigating or eradicating the cause of concern, it is probable it will be moved to the Engage phase. In the Engage phase, forces will develop an improvement plan to address the specific cause(s) of concern that has caused them to be placed in the enhanced phase of the monitoring process.

The process is designed to be supportive and affords assistance from external organisations such as the College of Policing or the National Police Chiefs’ Council, brokered by HMICFRS.” More on the monitoring process here.

Chief Constable Paul Gibson said:

“Firstly, I welcome the opportunity to work with HMICFRS and other key stakeholders in policing to develop solutions to the structural underfunding that Lincolnshire Police has endured for many years. As reported earlier this week, the Commissioner and I have already written to the influential organisations in the world of policing, including the HMICFRS, to ask for systemic support to, once and for all, resolve the exceptionally low funding base we receive from government. Moving into the Engage process facilitates this and places a collective responsibility on the system of policing to work with us, and to enable traction to improve services for Lincolnshire communities.

“When recently starting as Chief Constable, I recognised that the force needed investment and transformation.  I welcome this independent scrutiny. There are several areas that I don’t accept are fully accurate, but there are others where I agree that, frankly, we need to do better. We are already working on changes at pace. The HMICFRS inspection is an ongoing process and a number of these findings have historically been shared with the force and we have made good progress in addressing these. I am confident that the areas of improvement that are within our control will be delivered.

“However, what we cannot ignore is that the HMICFRS inspects performance against a common set of standards that apply to all forces. The inspection needs to be seen in the context of being the lowest funded force in the country. The PCC and I have been very vocal on this subject, and the stark fact remains, policing one of the largest geographical counties on a shoestring cannot deliver the gold standard services that HMICFRS and the public rightly expects.

“The letter is clear regarding the low funding base for Lincolnshire Police and many of the themes that run through the findings have a clear root cause: a lack of capacity, resource, and the need to rely on overtime to allow services to be delivered. As I have said continually, these findings are set against the current low number of police officers and staff. To meet the projected funding envelope over the next three years would require hundreds more public servants being removed from Lincolnshire Police. Further starving the force of significant resource will simply not allow the improvements that are demonstrably needed. The choice is clear: fair funding and resourcing urgently or an even greater decline in service. That is the simple choice and the public of Lincolnshire deserve better.

“It is important to reflect that our staff are doing their very best in difficult circumstances and I am hugely appreciative of them. The inspection has detailed areas to be proud of; we are the best performer in the country at answering 999 calls promptly and respond to most of these calls within our target times, we investigate serious crime well, we resolve more crimes than the national average, we are strong in preventing harm to vulnerable people, and have contributed to significantly reduced crime and safer streets over the past two years. All of this is set against the fact that our officers have some of the highest workloads in the country.

“Our officers are deployed based on robust national assessments around threat, risk, and harm, and we are confident we are getting to those most in need in a timely way. We make sure we prioritise our resources and place our people in the areas that matter most to our communities by responding as quickly as possible to the crimes that carry the most harm. We are managing higher risk sex offenders in line with authorised professional practice and, again, make sure our staff are dealing with people and situations that pose the greatest risk to the public. We have already made improvements in backlogs to give balance and put additional resources in to help continue this work.

“Saying all that, I know that this news is likely to cause some concern among the communities we serve. I am committed to delivering improvements and to delivering the best possible service to the people of Lincolnshire.

“By continuing to work with the inspectorate, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing I will implement any further changes which benefit our communities, but this is only possible with rapid progress in securing a fair and sustainable funding settlement.”

You can find the full letter on the HMICFRS website here.