Force recognised in HMICFRS report

2 April 2025

The Force’s effective use of body-worn video (BWV) technology has been recognised in a new report from the policing inspectorate.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) cited the Force in a case study for its review of how effectively the police investigate crime.

West Midlands Police was one of seven forces included in the inspectors’ fieldwork.

HMICFRS highlighted that the Force’s use of BWV technology allowed it to show the location of officers and staff on a digital map and enabled two-way video communication between supervisors and officers and staff at crime scenes.

The BWV meants supervisors could support officers and staff at a crime scene, and quality assure their investigation as it progresses.

During inspectors’ visit to the Force, they were shown a demonstration of how BWV was used in a mock scenario of a child sexual exploitation investigation involving a search of premises, with an officer activating their body-worn camera and livestream from the crime scene. The supervisor took screenshots from the livestream and uploaded these to the Child Abuse Image Database for identification.

New technology

Jess Davies, acting chair of West Midlands Police Federation, says it was good to see the Force being used as an example of good practice in the HMICFRS report.

“West Midlands Police and its officers and staff have embraced the use of new technology, such as body-worn video, in the fight against crime,” says Jess.

“BWV can be an incredibly effective tool in so many aspects of modern-day policing, helping gather evidence and record officers’ interactions with the public and its use has been considerably developed since it was first introduced.”

While the Force featured as an example of good practice, the overall finding of the report, which concentrated on volume crime and was published on Thursday (27 March), was less favourable for policing in general.

It concluded that police efforts are hampered by ineffective ways of recording, assessing, allocating and investigating crime and that forces are recording how many times they update victims, rather than recording how effective the updates are at providing information and support.

Supervisors

Inspectors found that investigators’ workloads were too high and the complexity of crimes was increasing, as was the time forces take to investigate them. Additionally, many supervisors and investigators were found to be inexperienced and lacking the necessary training.

HMICFRS puts forward 11 recommendations to help forces improve the standard of their crime investigations and achieve better outcomes for victims by:

· Building a better understanding of their crime-related demand and the resources they need so they can meet it;

· Designing more effective processes for recording, assessing, allocating and investigating crime, putting victims at the heart of the process;

· Providing better training for investigators, their supervisors and any other officers or members of staff who have a role in an investigation; and

· Improving the supervision of crime investigations.

But Jess said if these issues are to be addressed the Government must commit to the sustained long-term investment in policing the Federation has long been calling for.

“We are in the midst of a retention crisis within policing, with officers leaving in their droves due to the pressures, challenges and dangers of the role and the fact that their pay goes nowhere near reflecting the unique nature of policing,” she explains.

Investigators

“The HMICFRS report highlights the fact that investigators are overburdened, this impacts on their ability to solve crimes and also on their ability to provide the support victims of crime need.

“It is high time the Government took note of what we are saying, particularly now that we are backed up by the inspectorate.”

Jess drew attention to a paragraph of the report, which highlights this issue.

It states: “A long-standing challenge for forces has been to recruit enough investigators. We found that forces usually made sure they had enough officers and staff to investigate the most complex and serious crimes. However, as budgets are finite, this could often be at the expense of allocating resources to investigating volume crime. Due to the difficulty in recruiting investigators, many forces used untrained officers and staff to fill vacancies.”

The report highlights that Home Office data over the past decade shows the number of crimes recorded per police constable has increased by 32.6 per cent suggesting that workloads for investigators have increased over that period. Many investigators and their supervisors told the inspectorate they were frequently overwhelmed by the size of their workloads.

“It is true to say that many officers are feeling overwhelmed, which affects the service they can provide to the public, but also impacts on their own mental health and wellbeing. It’s no surprise that many officers are looking to leave the service, their pay has declined in real terms in the last 10 years, the pressures have increased and they feel undervalued by the Government,” Jess added.