TURMOIL AS GMP PLUNGED INTO SPECIAL MEASURES
Highest level of sanction after damning report Tories tell Burnham: The buck stops with you
GREATER Manchester Police is to be placed in ‘special measures’ following last week’s damning inspection report, the M.E.N. can exclusively reveal.
It is understood Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for policing will now escalate GMP into what is officially known as the ‘national oversight process’ as a result of its failures around crime recording and the protection of vulnerable people.
Only one other force - Cleveland - is believed to have ever been placed into those measures, the highest level of escalation.
The move will involve much more hands-on involvement from the inspectorate, the Home Office, College of Policing, National Police Chiefs Council, with the measures to remain in place until GMP can demonstrate sufficient improvement.
It comes after a blistering report last week found the force had significantly deteriorated in its crime recording since 2018 and was now even worse at it than in 2016, when it was rated inadequate.
Warning that GMP’s services to victims were a ‘serious cause for concern’, also highlighting drifting, poorlyplanned investigations and safeguarding failures, the report’s author Zoe Billingham said the force had ‘bucked the trend’ - in that its performance had declined since its previous poor inspections rather than improving.
HMI has consistently warned GMP about its crime recording and protection of vulnerable people for nearly five years.
Yesterday the mayor, who was elected in 2017 and oversees the force politically, had given details of the force’s improvement plan.
Andy Burnham told journalists he was ‘confident’ that ‘in just a small number of days, significant progress has been made’.
That plan includes a new complaints line for people who do not feel their crime report has been dealt with properly, as well as further recruitment to a new centralised crime recording unit - which the mayor’s office has already improved data significantly since the period looked at by the inspectorate - and a gold command structure aimed at turning around the situation.
A meeting with the Home Office about the report had been ‘constructive’, his deputy Beverley Hughes had said.
However within 24 hours of those
comments, HMIC had decided to place the force into ‘special measures’, the unofficial term for the highest level of intervention.
An HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services spokesperson said: “The level of scrutiny on Greater Manchester Police has been raised and the force has been placed in the Engage stage of the HMICFRS monitoring process.
“This is due to the causes of concern raised in HMICFRS’s recent reports which have highlighted the poor service the force provides to many victims of crime.
“In the Engage stage, a force is required to develop an improvement plan to address the specific causes of concern that have led to it being placed in the advanced phase of the monitoring process”.
The move comes amid speculation within the Greater Manchester system about the force’s performance, including frustrations among MPs and within town halls. GMP has been approached for comment.