Staffordshire Police told to improve as national report raises alarm over UK forces

The findings prompted an official watchdog to raise the alarm over the "potentially perilous" state of British policing.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) also issued an unprecedented warning that a shortage of detectives and investigators amounts to a "national crisis".

Staffordshire Police was one of 13 forces that was listed as requiring improvement, while West Midlands Police and West Mercia Police were rated 'good'.

The West Midlands force was said to be good at investigating and preventing crime crime, but needed to do more to investigate crimes involving vulnerable victims. It is well prepared to deploy armed criminals, and has 'thoroughly assessed the threat of a terror attack.'

Deputy Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe said: "We continue to strive to reduce crime and ensure our communities are safe places for the residents and visitors of the West Midlands force area.

"We are pleased with the outcome of the report and that HMIC recognises the work we are doing.

"We acknowledge that improvements still need to be made in protecting vulnerable members of our society and we are continuing to invest in our Public Protection Unit, which has significantly increased in size in recent years and continues to do so.

"A team dedicated to finding missing people has been introduced in the past year aimed at reducing the time and resources required to return missing people to safety and providing support to prevent them from being absent again in the future."

Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson said: "I welcome this report showing that West Midlands Police is effective at keeping people safe, preventing and reducing crime.

HMIC graded the forces after evaluating them in four areas: how effective is the force at preventing crime, anti-social behaviour?; how effective is the force at investigating crime and managing offenders?; how effective is the force at protecting vulnerable people and supporting victims?; how effective is the force at tackling serious and organised crime?

Nationally, inspectors said the public is being left at unacceptable risk as a minority of forces artificially suppress demand.

They uncovered evidence of emergency calls being downgraded in order to justify a slower response and failings in responding to vulnerable victims.

Fewer arrests were made, a large number of crimes were effectively "written off", suspects were not always pursued and inexperienced officers were left to carry out complex investigations, the review found.

HMI Zoe Billingham stopped short of saying the service was in crisis, but warned: "We are leading to a very serious conclusion regarding the potentially perilous state of British policing in this report.

"Over the last few years, HMIC has said consistently that police forces were managing well in increasingly difficult circumstances.

"Nonetheless, today, I'm raising a red flag to warn forces of the consequences of what is, to all intents and purposes, an unconscious form of rationing of police services."

The wide-ranging report found:

• Initial risk assessments made by call handlers being downgraded because of a lack of available officers to respond immediately

• A lack of focus directed to apprehending wanted individuals, with the details of 67,000 suspects not placed on the police national computer (PNC)

• As of August there were 45,960 wanted suspects on the database, including those being sought for offences including terrorism, murder and rape

• In too many cases forces are taking "insufficient action" to actively track down wanted suspects once their details have been circulated on the PNC

• Limited capacity within many forces to manage the risk posed by the most dangerous offenders

• Neighbourhood policing - described as "the bedrock" of the service - continues to be eroded

• Gangs of violent and dangerous criminals were not formally classified

HMIC said it was also warning for the first time of a national crisis in the shortage of detectives and investigators in many forces.

This is leading to excessive workloads and complex investigations are being led by those who lack appropriate experience. In one instance inspectors saw a uniformed officer investigating rape.

The report highlighted the extent to which forces are not taking inquiries further because the victim does not support police action.

In some areas, more than one in five cases are not investigated fully for this reason and the issue is particularly acute for domestic abuse.

HMIC said this is "likely to mean that far too many perpetrators of extremely harmful domestic abuse crimes are not being brought to justice and victims are being failed by the police".

The watchdog examined the effectiveness of forces in England and Wales, and said that most provide a largely good service in keeping people safe and preventing crime.

Overall, one force was judged to be "outstanding", 28 forces were "good", 13 "require improvement" and one was rated "inadequate".