£80,000 and 18 officers but internal police review 'revealed nothing new'

The Force Management Statement rated WMP in a number of key areas, including investigations, organised crime and prevention.

It was produced following a demand from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) that each force in the country provided a self-assessment report.

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson has criticised the report, saying that it cost £80,000, runs for hundreds of pages and took 18 officers away from other duties, yet provides no new information.

He and officers would have been better placed ‘keeping our streets safe instead of paper pushing’.

The report concludes that WMP faces huge demands and has scarce resources.

It also rates the force poorly for its ability to protect vulnerable people – the same rating it was given in the HMIC’s last inspection in March.

Speaking at a meeting of the Strategic Policing and Crime Board, Chief Constable Dave Thompson said the report had revealed ‘nothing new’ about WMP.

Mr Jamieson added: “HMIC, with the support of government have ordered every force to produce these documents.

“It stretches to hundreds of pages and 18 officers and staff were taken from other duties to produce the document, costing at least £80,000.

"Those resources could have been much better deployed keeping our streets safe instead of pushing paper for HMIC.

“The documents reveals what was already widely known, that demand is huge, resources scarce and there are particular struggles with vulnerabilities.

“There is little that is new or surprising, this process hasn’t revealed anything ministers haven’t already ignored in my campaign for increased funding, or has not already been highlighted by HMIC.”

WMP Chief Superintendent Jo Clews, said: “If you were to speak to individual heads of department, there was nothing particularly ground-breaking there in terms of what was identified.”

In the report, WMP rated itself highly in nine of the 12 areas examined.