In the aftermath of the bombshell Leadership Commission report last week, HMICFRS published PEEL reports for three more forces: Merseyside Police, Thames Valley Police (TVP) and Staffordshire Police.
These reports went under the radar for most, as attention was (rightly) on the recommendations of the Leadership Commission report. I’ll be summarising that one later! In this blog, I remind you why these force ‘scorecards’ are important and then focus on a quick review of the three forces’ latest scores…
Why Bother with PEEL Reports?
Rank Success was first on the scene and continues providing officers with the best free content I’ve been publishing free content on force PEEL inspections. For over a decade, I’ve been encouraging aspiring candidates to read their force PEEL reports. It’s why I summarise many of them in videos on my YouTube channel and as embedded below.
These reports are a great source of information for three main reasons:
- Challenges: Your force PEEL report is a great starter-for-10 on the challenges your force faces, a common promotion presentation scenario.
- Questions: Predict promotion questions based around the things in which your force must improve. It’s the stuff that most worries those deciding on your career fate. How will you contribute to improvements on investigation, wellbeing, performance, or other common themes?
- Strategic: Particularly relevant for the more strategic ranks of Inspector to Superintendent, you’ll demonstrate your strategic thinking. Watching my summary videos, you’ll also know the basics about your own force, including key strategies, insights, and stats on people, budgets and demands.
Of course, you’ll find plenty of practice forward-facing and rear-facing promotion board questions and presentation scenarios in my Interview Success guide. And it’s nice to see that a couple of others in the police promotion support sphere have recently cottoned on to this goldmine and are now following the lead of Rank Success to also advise cops of these freely available resources.
Now let’s quickly review how TVP, Merseyside, and Staffordshire fared in this most recent round of 2025-27 inspections…
TVP Middling, but Improved Since 2023…
Thames Valley Police is a sizeable force with a £620m budget bill, around 5,100 officers, another 4,100 staff and PCSOs, and deals with nearly a million calls for service a year from its 2.6m population. This population which has grown by ~200,000 people in the past 5 years.
It’s good to know such key headlines about your force, especially if you’re going for promotion!
TVP attracted a mixed review from its designated Inspector, Roy Wilsher:
“I am satisfied with some aspects of the performance of TVP in keeping people safe & reducing crime. It has made improvements… But I have concerns about how it is investigating crime & supporting vulnerable people and about some aspects of its force management.” – Roy Wilsher OBE QFSM, HM Inspector of Constabulary
As I show in the video summary above, on my unique Rank Success PEEL comparator scoring system, TVP averaged 1.9 out of 4.0. This is bang on the average for the 11 forces reported so far by HMICFRS.
TVP Deputy Chief Constable Ben Snuggs was diplomatic in his force response to the report, acknowledging the improvements needed, but also drawing on the positives and thanking the efforts of TVP’s officers and staff.
“I am very encouraged to see recognition of our strong neighbourhood policing and prevention work, which is the cornerstone of effective policing… At the same time, we are clear that there is more to do… Our priorities and focus remain unchanged: to fight crime, serve victims, build community trust and value our people.”
Despite requiring improvements, TVP Police resides at Level 1 (of 4) of the HMIC’s brand new ‘Performance Levels’ force league tables.
What are these new HMICFRS Performance Level? In a nutshell, this is just a new mechanism for HMIC to show at any one time which forces are attracting greater scrutiny resulting from poor performance. The Level 1-4 league table publicises which forces have some sort of intervention required to improve, and to what extent that entails. No force wants to be in Level 3 or even Level 4 (‘Special Measures’) territory. Only one force (Lincolnshire) is faring poorly here at Level 3, none are currently at Level 4.
While there were improvements compared to their poor showing in the prior 2023-25 inspection regime, their ‘Leadership and Management’ and ‘Investigating Crime’ themes still require improvement. So as an aspiring leader in this force, imagine this forward-facing police promotion interview question (or potential presentation scenario):
“As a newly promoted Sergeant, how will you instil standards of investigation among your team and improve performance?”
This could be assessed against the CVF Value of Public Service, the CVF Competencies “We Support and Inspire” or “We Take Ownership”, or indeed a locally-tailored force framework (which will have been at least mapped against the CVF already).
If you want to understand the CVF in plain English, practice more questions or even see tangible rank-specific evidence against various behaviours being assessed, then check out my dedicated PC to Sergeant or Sergeant to Inspector / Chief Inspector (2 ranks in one!) toolkits.
And if you’re in this force seeking promotion to Inspector, Chief Inspector or beyond, make sure you’ve also read the TVP Strategic Plan 2026/27. If you don’t know why, or want support with your promotion and leadership ambitions, give me a phone call. I’ll give you 30 minutes of my time completely free, no strings.
Merseyside Police PEEL Generally Good…
There’s nothing more pleasing to a force’s Chief Officer group that to receive a mostly positive report card from HMIC. They scored an average of 2.4 out of 4.0, better than the average of forces reported so far and improved since their past inspection.
“We welcome the findings from the HMICFRS PEEL inspection which grades us as outstanding for our work in preventing and deterring crime, ASB and reducing vulnerability. I want to thank every officer, member of staff and volunteer across Merseyside Police for their dedication and commitment to the communities of Merseyside.” – Chief Constable Rob Carden
See my video above for a summary. In addition, I highlight how Merseyside is another big force with big demands: 4,200 officers and another 2,500 staff and PCSOs police a growing population which has now hit 1.5 million people, who generally call the force for service ~700,000 times a year.
By the way, if you’re an aspiring officer in Merseyside, you might be interested in my deep-dive on the Merseyside Leadership Framework.
Merseyside sits under the remit of HM Inspector Michelle Skeer, who summarised their performance positively…
“I am pleased with the performance of Merseyside Police in keeping people safe, reducing crime and giving victims an effective service. The force has made improvements in leadership, prevention and safeguarding since our last inspection… But I have concerns about how the force is investigating crime.” – Michelle Skeer OBE QPM, HM Inspector of Constabulary
As such, Merseyside Police are sitting comfortably at Level 1 (of 4) of the HMIC’s new ‘Performance Levels’ force league tables.
Again however, the investigation of crime is a thorn in the side of Merseyside, as it is for most forces. And no doubt, mainstream media who are addicted to criticising policing at any opportunity will have zeroed in on this point to again skew the reception of this PEEL assessment. Taking ownership, how will you help improve this area?
Staffordshire Police
The above graphic summarises the situation for Staffordshire Police. It’s generally negative and slightly down on its 2023-25 inspection, albeit not as bad as their lows of 2021-22 performance. As such, Staffordshire Police are currently at Level 2 of the HMIC’s brand new league tables.
On the bespoke Rank Success scoring system, this means they’re on a below-par 1.4 (out of 4.0). Again, key areas include Leadership and Management and Investigating Crime. The new inspection theme of Managing Fraud is also identified for improvement, while Responding to the Public is graded as ‘Inadequate’.
“I am satisfied with the performance of Staffordshire Police in how it is working to attract, support and retain members of its workforce and how it is trying to improve how fairly and effectively its officers use their powers of stop and search. The force has made some improvement to how it safeguards vulnerable people since our last inspection. I have concerns about how the force is responding to calls from the public, how it investigates crime on behalf of victims and how well it understands and responds to current and future demand.” – Kathryn Stone OBE
Again, aspiring promotion candidates here would do well to read Staffordshire’s report and think about how you would contribute to a brighter future for the force, along with what relevant evidence you have.
Now a quick diversion, I noticed HMIC published an interesting report under its policing inspection theme this week as I was compiling this blog…
HMRC Receives Damning Anti-Corruption Assessment
“HMRC manages a significant amount of public money and holds sensitive personal data on millions of people. The department should act to address the concerns we have identified and protect itself from the risks posed by internal fraud, computer misuse and the potential for infiltration by organised crime groups.” – HMICFRS
You might not know, but HMICFRS’s remit also covers inspecting other public organisations. It comes under Lee Freeman KPM’s remit as one of the HMIC’s Inspectors of Constabulary.
While you’re here, listen to my exclusive free podcast with Lee Freeman from when he was Chief Constable of Humberside, the force that initiated Right Care Right Person. As with all my Chief Officer interviews, there’s great leadership and promotion learning to be had for all in policing.
Anyway, whatever your force’s PEEL assessment looks like, it won’t be as bad as how the HMRC came out in its recent targeted inspection from just a corruption angle! In short, the frustration emerging from the HMIC about such little progress since the last inspection (2012), and their aghast reactions after lifting various stones, shines through the pages like a torchlight.
HMRC employs 63,500 people. In comparison, the £4 billion Met Police employs “just” 45,000. Anti-corruption should be imperative in the HMRC of all places, since its sole purpose is to collect and handle all the money for public services, manage benefits payments, has the personal data of every taxpayer, and liaise with all the businesses along the way.
Gaps in governance and leadership, resources and training, and policies and processes seem endless. One that struck me was that it puts just 1/6 (one sixth) of the resources to standards and corruption that police forces do. And it had only two people in post for the purposes of intelligence-gathering on insider threat and corruption. On its policies, HMIC writes:
“The policies don’t specifically include corruption risks. Neither do they outline to officers the risks of extortion and coercion which arise from having inappropriate outside interests.”
Slight diversion I know, but a real eye-opening read for anyone who pays tax or receives a benefit of some sort. It has completely gone under the radar. This astounding report was published just a few days ago in the HMIC’s policing section. Now let’s get back to policing…
PSNI & More Support…
HMIC also recently inspected PSNI specifically on its workforce and inclusion and use of powers themes. Both were graded as ‘Adequate’, however again there are plenty of issues and areas for improvement that aspiring officers should be considering. For example…
- How are you supporting wellbeing and reducing sickness?
- Do you know how PDRs should be done?
- How could the supervision of stop and search and use of force be improved?
- For Inspectors and above, what can you learn from PSNI’s cultural audit to improve workplace culture?
I hope you’ve found this PEEL briefing helpful. Watch this space and my YouTube channel for more on these PEEL inspection reports. Rank Success was the first to bring these reports to the attention of aspiring officers and continues to provide the best, force-specific summaries as an intuitive briefing for time-poor cops.
I can’t cover every force with a video as there’s so much going on recently, which I feel I must report on for you (Leadership Commission, police pay rise, etc.). Keep watching this space, visit my site for in-depth premium resources, and please consider subscribing to my great value podcast for deep-dive content and to support my work.
Kind Regards, Steve
Seeking police promotion? Want a MASSIVE head start right now and a focus on what matters? Hit the ground running with my great value digital promotion toolkits, and/or my market-leading Police Promotion Masterclass, seminars and CVF explainers. There’s nothing else like it to effectively prepare you for success and level the playing field of promotion. Any questions? Get in touch for a free call or to arrange more personal coaching support. Tune in to my extensive podcast for regular powerful leadership CPD and promotion insights.