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Commissioner’s Response – HMIC Inspection – The Strategic Policing Requirement. An inspection of the arrangements that police forces have in place to meet the Strategic Policing Requirement.

15th May 2014

HMIC inspected the mechanisms police forces, police regions and law enforcement bodies with national responsibilities have in place to deliver capacity, contribution, capability, consistency and connectivity against each of the five SPR threats i.e. terrorism, organised crime, civil emergency, public order and cyber incident. HMIC also inspected the arrangements in place to respond to the requirements of the SPR to deal with threats to public order that cannot be managed by a single force acting alone or a large-scale cyber incident including criminal attack.  Northumbria was one of 18 forces that were inspected to inform this national report which is also informed by data and evidence provided by all 43 police

This report was published in April 2014 and I will work with the Chief Constable to ensure that where Northumbria Police need to respond to any of the recommendations in the report we will do so.  Many of the recommendations relate to the national working around the SPR and this includes ACPO establishing a collective leadership approach to secure the required level of preparedness to respond to national threats.  I recognise that the engagement of chief constables across the 43 forces with the college of Policing, Home Office, the National Crime Agency are key to the many of these recommendations, understanding and ensuring that we have the capacity to respond to national threats and I am supportive of the role the Northumbria Police play in this arena.

Recommendations also include that Chief constables and PCCs should, as part of their annual resource planning, explicitly take into account their strategic threat and risk assessments when they make decisions about the capacity and capability required to contribute to the national response to those threats.

This already takes place as part of my close working relationship with the Chief Constable and through my performance management framework.  I attend a monthly strategic management board and receive updates on each of the five SPR threats and how they are being dealt with and any emerging threats, issues or risks that have been identified.