Force Business Plan

Force Business Plan 2024

Strategic Summary

Chief Constable Foreword

The county of Essex covers 1,417 square miles and borders the counties of Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Kent and four London Boroughs. Three quarters of the county is agricultural landwith a 400 mile coastline and several significant and spread out major urban areas. The population of Essex is 1.86 million (rising by 7.8 per cent since the 2011 census) with 11.2 per cent of residents of minority ethnic origin. The resident population is increased by university students and the large numbers who visit, socialise in, or travel through the area each year.

Incorporating a county council, 12 districts and two unitary authorities, Essex has a complex infrastructure with key parts of the strategic road network including the M25, M11, A12, A13 and Dartford Road Crossing and one of the UK busiest international airports at Stansted. In addition, it is the home to busy international seaports in Harwich and on the Thames Estuary. All being key national infrastructure.

Essex is a diverse county with significant variation in geography, infrastructure, accessibility, and socio-economic factors. The 2021 census described how the county has changed over rn years; the average age of the population has increased and is higher in Essex than that across all of England and Wales and the proportion of residents who are economically inactive has risen in all areas of Essex. This figure does not include those economically inactive on account of retirement, sickness, education or raising a family.

Recent changes include the Wethersfield site in Essex which began accommodating asylum seekers aged 18 to 65 in July 2023. As such, the county requires a tailored policing response which considers the rural pressures as well as the urban demand from violence, county lines, drugs supply and serious and organised crime. The proximity to London brings its own challenges, both in terms of crime, but also recruitment and retention pressures through the associated high cost-of-living for officers and staff and competing with London salaries.

Significant events at a global and national level have continued to have a local impact on policing throughout the year. Global impacts include geo-political conflicts, security threats, terrorism and extremism. Technological change and the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements, cybercrime, online fraud and the use of digital tools by criminals require policing to continually adapt and develop new skills and strategies.

Nationally, there has been intensified media attention in the policing of public protests, ongoing public concern over the safety of women and girls, and the continued challenges to the legitimacy of UK policing from these and other high profile issues concerning police officer conduct. Over the next 20 years, trends in global warming and rising inequality will come together to increase the number and complexity of issues facing policing. These are on top of, and contribute to, our ongoing commitment to supporting the priorities within the Strategic Policing Requirement and the measures set out in the Beating Crime Plan.

Additionally, there have been significant organisational and operational impacts which have been more localised to Essex that we have managed effectively alongside routine calls for service. More information is included in appendix A which sets out our 15-year predictions and future operating environment.

This Force Management Statement (FMS) reflects the challenges of a continually changing environment for policing services and partners. This year's report has been informed by greater feedback and insight from our partners about the challenges they face in the context of our county as shown in appendix B.

Concerns relating to the levels of resources and funding is consistent across all partners, with other challenges including:

• Continued impact of delays in the criminal justice system due to the legacy of COVID-19, impacting on victims and witnesses.
• The impact of national, financial and economic conditions and increases in the cost-of­ living, including the consequences on people's health.
• Access to affordable/ temporary housing.
• High number of young people with indicators that they are in vulnerable circumstances.
• A focus and requirement for greater community resilience.
• Ambiguity of an election year and the financial challenge for 2025/26 which will have a heavy impact on local authorities and the NHS.

Other strategic challenges for our Force include:

• Balancing prevention and detection of high harm and serious violence offences along with volume neighbourhood crime, including recent rises in vehicle crime.
• Retention and recruitment of officers; nationally forces have found themselves criticised which reduces the general appetite for people to see policing as an attractive career path. As of March 2024, more than 37 per cent of officers had less than five years' experience.
• Challenges of the employment market and retaining experience and talent at all levels, with largest impact for specialist police staff roles.
• No capital funding for an ageing estate without additional borrowing.
• Electrification of the Essex Police Fleet - combustion vehicle production will cease in 2025.
• Increasing regulation and accreditation, for example Forensic International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
• Identification of solutions and investment/implementation of RPA (Robotic Process Automation).

The national focus on behaviours and cultures within policing has continued throughout 2024 with high-profile cases involving serving and former police officers. In Essex, the public can have confidence in our officers' integrity and no new conduct matters were identified from the Home Office historic data wash.

The Force was also rated as 'good' in the 2023 inspection into the effectiveness of vetting and counter corruption arrangements. The Force recognises the challenges that rapid officer growth has presented in this respect and has invested in support functions to manage those effectively including a Chief Superintendent head of professionalism.

Since 2020, Essex Police has maintained high levels of public confidence with over three quarters of the public in Essex saying Essex Police are doing a good or excellent job. This represents a high level of achievement and our continued commitment to improving public confidence in our Force when compared to both the Crime Survey of England and Wales (as of April 2024) and a 2023 national YouGov survey which showed that nationally confidence in the police was much lower with just 52 per cent of respondents saying the police do a good job.

A dedicated section on Public Confidence describes what we are doing to maintain and improve public confidence in our Force and how we are embedding the 2024 Code of Ethics, underpinned by the Force Professionalism Strategy and led by our Chief Superintendent head of professionalism.

As described in previous FMS reports, the Force has continued to build a sustainable policing model.

Significant investment has been made since the introduction of the first FMS in 2018 in contact management; neighbourhood policing; quality of investigations; serious and violent crime, and violence and vulnerability, made possible by the growth in officer numbers through the Police Fire and Crime Commissioner's precept increases and the Home Office National Police Uplift Programme (PUP).

The Force continues to work closely with partners and local communities through its neighbourhood policing model to connect and engage and to ensure we deliver policing services which meet their needs and puts the victim at the heart of all investigations.

The Force is one of the most efficient nationally with the second lowest spend per head of population in the UK and a high proportion of the budget, 63 per cent, attributed to front line policing. This data from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) Value for Money Profile Dashboard 2023.

Against this challenging backdrop, Essex Police continues to improve and, through its collection and analysis of the right data can be confident investment and resources are directed to the right areas as identified in our own self-assessments. These often include the use of wider partner data, extensive horizon scanning, input from academia and industry leaders as well as insight from peer reviews.

Our commitment to victims is led by the Deputy Chief Constable through a force wide Victim Star Chamber to prioritise victim-centric approaches across the Force. In 2024 the Force introduced new frameworks to measure compliance with the 12 victims' rights in the Victims Code of Practice, launched a new Victim Engagement Portal and implemented a new Victim Closure Discussion document.

More information about these initiatives to improve the quality of service to victims of crime are set out in the Investigations section of this report.

The outlook for the Force is positive with the Force being able to respond and adapt to a changing policing environment. Crime and incidents of anti-social behaviour are falling in our county. There were 1,690 fewer crimes reported (6,714 less victim-based crime) and 2,070 fewer repeat victims of crime in 2024 compared to 2023. Incidents of anti-social behaviour decreased by 26.8 per cent (5,657 fewer than last year and 26,546 fewer when compared to the 12 months to December 2019. Performance at the end of December 2019 is included to provide a comparison with performance levels pre-COVID-19.

Solved rates are improving and better than last year in many areas. There are 6,714 fewer victims compared to the previous year (136,098 for the 12 months ending March 2023 compared with 129,384 for the same period in 2024), and we are meeting the challenges we face with a skilled and dedicated workforce.

Essex Police is ambitious and continually strives to identify opportunities to maximise resources, adopt innovative approaches and improve service quality. Examples are given throughout this report coupled with our work with partners to support local communities and collaborating with other forces and organisations. Investing in the skills necessary to investigate modern crimes and importantly safeguard individuals and communities in an increasingly digital world, is a key part of our plans.

The Force has a chief officer-led programme of work to drive forward our engagement with research and innovation, ensuring we are proactive in identifying and pursuing opportunities to improve. As well as becoming integrated into a consortium of universities, and building on well-established collaborations with industry, we are developing an internal culture from which research and innovation can flow through our decision making and delivery. The Research and Innovation Strategy being developed in 2024 will ensure we are operating with local, regional, and national research and innovation opportunities in mind.

Importantly, we are also developing our ability to measure the value and benefits when we invest in innovation. With this strong focus, we are driving our ambition to be truly forward thinking and to become more adept at how we identify and meet future challenges.

Collaborations and partnerships are at the heart of this, and our appetite to learn from others in this way will become increasingly impactful as the programme develops. More information is given in the Managing the workforce section, including our work with the Eastern Region Innovation Network to develop ideas in collaboration ensuring best use of time and public money.

In 2024 Essex and Kent Police were named as the UK Police Service of the Year in the iESE (Improvement and Efficiency Social Enterprise) Public Transformation Awards for the implementation of the Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) product that revolutionises how digital assets are managed. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our multi-functional teams across both forces,
including teams from IT, Finance, Procurement, Criminal Justice, Digital Forensics and Information Management. The Force has also received awards for the 'We Value Difference' campaigns as well as the Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Cohesion (EDIC) Partnership. Our promising and innovative practice is reflected in numerous His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspection reports. These accolades reflect our forward-thinking approaches, strategic planning and the range and level of skill and dedication of our officers, staff and volunteers.

Our Force Management Statement (FMS 2024) is used to inform transformation and investment decisions and is embedded in our annual strategic business planning and in our continual resource planning cycle. It sets out our understanding of the levels, nature and the challenges associated with the demand for policing services we currently face and expect to face in the foreseeable future to help people, keep people safe and catch criminals.

This year we will be making further changes to increase the capability and capacity in our local policing teams, further improve our call handling and response to the public, reviewing our custody arrangements including medical provisions, and increase our digital forensics capacity.

Our operational changes will include:

i) continuing to improve the quality of volume crime investigations by embedding the national commitment to follow all reasonable lines of enquiry as set out in the Authorised Professional Practice (APP) on investigations and

ii) building upon the existing successes in reducing sexual offending by implementing in full Operation Soteria to further improve the investigations of rape and serious sexual offences.

We will continue to support our officers and staff with our award-winning welfare and wellbeing programmes in the workplace, invest in our Estate and make further moves to cloud-based structures equipping our workforce with modern technology.

Introduction

Essex has 2.29 officers per 1,000 head of population. This data was sourced from the HMICFRS Value for Money Profile Dashboard 2023.

In the year to 31 March 2024, Essex Police responded to over 404,049 incidents. Whilst this is lower than for the same period last year (419,868) there is increasing demand for policing services due to their increasing complexity, including incidents which may not be of a policing nature. In the year to 31 March 2024, 152,595 offences were recorded, a 6.5 per cent reduction (10,690 fewer offences) compared to the 12 months to March 2023.

Whilst we continue to see promising trends in recent crime demand, forecasts suggest that a gradual upward trend, which has been a feature of all crime volume since 2015, will continue without our sustained and considerable efforts with partners in ongoing crime prevention and intervention activity.

It should be noted here that while the methodology used for statistical forecasting, exponential smoothing also referred to as ETS5, puts greater weight on more recent values and therefore takes greater account of any of recent interventions, it does not consider planned interventions and may be subject to change. Demand for our services can be masked when looking solely at volume and needs to consider the changing nature of crime, the often-hidden demand of actions to safeguard victims as well as the calls we continue to respond to on behalf of other agencies where their service level is below what the public expect.

Essex Police has the most diverse workforce and the highest number of officers it has ever had along with dedicated police staff, volunteers, the Special Constabulary and partners to investigate, respond to and prevent crime. Officer growth enabled from the PUP together with investment from the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and the people of Essex through rises in the local policing precept has allowed officer numbers to grow, and our headcount is at the highest level ever with 3,820 officers on 31 March 2024 compared to 3,664 officers on 31 March 2010.

For 2023/24 the force had an agreement to maintain the original police uplift requirement of 3,765 headcount, plus a further 55 officers, totalling 3,820. For 2024/25 the minimum headcount requirement has been set at 3,810, with an additional recruitment of 10, totalling 3820. The plan is agile and able to account for attrition fluctuations whilst also ensuring that salary budgets are not exceeded, with the capacity to onboard 253 new recruits over the course of the financial year to deliver the uplift demand.

Integral to our Force are the skills and dedication of 2,291 members of police staff (2,389 in 2010), 102 PCSOs and over 1,000 volunteers.

This year the Force has refreshed its Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Strategy in consultation with external stakeholders, including the Strategic Independent Advisory Group. The strategy is underpinned by modern, inclusive values and established 'policing by consent' ethics. Over 95 per cent of our workforce have completed internal 'Valuing the Difference' training with themes discussed locally at Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Boards. The Force provides extensive opportunities to listen to the views of our workforce including the Chief Constable's Local Policing Tours in 2024, Chief Officer inputs into the 'Be the Change Programme' and monthly Chief Officer visits to teams across the Force, and an extensive range of listening circles often co-ordinated through our support networks. Our award-winning recruitment campaigns ensure that Essex Police continues to become more reflective of the diversity in the communities we serve to support public confidence and trust in our Force.

The Force has an extensive range of development opportunities and support mechanisms in place to help retain officers and staff who might otherwise be tempted by competitive salaries, as well as financial wellbeing programmes to support those facing challenges with increases in the cost-of-living.

This Report

Consistent with each previous FMS, this report has been purposefully designed as a forward­ looking assessment, tailored by the Force to align to the budget setting and resource planning cycle. This year we have restructured and expanded the FMS to better reflect our Force, and our collaborative, research and innovation led approach to meet the priorities described in the Force Plan 2024-2026.

As the Force Business Plan and alongside changes in the county relating to infrastructure, environmental change, housing, the road network and commercial development (appendix A) it sets the context in which the Force is, and will be, operating.

The report draws on detailed analysis of multiple data sources (increasingly using partner data through sources such as the Essex Centre for Data Analysis (ecda) and independent reviews commissioned by the Force) combined with our own professional judgment to form the robust assessment that follows. The FMS identifies where gaps may currently exist in the ability to meet future demands for service and how these have been prioritised to ensure the Force sustains improvement over time, whilst building on the successes of previous investments.

The document is layered as follows:

Individual sections (1-13) examining each policing theme, have been restructured to better reflect our Force and include:

• An expanded Prevention and Deterrence section to describe our whole Force and partnership approach to crime prevention.
• A new section of Managing the Organisation has been added to include our approach to Strategic Planning and Operational Change, Research and Analysis and Information Management and Data Quality.

Risk assessment with prioritised high-level findings to inform the Force business planning and financial planning cycle.

Changes since the last FMS (FMS 2023)

Making significant improvements to the response to the public, quality of investigations and support to victims, over the last 12 months the Force has implemented a variety of new models, enabled by our approach to embed technological and digital advancements to enhance the Force's operational capabilities. Just a few are given below with more examples contained in the sections that follow:

• Investments in the timeliness and quality of response to the public through the introduction of a new Target Operating Model in the Contact Management Command, which will pay for itself over a three-year period. The model reflects the expectations of the public in expanding digital and online methods for public contact, and faster responses and investigative opportunities including rapid video response (RVR) to improve the timeliness and quality of our investigations.
• Revised operating model for our continued focus on investigation, safeguarding and public protection and a focussed targeting of dangerous offenders. Transitioned to the new Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment (DARA) format to ensure that we continue to tackle the biggest cause of harm in the county.
• Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) model in collaboration with partners to ensure those in mental health crisis receive timely access to support that best meets their needs. Since the introduction of RCRP, there has been a significant reduction in the number of concerns for welfare related incidents created, and in the final quarter of 2023 to end March 2024, the framework has reduced the volume of calls for service for 'concerns for welfare' by 45 per cent (3,502 less incidents) compared to the same period the year before.
• Other technological advancements this year include improvements to our body worn video, implementation of a live facial recognition capability, investment in our Digital Forensics capability, introduction of Doc Defender, a web-based application for the automatic redaction of documents and implementation of the Digital Asset Management System.
• The Force has continued its collaboration with Essex County Fire and Rescue Service in relation to our joint delivery and plans for a joint Police and Fire Station and a collaborated Fleet workshop.

The Force introduced a new Performance Framework in 2024 under six areas;

1. Prevent
2. Respond
3. Investigate
4. Building trust and confidence
5. Our People
6. Operational Effectiveness and efficiency

Our focus coupled with the changes described above for 2024, will be to consolidate, support and develop the workforce to maximise their skills to provide improvements in the quality of investigations, support to victims, further reductions in crime and increases in solved rates. This is underpinned by Analytics for Everyone (A4E), an online tool giving access to highly interactive, visual dashboards with the Force leading the way nationally in putting data at the heart of the Force to support a skilled, equipped and enabled workforce. The dashboards allow front line officers easy and instant access to information to make operational decisions on a daily basis to improve the service to victims of crime.

This year's FMS (FMS 2024)

Since the last FMS, we have created a new report that forecasts demand for our key drivers. This is available on the Analytics 4 Everyone system and is monitored every month at our Strategic Demand Management Board to predict future trends and develop preventative strategies. The adoption of Right Care, Right Person is likely to have a positive impact on calls for service, both 999 and mt

We continue to see sustained volumes in some areas (as predicted in last year's FMS), and we can now report long term reductions in key areas of vulnerability.

• Overall, both state and victim-based crime are reducing. State based crime has reduced by 14.6 per cent (3,998 fewer offences) and victim-based crime has reduced by 4.3 per cent (5,779 fewer) compared to the same period last year for the period ending 12 months to the end of March 2024.
• Overall Repeat Victims have also reduced by 10.7 per cent (4,809 fewer) compared to the same period last year for the period ending 12 months to the end of March 2024. (40,054 compared to 44,863 in the previous year).
• Last year's prediction that victim-based crime will increase over the next four years without our interventions and prevention work seems not to have come to fruition. Our recent achievements in this area are strong and there have been consistent reductions in recent months for Homicide, Violence without injury, Stalking and Harassment, Rape and other sexual offences, Domestic Abuse, Sexual Offences, and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). Notably, these reductions are not purely a result of improved recording practices but are reflected in reductions in the Force's harm profile and overall crime rates. The crime mix in Essex is also changing, with violence now accounting for just over 46 per cent of all victim-based crime (as of March 2024).
• High Harm offences are forecast to remain steady over the next four years. Our short-term trends are positive and show a reduction in the 12 months to March 2024 compared to the same period the previous year (-5 per cent). With continued focus on our robust plans, oversight, and innovative intervention and prevention work, we expect the current level of performance to be maintained and to improve further. This includes Operation Nightshade which is the Force response to tackle high harm offences. Since its introduction in November 2021 there has been a downward trend in the number of offences recorded.
• The volume of emergency incidents did not increase in 2023/24 as previously predicted. There was a 1.3 per cent (1,070 incidents) fall in the number of emergency incidents (to 81,174) when comparing the 12 months to March 2024 to the same period in 2023. This is the second year-on-year reduction.
• Since April 2021, there has been an upward trend in Neighbourhood crime (Robbery, Burglary and Vehicle crime offences) and this is forecast to continue over the next four years. This is driven by Theft of Motor Vehicle offences which have seen a 17 per cent rise in the last 12 months (to 5,921 offences) to March 2024.
• There have been fewer Domestic Abuse crimes during the past 12 months (24,494 crimes to the 12 months ending March 2024 compared to 27,874 in the 12 months to end March 2023) and our short-term trends are positive, with continued improvement expected from our ongoing prevention activity and our work with partners as outlined in our Crime Prevention Strategy. The long-term forecast shows that current downward trends may flatten out over the next four years.

The drivers of demand are set out in appendix C.

Ongoing Focus

From our robust assessment of each FMS theme alongside supporting analysis, and the evidence that our efforts are having an impact, there are five areas where continued focus in 2024/25 will allow us to best achieve the priorities set out in our Force Plan 2024/26. Our Force Plan (appendix D) has been updated this year to include a section on trust and confidence linked to the Code of Ethics and has added vehicle crime into our priorities recognising the rise in crimes in line with national and local trends.

These are not new priorities, but areas that are key to supporting our progress.

• Maturing our strategic prevention activity with partners to continue our strategic shift to the prevention and deterrence of crime.
• Enhancing capacity, capability and quality of investigations through consistent supervision to a high standard.
• Tackling violence and high harm such as violence with injury, rape and domestic burglary.
• Reducing the disparity in confidence between our victims and non-victims and increasing victim satisfaction through investments in first response and investigation.
• Recruiting and retaining an inclusive, skilled, and capable workforce that is representative of the diversity within our community.

The Force has demonstrated continued investment in these areas (as shown in FMSs 2022/23 and for 2024/25 in Appendix E) without which we would experience an unmitigated rise in demand for service as set out in the risk assessment. In previous FMS's we have reported extensive and welcome growth in both our headcount and capabilities and all areas of the Force will continue to lead, develop, support and retain the younger in experience workforce so they and the Force can mature.

Key Findings

The following section summarises the high-level findings from our gap analysis. The list below indicates where the risk assessment has changed from the previous FMS (more detail in appendix F).

Substantial Risk:

• Finance
• Public Contact
• Investigations (increased risk)
• Knowledge Management & ICT (increased risk)

Moderate Risk

• Public Protection
• Tackling Serious & Organised Crime
• Major Events & Operational Policing
• Force wide Supporting Functions
• Public Confidence
• Managing the Organisation (new section)

Low Risk

• Workforce Management
• Prevention & Deterrence (reduced risk)
• Collaboration

Section 1 - Finance

The level of risk remains Substantial.

• The short and medium term funding challenge brought about by uncertainty about Government Grant and Precept Funding is a substantial threat to capacity and capability going forward.
• The partial unfunded pay award in 2023/24 and £1m under delivery of recurring savings has meant an additional on-going cost pressure to Essex Police above that previously budgeted.
• Inflation, although reducing, remains high, creating greater cost pressures on existing contracts.
• Significant funding gap for 2025/26 alongside unknowns regarding the outcome of the Funding Formula Review and impact of elections in 2024/25.
• Increasing capital investment programme including Estates Strategy and the unknown pay award in September 2024.
• Continued investment essential in addressing historic under investment in the Force estate and working towards carbon neutral buildings by 2050 and the necessary infrastructure to support electrification of our vehicle fleet.
• With the removal of capital grants from the Home Office and low capital reserves there is a need to borrow significantly over the next five years increasing the proportion of revenue being needed to fund capital investment over the next 30 to 40 years.

Section 2 - Workforce Management (Wellbeing, HR, Learning & Develoment)

The level of risk remains Low.

• Essex Police has proactively invested and chosen to maintain funding in Wellbeing to support the workforce and have developed award winning wellbeing programmes as detailed in the section.
• The HR teams are professionally qualified and have high levels of experience.
• Focus from the Learning and Development Team remains on first line leadership and investigative skills development.

Section 3 Publc Contact

The level of risk remains Substantial. However,

• Improvements in public contact are positive due to the significant investment and changes in call handling and initial response to the public.
• Two of the four previous HMICFRS Areas for Improvement (AFis) from PEEL (Police Effectiveness, Efficiency and Legitimacy) 2021-22 have been actioned and closed, with HMICFRS noting positive progress against the remaining two AFis.
• Significant improvements have been achieved in 101 call handling and abandonment rates with a positive channel shift to online services. However, the second phase of the new Target Operating Model is still to be implemented and the savings identified in the business case delivered in 2024/25.
• The installation of the new telephony system (Integrated Command and Control System (ICCS) in January 2024 is currently showing some instability which is being overseen by a new Gold Group. A new strategic risk has been added to the risk register in May 2024.

Section 4 - Prevention and Deterrence

The level of risk is reducing to Low from Moderate

• The Force strategic shift to crime prevention and the successful operational delivery of our joint Crime Prevention Strategy 2021-2025, coupled with the support of our communities and partners has underpinned our response and achievements to date in this area as described in the section.
• The section has been expanded this year to include force wide prevention and deterrence activity and is not limited to activity within local policing teams.

Section 5 - Investigations

The level of risk is rising to Substantial from Moderate.

This reflects the challenges in local policing teams (LPT) of an inexperienced workforce to effectively deal with the volume of investigations, and abstractions due to inexperience, protected training time for PEQF and abstractions due to risk intolerant custody provision. Despite significant Force growth (PUP Programme) and a reducing crime picture:

• 37 per cent of officers and staff working in LPT have been in policing for less than five years.
• Average pass rates for 2023 pre-charge case files are poor due to competing priorities and the time given to spend on case file preparation, lack of experience around case file preparation and lack of supervisory experience.
• DG6 and digital disclosure is seeing investigation length times increasing. Currently it takes around eight hours to complete a case file for CPS advice.
• The continuing abstractions to custody constant observations, hospital guards, scene guards, missing persons, increasing number of Personal Safety Training days from two to three days continue to have an impact on the quality of investigations from the LPTs.
• Many LPT officers are not response trained, which has had an impact on response times and therefore longer-term detrimental effect on quality of golden hour enquiries.
• Cyber and Digital Crime is significantly increasing. LPT officers do not presently have all the skills and technology required to conduct effective and quality investigations.

Section 6 - Public Protection

The level of risk remains Moderate and of note:

• Essex Police convicted the first person in the country for Cyber Flashing receiving a 66- month custodial sentence.
• In February 2024, Essex saw its first conviction for possession of indecent images of children on a Virtual Reality (VR) headset.
• There is an unknown impact from AI generated child sexual abuse material on digital capability and investigation.
• It is expected that RCRP will continue to support a downward trend in Mental Health demand. Though there will always be a requirement for Police to place persons under section 136 MHA, there is potential for Health Services to be able to have this power in future legislation.
• MOSOVO - Police have absorbed Probation's very high and high-risk community based Registered Sex Offenders (RSOs) into the police cohort which is jointly managed by Police and Probation Service to effectively manage risk.
• Force investment and focus on prevention through the VAWG Strategy, has seen VAWG decreasing over the last two years, from a peak between 2020 and mid-2022.

Section 7 - Serious and Organised Crime

The level of risk remains Moderate.

• Current demand is known across most Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) threats and is predicted to increase at a stable level. The proximity to London, Kent and coastal areas potentially increases vulnerability to national and international organised crime groups (OCGs).
• PUP uplift within ERSOU sees increased investigative capability to tackle SOC offending within the region.
• Team structures are designed to meet existing demands (fraud, proceeds of crime, money laundering and cyber) but with future demand expected to increase in volume and complexity and technology evolving the level of resources required may need to increase to keep pace.
• The long-term homicide trend is slightly decreasing, generally being less than two homicides per month. The Homicide Prevention Strategy 2022-26 underpins the prevention approach, which we continue to develop in the four key areas (DA, MH, drug driven violence and serious violence).
• Current demand is known across most SOC threats; however, gaps remain in our understanding of adult sexual exploitation, heroin and firearms supply networks and those exploited through labour exploitation.

Section 8 - Major Events

The level of risk remains Moderate.

• Establishment vacancies have increased to 27 having an impact on the ability to meet the STRA and other capabilities daily. In addition, there are currently eight ASO (armed surveillance officers) against an establishment of 12, four officers chose to move to other areas following the national issues relating to a firearms officer in London facing a murder charge.
• Significant environmentalism protest activity across Essex reduced during 2023 replaced by a small rise in protest around anti-immigration linked to the asylum accommodation centre in Wethersfield.
• Changes to the Dangerous Dogs Act to deal with the XL Bully breed is increasing the amount of time we are required to retain the dog until the case is heard at court (which can take upwards of a year), presenting significant costs to the Force.

Section 9 - ICT and Knowledge Management

The level of risk is rising to Substantial from Moderate.

• Future demand is becoming harder to predict with new technology developing faster than ever before and the advent of AI, and the continued threat of cyber-security.
• Capacity and demand remain a fine balance, requiring robust prioritisation and maintenance of the key strategy of ensuring current solutions and hardware remain fit for purpose.
• The IT market gap, where jobs outweigh the number of skilled and experienced candidates, continues to be a risk for capacity and capability of the IT department.
• Force and project level governance, determining the organisational value against an increasingly high bar before being accepted onto the Force technology portfolio. 2024 onwards will have the additional challenge of a 7.2 per cent pay budget reduction for the IT department.

Section 18 - Force wide functions

The level of risk remains Moderate overall, but the Estates section within is raised to substantial.

• The new Estates Strategy 2023/2028 will continue to modernise and futureproof the estate. Whilst this will initially increase demand, in the long-term overall demand should reduce as revenue costs and maintenance lessen.
• Stock condition surveys of HQ Estate evidence that significant investment is required into the HQ estate just to ensure the estate is maintained and fit for purpose. Therefore, investment is required into HQ whether this be maintenance or re-development.
• The extensive disposals plan will reduce the size of the estate, automatically improving efficient use of space. This will also reduce the revenue and reactive maintenance costs, with fewer buildings to service and maintain which is already being realised.
• The joint Carbon Management Plan with ECFRS has been approved with forward planning being considered for the electric vehicle transition and net zero carbon buildings by 2050.

Section 11 - Collaboration

The level of risk remains low.

The Force remains in a string collaborative partnership with Kent Police. This is the longest and most successful of its kind encompassing both improved non-operational service and efficiencies through shared Human Resources, Learning and Development, ICT, Fleet and Business Service as well as country leading operational delivery in tackling serious crime.

The Force has a strong ethos and cultural approach to driving collaborative working with partners and organisations in Essex and beyond.

Essex Police is leading on ground-breaking fire service collaboration overseen by the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) with focus on joint operational working including a joint Fleet workshop with Kent Police and Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS), a joint Police and Fire Station and educational intervention to promote safety and wellbeing with jointly funded resources
in schools.

The Force continues to work with local partners, Essex County Council (ECC) and Essex University, on the development of a county data sharing and analytics model Essex Centre for Data Analytics (ecda) and has strong links with a consortium of universities. The section sets out the wide range of collaborative relationships the Force has with both global, national and local partners.

Section 12 - Public Confidence

The level of risk remains moderate.

• The Force takes a 'whole Force' approach to improving and maintaining public confidence levels as described throughout this FMS.
• While the Force is performing well with confidence at high and sustained levels, significant events and reports outside the control of the Force have had an impact on public trust and confidence locally as much of Essex is covered by London based media and news.
• Three quarters of residents independently surveyed agree that Essex Police do a good or excellent job, with confidence levels among ethnic minority respondents (excluding white minority ethnic groups and victims of crime) increasing, and in some cases exceeding confidence levels of white respondents.
• The Force continues to have an in-depth understanding of the drivers of confidence to focus effort at Force and district level through an independent public perception survey and improved insight will be achieved in 2024 through the commissioning of a new survey.
• We continue to place a strong emphasis on listening to the voice of victims through focus groups, meetings, and our work with victim support services.
• Visibility of officers, engagement with local communities and work with local partners is paramount in maintaining and building public confidence and the Force actively seeks external scrutiny by inviting external experts, members of the community and victims of crime to discuss and comment. This contribution is vital for helping us improve, and the feedback is invaluable in our service design and delivery.

Section 13 - Managing the Organisation

This is included as a new section this year to describe the Force approach to strategic planning and innovation, research and analysis, information rights and data quality. Overall, the section is assessed as Moderate risk.

• Data driven policing and the use of a wide variety of digitised data sources is increasing and informs decision making, improved processes and increasing actionable intelligence for all personnel within the service.
• This remains the case as we move into 2024 with some of the developments in this area, including Robotic Process Automation, how the Force can use data to prevent serious harm to children, using technology to tackle drug driven violence, using data to prevent and predict modern slavery and human trafficking and using technology to maximise prevention. It is clear the development work in this area can reduce the level of risk in other areas of policing, but the increasingly technical and complex nature of research and analysis will naturally present skills and capacity challenges.

The 2024/25 Business Planning Priorities

Essex Police recognises the importance of understanding current and future demand, so that it can meet core responsibilities, deliver the Force Plan, and achieve the strategic priorities set out in the Police and Crime Plan, alongside the responsibilities and expectations set out in the Strategic Policing Requirement and the Beating Crime Plan. They also recognise the challenges of meeting each of these requirements.

The Essex Police Force Plan summarises the priority areas of work and how Essex Police will deliver them. The plan was developed with input from over 3,000 officers and staff during the Chief Constables leadership tour to identify our priorities and our approach to preventing, responding to, and investigating crime. Focusing on these through the business planning cycle will ensure they deliver the highest quality service to Essex communities.

The Force Plan for 2024/26 has the four 'Vs' at its core which represent the main effort: Victims; Vulnerability; Violence; and Visibility. Further to this, the published priorities are:

• Rape and serious sexual abuse.
• Domestic abuse.
• Drug and alcohol driven violence.
• Child abuse and exploitation.
• Violence against women and girls.
• Hate crime.
• Burglary, robbery and vehicle crime.
• Serious organised crime.
• Death and serious injury on the roads.
• Stalking and harassment.
• Business fraud and cybercrime.

Essex Police understands the importance of all areas of policing and the links and interdependencies between each. We will continue to refine and update the assessment of demand and capability to identify and address any challenges across each of the business areas. And we will examine how these areas of focus can be strengthened to develop a sustainable business model for delivering the core policing responsibilities.

The links to the Police and Crime Plan for Essex 2021-2024 have been considered for all sections of the FMS. These are set out in appendix G and will be updated when the Police Fire and Crime Commissioner publishes their Plan for 2025-2028.

Next Steps

The FMS is a key strategic planning document which informs the ongoing development of Essex Police business planning processes. It provides valuable insight into the demand in future years and how the Force is equipped to meet this demand or equally where changes may be required. As was the case for previous FMS reports, it will inform budget setting and operational planning in 2024/25 and beyond through the robust evidence and analysis it provides.

Declaration

This is the Force Management Statement for Essex Police. Except where stated otherwise, the information in this statement is complete and accurate in all material respects.

Signed:

BJ Harrington QPM Chief Constable