Andy Burnham says he accepts the latest findings of the policing inspectorate, which has warned Greater Manchester Police are now putting public safety at risk after four years of failing to improve its services to vulnerable victims.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate this morning issued its second damning verdict on the force in ten months after a visit in September, where it found GMP was taking weeks to reach some victims who should get a response within an hour, including domestic abuse cases.
But speaking on BBC Radio Manchester’s ‘hot seat’ slot with Mike Sweeney, the mayor said the findings were known about already and feature in the improvement plan outlined by Chief Constable Stephen Watson a few weeks ago.
“This is what we’ve been openly acknowledging and the new Chief Constable has been very honest about this - that the service is not where it needs to be. And I think this relates particularly to what’s called the OCB, or the communications room, the communications function,” he said.
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“The plan has only just been laid out - so the new Chief Constable on 10 September set out his plan for what he’s going to do about it.
“So it’s not that these concerns aren’t serious, they are, but they’re accepted and they’re known about.
“And the new Chief is developing a plan to correct them. And only in the last couple of weeks I think a new Chief Superintendent has been brought in from outside GMP to look specifically at these issues and correct them.
“So we’re not in any way minimising it - this is serious but this is what we’ve been openly acknowledging for a long time.”
GMP has already been in special measures since last December, when the inspectorate found it was failing victims and not recording crime properly.
Inspectors then paid a routine visit to the force earlier this month to look specifically at its service to vulnerable victims - such as domestic abuse cases - and found that the force had failed to improve over the course of four years, despite repeated warnings.
It found vulnerable people were waiting days or weeks for a police response that should be undertaken within an hour, or in some cases were getting none at all. In most cases, GMP wasn't communicating with the victims.
“This enduring service failure has given cause for concern about public safety in Greater Manchester,” it said.
The problems are partly being driven by long-term short-staffing and under-training within the force’s control room - which is frequently being staffed through overtime or by pulling cops off the frontline - as well as poor risk assessment processes and inappropriate prioritisation of crimes.
Officers have also told the M.E.N. that since the force embarked on a drive to improve crime recording after the last inspectorate, open crime queues have rocketed.
HMI found a backlog of 2,700 calls that had not yet been dealt with, meaning there was potential risk to vulnerable victims that had not been assessed.
It has been making similar points since 2017.
However the mayor said that the specific period looked at by the inspectorate in its latest inspection coincided with particular short-staffing due to Covid.
“It is worth me just saying that the period that they looked at was the basically the June to September period and this was the period of what you might remember was the ‘pingdemic’, where there was large staff absence from what’s called our OCB,” he said.
“And we were public about that, myself and the deputy mayor at the time.
“We had higher than normal volumes of 999 calls and we had a lot of staff absence because of the pingdemic.
“And it wasn’t just GMP actually - 999 services across the country were affected by this and 999 waiting times. Everywhere got worse in that time.
“So there is some background context here. But no, this is understood. But GMP is implementing a plan to deal with it and that plan, as I say, is taking effect now. The new Chief Superintendent has been brought in and is already making changes.”
HMI's latest letter is known as an 'accelerated cause for concern', which the inspectorate only issues when there are fears for public safety.
Its warning serves as an initial summary of its fears around GMP's response to vulnerable victims, with a full report due out in January.
Chief Constable Stephen Watson has said he accepts and acknowledges the findings and has apologised for the continued problems within the service.
