Force must improve its vetting of officers and staff, says police inspectorate
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary must improve its vetting of police officers and staff, the police inspectorate has said.
A report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found the force vetting unit (FVU) did not have enough staff to meet the demand it faces.
“At the time of our inspection, analysts were working on 223 vetting applications,” said HMICFRS. “There were a further 462 vetting applications waiting to be processed.
“In addition, the FVU hadn’t yet asked 203 individuals with expired recruitment vetting to submit their renewal forms.
“The oldest of these cases was vetting that had expired in March 2023. We would have expected the FVU to have progressed them.”
HMICFRS found the force is also not managing its management vetting (MV) process effectively.
“The FVU told us it had recently identified 61 people who had been moved into designated posts without the required MV clearance,” it said.
“At the time of our inspection, there were also 49 people in designated posts whose MV had expired. Some of these had expired six months before we started our inspection.
“This relates to a recommendation from our 2022 report, ‘An inspection of vetting, misconduct, and misogyny in the police service’. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary has still not implemented this recommendation.
The report said the force was aware of the issue and training was being provided to “improve understanding”.
The inspection also found professional standards and counter-corruption arrangements were ‘adequate’.