Humberside Police win UK Police Service of the Year 2022

Image courtesy Humberside Police

Chief Constable Lee Freeman announced that Humberside Police has been recognised as the Gold winner for the UK Police Service of the Year 2022 Award at this year’s Public Sector Transformation Public Sector Awards in London. The accolade follows just a year after Humberside was the Silver winner in the 2021 Awards. This continued national recognition, further recognises the transformation and improvements that the force has achieved over the last five years.

The award is given to a Police Force that shows outstanding transformation, with Humberside being recognised for its ‘outstanding service improvement, completely transforming the force to promote an accessible presence and local based working.’

Humberside Police was highlighted for its innovative approach in supporting those in mental health crisis, along with its wider transformation and improvements in the last five years.  With police officers often being first on the scene, the force acknowledged that better partnership working needed to be driven to better support those in need. Right Care, Right Person is the first initiative of its kind where police and healthcare services are working hand in hand to get the right care to those that need it, in a much more effective way.

Chief Constable Lee Freeman said: “Members of our community who are experiencing mental health crisis need the same level of clinical support afforded to those who suffer physical injuries.  What ‘Right Care, Right Person’ has done is put the individual right at the heart of our decision making and this means that a police officer is often not the right person to be providing this care. By working with partners and supporting them financially to remove barriers, we are now supporting those individuals in a much more appropriate way.

“What this has meant is that more than 1,000 officer hours per month have been reallocated to enable us to focus on what our communities want us to be doing, that being proactive policing. Humberside Police arrest more suspects per police officer than any other force. Crucially, this is also backed up by the force having the highest detection rate for overall crime in the country as well. Our communities asked us to get on the front foot with reducing crime and ASB and to also bring offenders to justice and my officers and staff are doing this as well as any force in England and Wales."

Since 2017, Humberside Police has transformed, growing its officer numbers by an additional 650 officers in the last five years. The force is one of the leading forces for call handling performance and securing some of the highest positive outcome rates for victims. Crucially, the force has also continued to record the best results in relation to force morale in the country in the recent annual Police Federation Pay and Morale Survey.

Mr Freeman added: “Humberside Police has been on a transformational journey and we’re still on that path. When I took on the role of Chief Constable in 2017, it was clear that the fundamental culture of the force needed to change. From day one, I said that the force should be seen as one of the best forces in the country as our communities had a right to expect that and our staff and officers were that good. They have repaid that trust many times over.”

“This award is a recognition of five years of continued effort from across the entire team at Humberside Police. We should all feel proud for what we have achieved to date, it has been a complete cultural change at every level, and I’d like to thank the staff for their continued support, without which, the transformation we’ve seen would not have been possible.”