HMICFRS Publishes National Four‑Level Policing Performance System

Overview

• HMICFRS has for the first time assigned every police force in England and Wales a performance level on a one-to-four scale, with Level One the default and Level Four meaning special measures.
• The new tables published in mid-July show 29 forces at Level One, including Northumbria, Durham and Hampshire and Isle of Wight, while fewer forces sit at Levels Two and Three and none are currently in Level Four.
• The system combines HMICFRS inspections with a Home Office Police Performance Framework that sets national targets for neighbourhood policing, 999 response times and incident response times.
• The College of Policing will deploy specialist ‘turnaround teams’ to diagnose problems and work with forces to create improvement plans and ministers will have powers to require and coordinate intervention in underperforming forces.
• Separate probes, most notably the Independent Office for Police Conduct and NPCC reviews linked to the December 3, 2025 Henry Nowak case, continue to run and could intersect with performance levels for forces such as Hampshire.