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POLICE PROMOTION · PREPARATION

Avon and Somerset Promotion Board Preparation

If you’re preparing for a Sergeant, Inspector or Chief Inspector board at Avon and Somerset, your panel already knows your force’s inspection picture. Here’s what that means for you, and how State6 builds it into your preparation.

PEEL report

6 February 2025

2023-25 PEEL inspection

Grades

8 areas

Causes of concern

None

in the latest PEEL report

HMICFRS support level

Level Two

Early or low-level concerns, as published 16 July 2026. What this means

Avon and Somerset HMICFRS snapshot

What the inspectors found

Avon and Somerset requires improvement in five areas in the 2023-25 PEEL inspection: responding to the public, investigating crime, protecting vulnerable people, managing offenders, and leadership.

PEEL grades

  • LeadershipRequires improvement
  • Managing offendersRequires improvement
  • Investigating crimeRequires improvement
  • Responding to publicRequires improvement
  • Protecting vulnerableRequires improvement
  • WorkforceAdequate
  • Police powersGood
  • Preventing crimeGood

Areas for improvement

  • The constabulary needs to improve the time it takes to answer emergency calls
  • The constabulary needs to reduce the number of non-emergency calls abandoned by callers because they aren't answered
  • The constabulary needs to attend calls for service in line with its published attendance times, make sure there is effective supervision of deployment decisions, and make sure that callers are updated if there are delays
  • The constabulary should carry out timely investigations into all reported crimes, and make sure that officers take all investigative opportunities
  • The constabulary needs to make sure it is recording outcomes appropriately, and that they comply with force and national policies, leading to satisfactory results for victims
  • The constabulary should make sure that it consistently achieves appropriate outcomes for victims
Show the other 10 areas for improvement
  • The constabulary should make sure that it properly documents, supervises, quality assures and monitors compliance of its vulnerability risk assessments
  • The constabulary needs to make sure it has sufficiently trained personnel and the resources to make sure the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme complies with the required legislative processes and timescales
  • The constabulary should improve its governance and approach to managing suspects and wanted people
  • The constabulary should make sure that it has processes and resources in place to visit registered sex offenders and manage the risk posed by them
  • The constabulary should make sure that its internet child abuse team can manage images of online child abuse in line with nationally recognised risk assessment timescales, and that supervisors regularly review officers' caseloads
  • The constabulary should make sure that it continually risk assesses any backlogs in online child abuse referrals and cases awaiting enforcement action, and that bail checks and intelligence refreshes take place following enforcement action
  • The constabulary needs to make sure it implements the findings of its occupational health unit review quickly, so that its workforce can benefit from the improvements
  • The constabulary should use relevant data and analysis to make sure it is operating efficiently and effectively
  • The constabulary needs to make sure that its senior leaders are more connected to its workforce
  • The constabulary needs to make sure its operating model helps its workforce to address priorities and current and future demand

16 areas were identified in the full inspection. Inside State6, each is mapped to the CVF competencies it affects, so you know exactly what to evidence.

Source: Avon and Somerset’s inspection reports on the HMICFRS website.

In their own words

What Avon and Somerset says it is focused on

The inspection picture above is what HMICFRS found. These are the priorities Avon and Somerset and its commissioner have set for themselves, and the people on your panel work to them every day.

Police and Crime Plan 2024 to 2029

Set by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset. The plan carries the strapline Safe and Secure Communities on its cover.

  • Strengthen neighbourhood policing to provide a visible police presence, engage with communities, and tackle ASB
  • Reduce violent crime, with a specific focus on (a) male violence against women and girls and (b) serious youth violence
  • Prevent crime by working together with other organisations and the public to build safer communities
  • Support victims to ensure they get the help they need when they need it
  • Improve standards of policing so that people receive a fair and effective service

Read the plan on the commissioner's website

Use these to choose which of your examples to tell, not as phrases to recite. An answer about a team problem lands harder when the panel can see it serves something the force has already said matters.

Priority names are the publishers’ own headings. The summaries are ours. Checked against the published documents on 20 September 2026.

Recent inspection activity

Inspections published since the last full PEEL assessment. These are often the most current picture of Avon and Somerset, and the areas your panel is most likely to be conscious of right now.

What this means for your board

Avon and Somerset is graded Requires improvement for leadership, managing offenders and investigating crime, among 5 areas at that grade. Its Police and Crime Plan 2024 to 2029 leads with the priority “Strengthen neighbourhood policing to provide a visible police presence, engage with communities, and tackle ASB”. Your panel knows both without looking it up, and an example that speaks to either is one they will recognise.

A promotion board at Avon and Somerset isn’t only assessing whether you can lead a team. It’s assessing whether you understand the force you’re asking to lead in, and where your leadership fits its priorities. Officers who connect their examples to what Avon and Somerset is actually focused on stand out. Officers who stay inside their own team don’t.

You don’t do this by quoting the inspection report. You do it by letting your force’s priorities shape the decisions in your answers. If you want the full method, read our guide on what HMICFRS grades mean for your promotion board, or compare every force’s PEEL grades side by side.

How State6 prepares you for Avon and Somerset

You don’t have to research any of this yourself. Avon and Somerset’s real HMICFRS picture is built into State6. The Question Bank shapes practice questions around it, and every AI Board Review weaves your force’s context into the feedback on your answers. You’re preparing for the board you’ll actually sit, at the force you’ll actually sit it in.

You can also sit a full voiced AI mock board calibrated to Avon and Somerset’s inspection picture, answering out loud while the panel listens, probes and scores you against the CVF 2024.

Calibrated to your target rank, too. See what panels look for at sergeant, inspector and chief inspector level.

Prefer to start free? Our free promotion board question bank gives you real questions for every CVF area at sergeant, inspector and chief inspector level, free to download as you prepare for your Avon and Somerset board.

Prepare for your Avon and Somerset board

Practice questions, AI board reviews and your force’s inspection picture, all in one place. Try it free first: one AI Board Review, ten practice questions, fifteen coaching rounds and one spoken mock board question, no card needed.

See plans and pricing

State6 is an independent preparation platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Avon and Somerset, the College of Policing or HMICFRS. Inspection findings are summarised from the publicly available HMICFRS PEEL reports.

HMICFRS inspection data: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

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