Gwent Promotion Board Preparation
If you’re preparing for a Sergeant, Inspector or Chief Inspector board at Gwent, 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
27 June 2025
2023-25 PEEL inspection
Grades
9 areas
Causes of concern
None
in the latest PEEL report
Gwent HMICFRS snapshot
What the inspectors found
Gwent received an outstanding grade for data recording in the 2023-25 PEEL inspection but requires improvement in investigating crime, protecting vulnerable people, and leadership. The remaining areas were graded adequate.
PEEL grades
- LeadershipRequires improvement
- Investigating crimeRequires improvement
- Protecting vulnerableRequires improvement
- WorkforceAdequate
- Police powersAdequate
- Preventing crimeAdequate
- Managing offendersAdequate
- Responding to publicAdequate
- Recording dataOutstanding
Areas for improvement
- The force needs to improve how it records equality data
- The force should make sure it can effectively monitor and understand the use of force
- The force needs to make sure its external scrutiny panels for stop and search and use of force meet often enough and are representative of the local population
- The force should make sure its neighbourhood policing model is sustainable to achieve positive long-term solutions to community problems
- The force's systems and management processes need to support effective problem-solving
- The force needs to attend calls for service within its published attendance times, effectively supervise incidents and update callers if there are delays
Show the other 12 areas for improvementHide the extra areas for improvement
- The force needs to make sure that officers and staff assess and report the risk of harm to children and adults thoroughly and promptly
- The force should make sure it takes all investigative opportunities by creating plans and improving supervision
- The force should make sure that it allocates investigations to officers and teams that have both the capability and capacity for timely and thorough investigations
- The force must consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims
- The force needs to make sure it complies with national guidance for the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, including meeting disclosure timescales
- The force should increase its use of preventive orders to safeguard vulnerable people in all appropriate cases
- The force needs to make sure that it has enough suitably trained and skilled staff to effectively carry out its safeguarding roles and functions
- The force needs systems which provide reassurance that it takes appropriate action to safeguard adults and children at risk of harm
- The force should make sure it uses bail and released under investigation effectively to protect victims and prevent interference with investigations
- The force should make sure it understands the factors affecting sickness to improve the well-being of its workforce
- The force should make sure it is effectively managing demand and has the right resources, processes and plans in place to keep communities safe
- The force should make sure it effectively communicates organisational change to the workforce
18 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.
In their own words
What Gwent says it is focused on
The inspection picture above is what HMICFRS found. These are the priorities Gwent and its commissioner have set for themselves, and the people on your panel work to them every day.
Police, Crime and Justice Plan 2025 to 2029
Set by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent. It carries the strapline Improving Trust and Confidence Together. The commissioner reviews the priorities every year.
- Preventing crime and antisocial behaviour
- Making our communities saferA quick response when you call, and action on knife crime, retail crime, anti-social behaviour, burglary, robbery and theft, including in rural areas.
- Protecting the vulnerableReducing hidden harm: abuse of women and girls, hate crime, exploitation of children and the elderly, and online threats such as fraud.
- Putting victims firstKeeping victims safe from further harm, keeping them informed, and making sure help and support are easy to reach.
- Reducing reoffending
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 21 September 2026.
Other HMICFRS inspections
Other published inspections of Gwent. Useful background, but the PEEL assessment above is the fuller picture.
Custody inspection · 10 January 2025
Report on an inspection visit to police custody suites in Gwent Police
No formal grades or judgements were assigned. The inspection identified two causes of concern and 12 areas for improvement.
What this means for your board
Gwent is graded Requires improvement for leadership, investigating crime and protecting vulnerable people. Its Police, Crime and Justice Plan 2025 to 2029 leads with the priority “Preventing crime and antisocial behaviour”. Your panel knows both without looking it up, and an example that speaks to either is one they will recognise.
A promotion board at Gwent 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 Gwent 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 Gwent
You don’t have to research any of this yourself. Gwent’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 Gwent’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 Gwent board.
Prepare for your Gwent 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.
State6 is an independent preparation platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Gwent, 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.