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POLICE PROMOTION · PREPARATION

Surrey Promotion Board Preparation

If you’re preparing for a Sergeant, Inspector or Chief Inspector board at Surrey, 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

30 April 2026

2025-27 PEEL assessment

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

Surrey HMICFRS snapshot

What the inspectors found

Surrey Police was inspected in 2025 as part of the PEEL 2025-27 cycle. The force has improved its response to the public and its use of police powers since the previous inspection, and performs well in preventing crime, safeguarding and using powers fairly.

PEEL grades

  • WorkforceRequires improvement
  • LeadershipRequires improvement
  • Managing fraudRequires improvement
  • Investigating crimeRequires improvement
  • Responding to publicAdequate
  • Protecting vulnerableAdequate
  • Police powersGood
  • Preventing crimeGood

Areas for improvement

  • The force needs to make sure it clearly communicates its decisions and reasons for making changes and that the workforce understands them.
  • The force needs to make sure that its operating model can meet current and future demand.
  • The force needs to make sure it is using data and technology to improve productivity.
  • The force needs to fully understand how demand is affecting the well-being of its workforce.
  • The force needs a clear strategy for equality, diversity and inclusion.
  • The force should make sure it provides regular continuing professional development opportunities to all its workforce.
Show the other 11 areas for improvement
  • The force doesn't have effective processes in place to monitor how often its neighbourhood officers are abstracted from their core roles.
  • The force needs to reduce the number of non-emergency calls that callers abandon because they aren't answered.
  • The force should make sure it effectively supervises response and deployment and carries out risk assessments and updates victims when it is delayed.
  • The force needs to reduce its over-recording of crime and clear backlogs of crimes submitted for cancellation.
  • The force should make sure that supervisors effectively oversee investigations and that all investigative opportunities are progressed.
  • The force needs to make sure it has effective processes to manage pre-charge bail.
  • The force doesn't consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims.
  • The force needs to improve its processes for identifying and recording missing people.
  • The force needs to understand its demand and performance relating to fraud and use this to improve outcomes.
  • The force needs to provide effective fraud training for all investigators and call handlers.
  • The force needs to effectively triage and allocate fraud investigations in a timely way.

17 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: Surrey’s inspection reports on the HMICFRS website.

In their own words

What Surrey says it is focused on

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

Police and Crime Plan 2025 to 2028

Set by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey. It runs to the end of the commissioner's current term of office in 2028.

  • Back to Basics PolicingEveryday local policing: anti-social behaviour, the crimes that affect daily life, more offenders charged, and an officer or PCSO each neighbourhood can contact.
  • Protecting Vulnerable People in Surrey
  • Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls
  • Strengthening Safe and Resilient CommunitiesWorking with partners so residents feel safe where they live, tackling the drug-related harm and shoplifting raised in the consultation.
  • Fostering Integrity, Accountability, and Wellbeing in PolicingHigher standards of integrity, faster handling of public complaints, more open reporting of misconduct outcomes, and better welfare support for the workforce.

Read the plan on the commissioner's website

Our Plan

Set by the Chief Constable of Surrey Police. The force states its vision and ten missions on a single page. Stated aim: Surrey Police fights crime and protects people.

  • We prevent crime and solve problems
  • We investigate crime thoroughly
  • We pursue criminals relentlessly
  • We provide outstanding victim and witness care
  • We act ethically with the highest standards
  • We strive to reflect our communities, with a welcoming workforce where people feel they belong
  • We work productively and spend public money wisely
  • We respond promptly and according to need
  • We are resilient and prepared
  • To reduce the risks associated with policing and maintain a resilient crime-fighting workforce, we keep ourselves and each other as healthy, fit and safe as we can

Read Our Plan on the Surrey Police 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 21 September 2026.

Other HMICFRS inspections

Other published inspections of Surrey. Useful background, but the PEEL assessment above is the fuller picture.

What this means for your board

Surrey is graded Requires improvement for its workforce, leadership and managing fraud, among 4 areas at that grade. Its Police and Crime Plan 2025 to 2028 leads with the priority “Back to Basics Policing”. Your panel knows both without looking it up, and an example that speaks to either is one they will recognise.

A promotion board at Surrey 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 Surrey 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 Surrey

You don’t have to research any of this yourself. Surrey’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 Surrey’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 Surrey board.

Prepare for your Surrey 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 Surrey, 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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