Thames Valley Promotion Board Preparation
If you’re preparing for a Sergeant, Inspector or Chief Inspector board at Thames Valley, your panel already knows your force’s inspection picture. Here’s what that means for you, and how State6 builds it into your preparation.
Thames Valley HMICFRS snapshot
Most recent PEEL inspection: 2025-27 PEEL assessment
Thames Valley Police was assessed across eight areas of policing in its 2025-27 PEEL inspection. The force has made improvements in responding to the public and preventing crime since its last inspection, but requires improvement in investigating crime and safeguarding.
PEEL grades
- Workforce: good
- Leadership: requires improvement
- Police powers: adequate
- Managing fraud: adequate
- Preventing crime: good
- Investigating crime: requires improvement
- Responding to public: adequate
- Protecting vulnerable: requires improvement
Areas for improvement
- The force needs to make sure all areas of its new operating model manage demand effectively
- The force has strategic governance arrangements, but it must strengthen tactical implementation and leadership accountability
- The force needs to show how it considers and evaluates the impact of changes to its processes, policies and procedures
- The force needs to improve its recording, data retrieval and scrutiny of use of force
- The force needs to improve its external scrutiny processes for stop and search and use of force
- The force needs to improve its approach to problem solving
Plus 9 more areas identified in the full inspection. Inside State6, each is mapped to the CVF competencies it affects, so you know exactly what to evidence.
Recent inspection activity
Inspections published since the last full PEEL assessment. These are often the most current picture of Thames Valley, and the areas your panel is most likely to be conscious of right now.
Integrity inspection · 26 February 2026
A report into the effectiveness of integrity arrangements in Thames Valley Police
Thames Valley Police received the following grades: Vetting police officers and staff - Adequate; Upholding the standards of professional behaviour - Requires improvement; Tackling potential corruption - Requires improvement.
What this means for your board
A promotion board at Thames Valley 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 Thames Valley 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 Thames Valley
You don’t have to research any of this yourself. Thames Valley’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 Thames Valley’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 Thames Valley board.
Prepare for your Thames Valley 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 and fifteen coaching rounds, no card needed.
Get started with State6 →State6 is an independent preparation platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Thames Valley, 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.