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POLICE PROMOTION · PREPARATION

West Midlands Promotion Board Preparation

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

22 December 2023

2023-25 PEEL inspection

Grades

8 areas

Causes of concern

3

in the latest PEEL report

HMICFRS support level

Level One

Default position, as published 16 July 2026. What this means

West Midlands HMICFRS snapshot

What the inspectors found

West Midlands was graded inadequate in three areas in the 2023-25 PEEL inspection: investigating crime, protecting vulnerable people, and managing offenders - among the most serious findings of any force. The force also requires improvement in five other areas.

PEEL grades

  • Managing offendersInadequate
  • Investigating crimeInadequate
  • Protecting vulnerableInadequate
  • WorkforceRequires improvement
  • LeadershipRequires improvement
  • Responding to publicRequires improvement
  • Police powersAdequate
  • Preventing crimeAdequate

Causes of concern

  • Investigating crime
  • Protecting vulnerable people
  • Managing offenders and suspects

Areas for improvement

  • The force needs to make sure it complies with the requirement from the National Police Chiefs' Council to record all use of force, and make sure its data is accurate and robust enough to understand any reasons for disproportionate use of force
  • The force needs to make sure that neighbourhood officers aren't diverted away from their main duties due to demand on response teams
  • The force's systems and management processes need to support it in embedding effective problem-solving
  • The force needs to make sure it answers emergency calls quickly enough
  • The force needs to reduce the number of non-emergency calls the caller abandons because they aren't answered
  • The force needs to meet its published targets for attending calls for service
Show the other 11 areas for improvement
  • The force needs to improve how it records victims' decisions and their reasons for withdrawing support for investigations, and make sure it documents whether evidence-led prosecutions have been considered in all such cases
  • The force needs to make sure that it complies with the requirements of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime
  • The force needs to make sure it uses consistent safeguarding referral processes that are recorded on its IT systems so vulnerable children and adults are protected
  • The force should make sure that it uses preventative orders in all appropriate cases to safeguard vulnerable people, and that it has effective processes to enforce orders and prioritise breaches
  • The force needs to make sure it manages outstanding suspects and offenders effectively in order to protect the public
  • The force needs to make sure that its occupational health unit effectively supports its workforce's well-being
  • The force needs to better understand why officers, particularly new recruits, wish to leave the force, in order to improve the support it gives them
  • The force needs to make sure that the professional development review/appraisal process is effective and valued by its officers and staff
  • The force needs to make sure that strategic decisions are supported by effective business change processes and data is used effectively to support performance improvement plans
  • The force doesn't fully understand its demand as it isn't using all the data it has access to, which affects its ability to manage demand effectively
  • The force needs to develop its business processes so it can understand more about the issues that are affecting performance and productivity

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: West Midlands’s inspection reports on the HMICFRS website.

In their own words

What West Midlands says it is focused on

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

Police and Crime Plan 2025 to 2029

Set by the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands.

  • Rebuilding Community Policing
  • Preventing and Tackling Violence
  • Improving Road and Travel Safety
  • Preventing and Reducing Neighbourhood Crime
  • Protecting Victims and Witnesses
  • Building Trust and ConfidenceAnswering calls, attending incidents and investigating properly, alongside high standards of conduct from officers and staff.
  • An Equal and Fair West MidlandsEnding unlawful discrimination in policing, a workforce that reflects local communities, and scrutiny of disproportionality in stop and search.
  • Bringing Offenders to Justice
  • Prevention and RehabilitationStopping crime before it happens, safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, and getting more people into drug and alcohol treatment.
  • PartnershipsWorking with councils, health bodies, business and the voluntary sector on the underlying causes of crime.
  • People and ResourcesWorkforce planning, welfare and training for officers and staff, and the equipment and money needed to meet demand.
  • Accountability and GovernanceHow the commissioner holds the chief constable to account in public, through a board that meets monthly.

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 7 October 2026.

Recent inspection activity

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

What this means for your board

West Midlands is graded Inadequate for managing offenders, investigating crime and protecting vulnerable people. Its Police and Crime Plan 2025 to 2029 leads with the priority “Rebuilding Community 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 West Midlands 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 West Midlands 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 West Midlands

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

Prepare for your West Midlands 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 West Midlands, 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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