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POLICE PROMOTION · PREPARATION

West Yorkshire Promotion Board Preparation

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

3 June 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

West Yorkshire HMICFRS snapshot

What the inspectors found

West Yorkshire Police has made some improvements since its last inspection, particularly in use of police powers, performance data and personal development review processes, and demonstrates good financial management.

PEEL grades

  • WorkforceRequires improvement
  • LeadershipRequires improvement
  • Managing fraudRequires improvement
  • Investigating crimeRequires improvement
  • Protecting vulnerableRequires improvement
  • Police powersAdequate
  • Preventing crimeAdequate
  • Responding to publicAdequate

Areas for improvement

  • The force needs to make sure that governance arrangements appropriately identify and resolve areas of risk and underperformance.
  • The force needs to demonstrate how it understands and addresses the impact of change on its workforce.
  • The force needs to make sure that its operating model can address current and future demand.
  • The force needs to make sure that effective systems are in place to monitor workloads and provide support to officers.
  • The force needs to make sure that it creates an inclusive culture where staff feel a sense of belonging and are able to speak out.
  • The force needs to improve the training and support it provides for trainee investigators.
Show the other 19 areas for improvement
  • The force should review the processes and procedures in place in relation to officers in high-risk roles who are identified as requiring additional support to make sure that appropriate action and support is in place.
  • The force should make sure that it has an effective occupational health unit with suitably trained staff, and reduce the time from referral to appointment.
  • The force needs to make sure all officers have up-to-date public and personal safety training and that it has consistent processes in place to identify officers whose training has expired.
  • The force should provide training for officers on how to safeguard children involved in stop and search or use of force incidents.
  • The force should make sure its leadership and governance processes support a consistent approach to prevention activity.
  • The force should do more to develop, quality assure and evaluate its problem-solving activity.
  • The force needs to attend calls for service in line with its published attendance times, update callers about delays and effectively supervise deployment decisions.
  • The force needs to make sure that there is consistent and effective management of risk within its RE-THRIVE process.
  • The force doesn't consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims.
  • The force should make sure that crimes are allocated to appropriately skilled officers to achieve the outcomes victims deserve.
  • The force should make sure there is supervisory oversight of investigations and that officers pursue all investigative opportunities.
  • The force needs to make sure that it complies with the requirements of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime.
  • The force should make sure that it complies with statutory safeguarding processes to improve its response to children and adults at risk of harm.
  • The force should make sure supervisors comply with its missing from home policy to make sure that missing people are identified and safeguarded.
  • The force should apply consistent secondary risk assessment processes across all districts and provide a full picture, including cumulative risk, when sharing information about vulnerable children with children's social care.
  • The force needs to make sure that it has sufficient staffing, processes and governance for the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme and the Child Sex Offence Disclosure Scheme to ensure compliance with legislative process and required timescales.
  • The force needs to make sure it reviews fraud crimes so it allocates the most complex to experienced investigators and that investigators use the fraud investigation model.
  • The force needs to adequately train investigators and call handlers in fraud.
  • The force needs to identify and respond to vulnerable victims of fraud.

25 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 Yorkshire’s inspection reports on the HMICFRS website.

In their own words

What West Yorkshire says it is focused on

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

Police and Crime Plan 2024 to 2028

Set by the Mayor of West Yorkshire. The Mayor holds the police and crime commissioner role for West Yorkshire and is supported by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime. The plan also carries a mayoral pledge putting a spotlight on serious violence. Stated aim: Safe, just, inclusive.

Keeping people safe
Safer places and thriving communities
Supporting victims and witnesses

Read the plan on the Combined Authority's website

Policing Strategy 2025 to 2028

Set by the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. The strategy is summarised in the force's Plan on a Page, and these three headings are what the force calls its policing purposes. Stated aim: Delivering a Safe, Just and Inclusive police service.

Reduce crimePreventing crime, investigating it properly and reaching the correct result for victims.
Protect vulnerable peopleProtecting adults and children at risk, and working with partner agencies to keep them safe.
Reassure the publicResponding well and treating people fairly so the public trust the force, with neighbourhood teams at the centre.

Read the strategy on the force'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.

What this means for your board

West Yorkshire is graded Requires improvement for its workforce, leadership and managing fraud, among 5 areas at that grade. Its Police and Crime Plan 2024 to 2028 leads with the priority “Keeping people safe”. 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 Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire

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

Prepare for your West Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire, 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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