Commissioner demands chief constable put improvement plan on her desk as soon as possible, after critical inspection
A national inspection report has rated Northants Police inadequate in investigating crime and finds the force is not improving in key areas
By Sarah Ward
Northamptonshire’s police, fire and crime commisioner says she wants an improvement plan from the chief constable on her desk ‘as soon as possible’ after an independent inspection said crime investigation is inadequate.
The force has a ‘detective shortfall’ and only has two thirds of the expected staff who can investigate serious and complex crime and is not solving enough crimes, according to the PEEL inspection published today by His Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMFRICS).
Leadership is also not being held to account according to inspectors, incidents where force has been used are being under reported and the force is paying out a significant amount each day on overtime, which inspectors said if not remedied could ‘lose public confidence’.
Areas where the force has made improvements is in its response to 999 calls and it was also praised for three areas of innovative practice concerning a programme to help children whose parents are in prison, a project to prevent children from repeatedly going missing and an initiative to tackle repeat callers to the control room.
The inspection report looks at the force across several different areas, such as, and mapped against the previous inspection published in 2024, the force has worsened.
In the previous inspection it was graded as outstanding in data recording and that rating has fallen. Investigating crime has fallen to the lowest possible rating of inadequate.
Since the previous report, the force has a new elected police, fire and crime commissioner, Labour’s Danielle Stone, who appointed chief constable Ivan Balhatchet. Since his appointment he has become the first police chief to have ever been found in contempt of court. He kept his job, although an independent review is in place. The force is also under national scrutiny for its failure to arrest the husband of Indian woman Harshita Brella, who was murdered in Corby in 2024 after suffering domestic abuse.
Speaking to NN Journal this morning, Danielle Stone said the findings of the report were not a surprise as she regularly looks at the performance data.
She said:
“What I have said to the chief is that I need to have an improvement plan on my desk as soon as possible. It needs to have timelines and he needs to have a very sharp focus on the areas identified.”
But defending the force she said that the inspection did not look at some areas in which the force is doing well, such as tackling retail crime and ‘case file quality’.
We also spoke with the chief constable who said the model of policing and the way the force allocates its workloads needs to change.
He said:
“The biggest thing when I meet with officers and staff, their main concern and what they raise is their workload. That is not just workload in response, that is workload in my rape team, in my domestic abuse team.
“What I need to do, my whole model - the way we work with our teams and our prioritisation, I need to get that right. Because that is not right. People have got too much work and I can do more with that using technology. We have got to do that first. I do not want to moan too much about financial positions because [other forces] are in a lot worse position.”
He said his staff were dealing with high demand:
“900 plus calls coming into our calls, just today. We deal with so many, very well. Officers and staff dealing with the most horrendous things very well. Sometimes we drop things and we make mistakes.”
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary Roy Wilsher said:
“I am satisfied with several aspects of the performance of Northamptonshire Police, including its support for workforce well-being, treatment of the public, preventative activity and safeguarding of vulnerable children and adults. However, it must solve crime more effectively and respond to incidents more promptly.
“It is a cause of concern that the force is achieving fewer positive outcomes for victims of crime. Overall performance in solving crime hasn’t improved since our last inspection. This is particularly apparent in serious offences of rape, robbery and violence with injury.
“I recognise the challenges and time it will take to progress the changes needed. I have given Northamptonshire Police specific recommendations that set out the areas it needs to focus on, and we will continue to monitor performance.”
The inspection report says:
“In our previous PEEL inspection, we identified areas for improvement in how the force allocated investigations to officers and teams and the force’s ability to achieve outcomes for victims of crime. During our latest inspection, we found these areas for improvement remained.
“The number of crimes it solves following investigations is low. It must make sure it always allocates serious crime to suitably trained investigators. It needs to understand crime demand and investigative capacity to produce better outcomes for victims across a range of serious crime types, in particular rape and other serious sexual offences.
“In the year ending 30 September 2025, 11.2 percent of all outcomes the force assigned to victim-based crimes were positive outcomes.”
This compares to a national rate of 12.2 per cent.
The report says that the force only has 267 qualified investigators for serious crime against the expected number of 419.
Leadership was also criticised, although it had been recognised to have improved from requiring improvement to adequate.
The report said:
“During our inspection, we observed numerous strategic governance meetings and interviewed leaders at all levels. We frequently found these meetings were used to provide briefings and updates on performance or organisational activity.
“However, it was noticeable that leaders were rarely held to account for performance concerns.”
It found the number of staff leaving was decreasing but ‘there are emerging risk factors suggesting a decline in overall workforce’. Short term sickness in officers has been increasing since May last year with 42 per cent of people citing mental health problems as the reason for their absence.
The report said:
“This lack of available staff and officers was compounded by 324 officers and staff on recuperative leave or restricted duties as at 31 December 2025, as reported by the force.”
Almost a quarter of staff who responded to the inspector’s workforce survey said they wanted to leave the force as soon as possible or within the next year.
It also said the force was relying on ‘unsustainable amount of overtime to meet demand’. £3,600 is being spent on overtime which amounts to around £1.3m a year.
Inspectors also said it thought that around 2,500 use of force incidents had not been recorded as they should have been.
Operation Satin, which deals with missing young people was praised. In the two years from November 2023 1,107 young people had been referred and only 14 per cent of tose had gone missing again repeatedly.
The 58 page report also noted a number of positive areas of improvement including action to recruit and retain staff and officers who represent the community; investing in the capacity and capability of its neighbourhood policing teams; good communications with diverse communities; safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults and significant investment in professional standards with the creation of a confidential ‘integrity app’ so that staff can report inappropriate conduct.
We will publish the fuller interviews with commissioner stone and chief constable Balhatchet in the coming days.
Stone as a Commissioner and Balhatchet as Chief Constable have amply demonstrated that they are a waste of space and money. All they do is to congratulate themselves. The PEEL assessment shows that the results are a lot worse since 2024. The number of officers and staff going on sick leave say it all. The Leadership is absent. It is no surprise, that the participants in the survey say that they wanted to leave as soon as possible. When you have the leader of Northamptonshire Constabulary Chief Constable Balhatchet who was the first ever in the UK to be fined for "contempt of court" and still stay in post.