Tutelage is a national police-led activity, operated as part of the National Roads Policing Operations, Intelligence and Investigations (NRPOII) structure, within the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) Roads Policing portfolio. The activity consists of the National Tutelage Service and its supporting continuous development programme.  The National Tutelage Service works closely with all 45 UK police forces and partners to reduce the impact of uninsured, unsafe, untraceable and untaxed vehicles.

Commenced as a national policing capability in January 2020, the National Tutelage Service uses data insights to encourage unintentionally uninsured drivers and vehicle keepers to rectify the situation via a procedurally just ‘nudge’ approach in the form of police headed letters. It also helps tackle those who ‘self-select’ through failure to rectify the situation through the provision of timely intelligence and predictive analysis which supports finite enforcement resources to undertake effective and efficient interventions.

Since its launch, over 820,000 letters have been issued, with over 645,000 (78%) of all letter recipients going on to reinsure their vehicle, thereby reducing the need to enforce.

Independent evaluation of the National Tutelage Service was undertaken in 2020, examining both qualitative and quantitative aspects, including a substantial control group exercise which concluded…. ‘people receiving a tutelage letter are 4.4 times more likely to reinsure their vehicle than those who didn’t receive a letter’.

Staff and officers from over 20 police forces were also interviewed as part of the independent evaluation and reported that… ‘the general public viewed Tutelage as a positive and helpful policing approach as it was light touch and gave them the opportunity to rectify what was most of the time an admin error or something they had overlooked unintentionally, giving the chance to rectify this before any formal police action was taken.’

This is very evident within the following examples of recent public correspondence received by various police forces;

‘This service is invaluable. We were able to rectify the situation quickly and my daughter didn't end up having her car seized or points going on her licence.’ 

‘I imagine you get many people complaining about anything and everything. I wanted to buck that trend and say thank you. The letter was really well written; it enabled us as day-to-day law abiding citizens not to feel like criminals!’

‘I think this strategy, and you and your team deserve huge credit: rest assured I have sung your praises to several people over the last couple of weeks. It gives drivers who otherwise are careful and obey the law the opportunity to quickly correct an oversight.’

‘It meant a lot that you were kind. I am mortified at the lapse and very glad I had the chance to put it right. The 'what if' doesn't bear thinking about. Your letter was brilliantly worded. Refreshingly it wasn't 'you've been found out, here's your punishment', but rather 'here's the situation, it might not be your fault, but here's why you should check it out'. I love that your Constabulary presumes good intent and helps rectify things. I will definitely check and double-check in future!’

In relation to the National Tutelage Service supporting police forces in tackling the vehicles that remained identifying as non-compliant, despite a Tutelage ‘nudge’ letter having been issued, interviewees also reported that that… ‘Operation Tutelage intelligence markers issued out to policing were viewed as extremely accurate.’

The National Tutelage Service is fully committed to evolving its capacity and capabilities to help drive down vehicle and driver non-compliance on our roads. One element of this is with recent innovations enabling the capability for Tutelage letters to be issued for a variety of vehicle non-compliance issues. It also enables vehicles identifying with multiple levels of non-compliance and/or No Registered Keeper recorded against them, to be ‘fast-tracked’ through to police forces for consideration of on-road enforcement interventions.

Moving forward, and in support of our three-year Tutelage Strategy (2024 to 2026) development activity will be focusing on;

• Further business process automation to drive up data accuracy, capacity and capabilities.
• The development of ‘Predictive Analysis’ as a business-as-usual capability, to deliver actionable intelligence to police forces on a daily basis.
• Harnessing ‘Community Intelligence’ through the seamless integration of public online reporting mechanisms into daily Tutelage business processes.
• Developing wider intelligence enrichment, to provide additional focus and opportunity to identify and remove risk and harm from our roads.

The National Tutelage Service are proud to be exhibiting and presenting at this year’s Road Safety GB Conference and our represented by Derek Roberts, the National Programme Lead, who will be available through the two days. Derek would be delighted to speak to anyone who would like more information in relation to the tutelage programme.

Contact Details

E: derek.roberts@westmidlands.police.uk
T: 07710 785288