Agenda item

To be given an oral update on recent reforms made to the Police Complaints and Discipline process.

Head of Governance and Compliance at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner provided the Panel with a presentation on recent reforms made to the Police and Complaints and Discipline process.

The Panel was informed of the options which would be available to the PCC and that Thames Valley PCC would be taking on Model 1 which was to take on reviews of police complaints (previously known as appeals) whilst the Professional Standards Department (PSD) would continue to deal with most incoming complaints.

Members were informed that the new complaint reforms came into operation on 1 February 2020 and Model 1 would ensure that the PCC would be more customer service focused when receiving complaints. Reviews would be sent to Office for the PCC via workflow on Centurion. These would be signed off by the Head of Governance and Compliance with recommendations to Head of PSD. The Office of the PCC would provide data on reviews to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

With the reforms there would be increased focus on learning and improvement (focus on forces – not individuals), local accountability would be enhanced and PCCs would have statutory oversight of complaints system within their force area.

Reference was made to the new way of working which would help tackle some of the issues faced from the old process, ensuring clarity, less bureaucracy and more flexibility to deal with complaints to the public’s satisfaction. The reforms also included a move towards a more reflective practice, focusing on learning outcomes for both individual police officers and staff, and the Force.

Improvements with the new system included:

·         Forces must be reasonable and proportionate – reducing need for unnecessary investigations.

·         Threshold for misconduct increased to promote reflective practice in policing.

·         More control for line managers.

·         Focus on organisational learning.

·         Improvement on investigation timeliness.

·         Legally Qualified Chairs (LQC) – greater flexibility for pre-hearing conferences.

·         Fair and transparent process.

·         PCCs to make recommendations.

·         PCC taking on responsibility for appeals.

However, reference was made to the negatives to the reforms:

·         There was no power to enforce recommendations, although this would not be an issue in Thames Valley.

·         There was variance in ‘reasonable and proportionate’ terminology.

·         Accepting reflective practice.

·         Minor complaints recorded with potential to be reviewed.

As the reforms would allow individuals the right to request their complaints were recorded, this would also allow more individuals the right to review. This would increase the number of reviews. Also if the complainant was unhappy with the response of their review from the Office of PCC, it was thought there could be more complaints against the PCC, and potentially more complaints for the PCP Complaints Sub-Committee to hear.

Reference was also made to complaints now being able to be made via social media platforms but that these had to be directed to the Force.

Discussion took place on the implications of the reforms on the Panel’s Sub-Committee and it officers and the Chief Constable commented that it could be helpful if the Panel received a presentation from the PSD on the likely impact on the Complaints Sub-Committee’s workload.

RESOLVED –

That the Head of Governance and Compliance at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner be thanked for the informative presentation and the detail provided be noted.