Complaints about senior police officers

Complaints about senior police officers

Lady Angiolini proposed that responsibility for receiving and handling complaints about senior officers transfer from the Authority to the PIRC. 

The relevant passages in Lady Angiolini’s final report are quoted below. 

“12.49 Any ‘relevant complaint’ about a senior officer should be assessed by the PIRC.  Where it relates to potential misconduct it should be dealt with as such; where it does not relate to potential misconduct but should instead be dealt with under the grievance procedure, or other HR processes, then it should be passed to the SPA to deal with.  The SPA would continue to be the recipient of complaints about its own members of staff …

12.51 Having considered all the responses, I believe that introducing independent consideration and determination of a complaint against a senior officer … would serve to increase public confidence in the process …

14.59 PIRC should be the recipient of all complaints about senior officers.  If the complaint is criminal in nature the PIRC should refer it to the … the Criminal Allegations against the Police Division of COPFS.  If the complaint is non-criminal the PIRC should make the preliminary assessment, should carry out any investigation and, where appropriate, present the case to the independent legally chaired panel that hears the misconduct case … If the complaint is a grievance rather than an allegation of misconduct the PIRC should refer it to the SPA to deal with …

19.56 The Review received strong evidence from other organisations and sectors of a real benefit to the public knowing that there was a single point where they should take all complaints about an organisation or its people.  That simplicity would help public awareness and make it easier for them to enter what can be a very complex police complaints system … I take the view that complaints about the most senior officers should not go to the Scottish Police Authority or Police Scotland but to the PIRC …

30.18 In the PIRC chapter I propose that the PIRC, rather than the SPA, should be the recipient of all complaints about senior officers of the rank of Assistant Chief Constable and above.  The [Police Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006] would require to be amended to make clear that the appropriate authority for senior officer complaints [i.e. the body responsible for handling such complaints] is the PIRC and that the SPA is only the appropriate authority for the SPA and its staff.”

Lady Angiolini therefore proposed that the PIRC should be the recipient of all types of complaint about senior officers; and should also handle relevant complaints about senior officers.

These proposals are not reflected in the Bill.

As observed by Lady Angiolini, independent determination of complaints about the most senior officers would likely enhance public confidence.  It would avoid any perception of familiarity between Authority members/staff and senior officers arising from working relationships developed through exercise of the Authority’s other functions.  Indeed, it was precisely this perception which persuaded Lady Angiolini to recommend removal of the Authority’s conduct functions for senior officers. 

Implementing Lady Angiolini’s proposals would also make the arrangements for handling complaints and misconduct allegations about senior officers easier for the public to understand.  In her preliminary report, Lady Angiolini identified a need to “simplify and streamline systems to make it as easy as possible for members of the public to navigate this opaque landscape, and as easy as possible for them to access and understand information on how to make a complaint.”[1] Similar concerns about the complexity of current arrangements were raised by the Justice Committee in its review of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.  In particular, the Committee referred to evidence that arrangements were a  “complex mixture of internal and external processes, involving a number of organisations which people find difficult to navigate.[2]

If Lady Angiolini’s proposals are not reflected in the Bill, the PIRC will have responsibility for handling “misconduct allegations” against senior officers; and the Authority will have responsibility for handling relevant complaints about senior officers.  Such an arrangement is likely to be confusing to the public, particularly as in practice there is often no real distinction between a misconduct allegation and a relevant complaint.  It would also risk uncertainty in the processes themselves, as each body decides which is responsible for dealing with the allegation.  Dividing these functions between two bodies would, in short, complicate, rather than simplify, the complaints and conduct processes.

Lady Angiolini’s proposals would simplify arrangements by giving responsibility to a single body – the PIRC – to receive and assess all complaints about senior officers.[3]  Such an arrangement is likely to be easier for the public to navigate than one in which different categories of complaint are dealt with by different bodies.

Across the rest of the UK and in the Republic of Ireland, all police complaints bodies perform at least some routine role in receiving and/or investigating public complaints about senior police officers.

In England and Wales, serious complaints by members of the public about the conduct of chief officers (i.e. chief constables, and the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police) must be referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) without delay.[4]  Serious complaints about chief officers must always be investigated, and in practice such investigations are usually undertaken by the IOPC itself.[5] 

In Northern Ireland, all complaints about the police (including those about senior officers) are referred to the Police Ombudsman.[6]  Complaints by members of the public which are classed as serious are investigated by the Ombudsman.[7]

In the Republic of Ireland, new arrangements for handling complaints by members of the public are set out in the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill (the Policing Bill), currently before the Irish Parliament.  Complaints by the public (including those about senior officers) will in terms of the Policing Bill be made to the Police Ombudsman or the national police force.[8]  Where complaints are made to the national force, these must be referred to the Ombudsman without delay.[9]  The Ombudsman will thereafter determine whether the complaint is admissible and, if so, whether it warrants informal resolution or investigation.[10]

As presently drafted, the Bill does not provide for any routine involvement by the PIRC in the initial handling of relevant complaints about senior officers.  Section 12 would allow the PIRC to “call-in” such a complaint; however, that power is likely to be used only in exceptional circumstances rather than as a matter of routine.[11]

The Authority therefore supports Lady Angiolini’s proposals and believes that they should be reflected in the Bill. If, ultimately, the proposals are not implemented, the Authority would wish to see the arrangements between the two bodies for handling senior officer complaints, including the threshold for referring potential conduct complaints to the PIRC, to be set out in legislation.

[1] Preliminary report, page 23

[2] Justice Committee, Report on Post-legislative Scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 (2019), para 311

[3] Subject to a complainer’s ability to make criminal allegations about senior officers directly to the Criminal Allegations against the Police Division of COPFS.

[4] Para 4(1)(b), Schedule 3, Police Reform Act 2002; para 4(1)(c) and (2), Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020

[5] Para 5(1A), Schedule 3, Police Reform Act 2002; regulation 5(1), Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020

[6] Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, section 52(1)

[7] Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, section 54(2)

[8] Section 196(1), Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill

[9] Section 196(3)

[10] Sections 198(1) and 199(1)

[11] Lady Angiolini envisaged that the power would be used only in “a small number of particularly egregious cases”: final report, para 14.80