Background

Legislation

The Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 provides that the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable must maintain suitable arrangements for the handling of relevant complaints. The Act further states that the Authority must keep itself informed as to the manner in which relevant complaints are dealt with by the Chief Constable with a view to satisfying itself that the arrangements are suitable.

Broader Audit Landscape

In the preliminary report on her review of complaints handling, Dame Elish Angiolini recommended that:

All the audit arrangements, in relation to policing in Scotland, including regular dip sampling designed to identify poor practice, good practice and emerging trends should be prioritised and co-ordinated to support the common objective of improving standards and service to the public.

In her final report, Dame Elish remarks that:

The real power and value of audit lies in developing themes and training issues for discussion with senior managers and officers, supporting continuous improvement and ultimately delivering quicker and better resolution for the public. 

Dame Elish notes that current audit arrangements for policing in Scotland include:

Police Scotland’s own internal audit and dip sampling/quality assurance checks; SPA’s quarterly dip-sampling of a random sample of complaint cases; PIRC’s identification of trends based on learning from complaint handling reviews; Police Scotland’s corporate monitoring of PIRC recommendations; PIRC’s annual audit of complaints made to SPA; PIRC’s thematic audits e.g. frontline resolution, police adherence to timescales; the SPA’s statutory duty to satisfy itself that the Chief Constable has suitable complaint handling arrangements in place; and the PIRC Audit and Accountability Committee’s scrutiny of that organisation’s audit activities in relation to complaints.

Dame Elish also comments on the development of a joint annual audit strategy for Police Scotland, the SPA and the PIRC. The first joint audit, to examine the initial triage of complaints by Police Scotland’s National Complaints Assessment & Resolution Unit (NCARU), is due to publish this year.

The resumption of dip-sampling will supplement the schedule of proposed joint audits which will be co-ordinated by the multi-agency National Complaints Handling Development Group (NCHDG)].

Dip Sampling

Dip-Sampling of Police Scotland complaints assists the Authority in discharging its statutory obligations and responsibilities in terms of complaints handling.

Generally, dip-sampling is conducted and reported to the Committee on a quarterly basis. However, the programme of sampling was paused in 2020 due to Covid-19 and to facilitate preparations for, and completion of, the first PIRC/SPA joint audit.

Given a relatively small sample size, typically 60 to 70 cases, the purpose of dip-sampling is to highlight potential issues, or identify areas where no issues are evident, rather than enable firm conclusions to be drawn. The outcomes of dip-sampling inform planning around more detailed audit activity.

The dip-sampling exercises utilise auditing techniques and approaches required for best practice in line with ISO 19011:2018 guidelines for auditing management systems.

The Complaints Team has remote access to Police Scotland’s Centurion system and the exercises may be conducted remotely.