Report Summary
This report provides members of the Complaints & Conduct Committee with an overview of Police Scotland Historic Data Wash Report.
Meeting
The publication discussed was referenced in the meeting below
Complaints & Conduct Committee - 27 February 2024
Date : 27 February 2024
Location : online
Background
In February 2023 following the high-profile arrests of police officers in the Metropolitan Police for Murder, Rape and Domestic Offences, the Home Secretary announced all police forces in England & Wales would conduct workforce checks against The Police National Database (PND) to ensure integrity of officers, staff, special constables and volunteers.
Police Scotland committed to undertaking these checks in line with other forces in the UK.
In March 2023, Police Scotland provided Police CPI with details of 23,473 members of the workforce including police officers, members of staff, special constables and volunteers. In total, Police CPI returned 25,505 lines of data to Police Scotland which were required to be checked by the dedicated project team in order to establish any previously unknown or undeclared information relative to the workforce which may impact on integrity.
A dedicated process team was identified from appropriately vetted staff from the Force Vetting Unit and Anti-Corruption Unit comprising 10 officers/staff. This figure was agreed following consultation with the Project Lead from Police CPI regarding anticipated timescales with NPCC implementing a deadline for return of checks by 29th September 2023.
Although Police Scotland had some 25,505 lines of data to be checked it should be noted that a significant proportion of these checks were ‘false positives’. This can be explained due to the nature of the workforce checks against PND carried out by Police CPI. These checks consisted of individual checks against name, name and date of birth and address. A return would therefore be provided in respect of a member of the workforce residing in a street for which there was an intelligence entry held. Only through manual checks by the dedicated process team could it be established if this intelligence was linked to the member of the workforce or not. From the figures it can be seen that in the vast majority of cases, following review, this intelligence was not linked to the member of the workforce.
This review was completed in July 2023, though dialogue continued between Police Scotland and the Project Lead until the deadline of 29th September 2023 in order ensure process had been followed.
