Background

• The Dame Elish Angiolini Report, published in November 2020, recommended regular audits of Police Scotland’s complaint handling procedures to ensure best practice and ongoing improvement.
  
  
• The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner PIRC and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) have statutory responsibility for ensuring that Police Scotland has efficient, effective and suitable complaint handling procedures to deal with complaints from members of the public. It was, therefore, agreed that PIRC and the SPA, would carry out a joint audit. This enabled both organisations to fulfil their statutory duty, whilst avoiding duplication of effort.
  
  
• In March 2023, the audit report in relation to the triage of Complaints About the Police (CAP) was published with eight recommendations.  The audit took place between February 2021 and July 2021, with the intention of capturing how Police Scotland triaged CAP’s in the three months prior to the implementation of the National Complaint Handling Model (NCHM) and the three months after.
  
  
• In December 2024 Police Scotland presented a briefing paper and evidence to both the PIRC and the SPA for consideration of closure of the eight recommendations.
  
  
• The PIRC responded 13 December 2024 confirming ‘I note that there will be some additional revisions of the CAP SOP and CHF in due course but given your reassurance in this regard, I am content to adopt the approach as proposed in the briefing paper for the eight recommendations.’
  
• A number of recommendations are closely linked to the Police Scotland CAP SOP which is currently under review. Both the PIRC and SPA will be engaged in the consultation process as mandatory consultees.