‘Fix problem, not blame’ concludes IPCC stock take

The current police complaints system has had some successes, but after four years of operation, a cultural shift is needed to ensure that the system is meeting the needs of all those it affects.

This is the view of the IPCC’s Advisory Board after it conducted a ‘stock take’ of the system in order to assess whether it is meeting the aspirations that led to its creation. It has identified the need to adjust the focus of the complaints system from one that apportions blame to one that fixes the real problems.

The results were unveiled at the ACPO Professional Standards Conference in Manchester last week, ahead of a public consultation on the stock take and the emerging proposals for the future of the complaints system. Forces are encouraged to take part in the consultation.The consultation document will be available on the IPCC website or forces can request a copy by emailing the IPCC at stocktake@ipcc.gov.uk.

According to IPCC Chairman Nick Hardwick, there have been significant improvements since 2004. The system is now more transparent – the IPCC issues forces with statutory guidance that sets out how they must treat complaints, and investigations that are now done independently. However, the stock take found that the current system is too focused on apportioning blame and that it lacks focus on resolving complaints. It is also too slow, complex and opaque, too focused on the top-end conduct matters and not focused enough on the majority of complaints, which involve less serious matters.

A further area of weakness in the current system is that it does not deliver clear outcomes – these are measured purely in terms of whether allegations of disciplinary misconduct or criminal conduct are substantiated and, if so, what penalty follows. There’s no way to show on a national basis how disciplinary or criminal outcomes are linked to complaints made. At the moment, if someone makes a lowlevel complaint about the police, frequently, they do not get the apology, explanation or reassurance that they expected.

All these issues impact on levels of confidence in the police and the complaints system, and Mr Hardwick referred to studies carried out by the IPCC and the Home Office that seemed to prove this. The 2006/07 British Crime Survey, for instance, found that 79 per cent of those who had made a complaint about the police were dissatisfied with the way that the police had dealt with it. An IPCC public confidence survey indicated that complainants, for the