Recommendation 2

HM Government · verbatim extract Rejected

The Government strengthened the complaints and discipline systems in February 2020, introducing integrity reforms to improve transparency, accountability and proportionality. The Government welcomes further improvements to the timeliness of, and cooperation within, police misconduct cases—during both the investigative and post-investigative stages. These reforms included a new statutory duty of cooperation for police officers. This duty provides clarity on the level of cooperation required by an officer where they are a witness in an investigation, inquiry, or other formal proceedings. The responsibility is to participate openly and professionally as a witness in a variety of circumstances, including where the officer is a witness in an investigation into other officers’ misconduct, be that an investigation by the IOPC or by the force itself. The Government is reluctant to dilute the existing measures in place to compel officers to cooperate. Nonetheless, the Home Office will continue to assess the impact of this existing duty on police co-operation with inquiries and investigations, and the Home Secretary will set out her conclusions on a specific duty of candour for the police later this year in response to the reports of Bishop James Jones on the experiences of Hillsborough families’, and of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel. We are also working closely with the College of Policing as part of their review of the Code of Ethics, to ensure that candour is explicitly referenced. This work also includes how we can ensure that the Code has the necessary impact on officers and how it can provide confidence to the public in terms of officer behaviour. The reforms also introduced a 12-month trigger to improve timeliness of misconduct and complaints and other investigations. This is a requirement for the investigating body —whether the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) or a police force’s own Professional Standards Department (PSD)—to provide a written explanation for any delays, the planned steps to bring the investigation to a conclusion and the estimated completion date. Additional powers were also granted to the legally qualified chairs of misconduct hearings, allowing them to hold pre-hearings to improve case management. This means that issues including disclosure, witnesses or preliminary legal arguments can be dealt with in a much timelier manner. In addition, the reforms also stripped out some of the bureaucracy, so that now, for example, in cases where it has investigated or directed an investigation, the IOPC makes the decision to refer a case to disciplinary proceedings rather than making a recommendation to the force in the first instance. Under the new review process, the IOPC has scope to consider whether decisions made by police forces on locally investigated complaints cases were appropriate. The IOPC can use its powers to recommend disciplinary action is instituted or changed or to recommend referral to the CPS. The IOPC has pointed out that this review function adds value to the complaints system as a whole.