Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Deferred
Paragraph: 28
IOPC should widen investigator pool to include candidates with non-police investigative experience.
Conclusion
The question arose during our inquiry whether the IOPC should be staffed by investigators who were not former police officers. Opinion divided on whether those who had served in the police should be excluded for potentially ‘marking their own homework’ or that of their colleagues. On the other side of the argument, ex-police officers bring the skills learned on the job and an understanding of police culture. It seems that an appropriate balance of former serving officers and investigators with other backgrounds is the right one to strike, but it may be that the IOPC should seek to widen its pool of potential candidates to include those with investigative experience from other spheres, including, for example, former military personnel.
Government Response Summary
The government stated it would not prescribe how police funding should be spent or how local decisions should be taken, referring instead to the overall police funding settlement and the role of Police and Crime Commissioners in ensuring a robust complaints system, thereby deflecting from the specific recommendation about widening the IOPC's investigator candidate pool.
Paragraph Reference:
28
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Government has demonstrated its commitment to supporting the police and policing bodies, including PCCs, and providing them with the resources they need to fight crime and keep the public safe. That is why for 2022/23, the Government has published a total police funding settlement of up to £16.9 billion; an increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared to 2021/22. Assuming full take up of precept flexibility, overall police funding available to PCCs will increase by up to £796 million (5.8% in cash terms) next year. This includes an additional £550 million, including funding to deliver the final 8,000 additional officers and up to an additional £246 million from the proposed council tax precept flexibility. PCCs and Mayors with PCC functions have a vital role in ensuring public confidence in local policing in their areas. Ensuring a robust complaints system is clearly key to ensuring public confidence. Whilst the funding settlement is decided centrally, it is for these directly elected local policing bodies in conjunction with their Chief Constables to make the operational decisions on how to allocate their resources based on local knowledge, local priorities and experience. We do not intend to prescribe how specific funding allocations should be spent or how local decisions should be taken. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in deciding which model to originally adopt, factors such as supportive communications, election timings and resources will have influenced PCCs’ thinking. The APCC have facilitated events with PCCs since the May 2021 PCC elections to explore whether there are further areas where PCCs might wish to expand on their complaint functions. The APCC further notes that these events have included input from the IOPC and the College of Policing to review the recurring and developing themes which are arising, and both the College of Policing and IOPC have committed to looking in detail at the systemic issues. The fact that several PCCs have already adopted models 2 and 3 since the reforms were implemented in February 2020 would indicate that PCC’s do have the capacity within their existing budgets to exercise these choices. Police forces and the discipline system