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 AI-generated
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
The government responded to this report on 28 April 2022. No passage in that response could be matched to this conclusion. Read the response document ↗