Recommendation 17

HM Government Accepted

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. Since 2020, the Home Office has extended the scope of its data collection to include a range of timeliness measures, which will help target the root causes of delays in the processes beyond the length of an actual investigation. The first tranche of this data will be published as part of a standalone misconduct statistics publication in the coming months. The IOPC has also been working alongside the CPS to agree ways on improving post investigative timeliness. The Government agrees that it is crucial that both officers are held accountable, where they are found to have committed misconduct. But it is important that sanctions only follow where an officer has been found to have committed misconduct or gross misconduct after a fair process of disciplinary proceedings. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) plays a central role in investigating the most serious and sensitive allegations. Where it has investigated a matter, the IOPC must decide whether the officer has a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct and, if so, whether to refer the matter to disciplinary proceedings. The Government introduced new powers in 2020, so that the IOPC can also now present at a misconduct hearing, where it has investigated a case or where the force has undertaken an investigation directed by the IOPC in certain circumstances, including where it is in the public interest or where there is disagreement with the force over the decision to refer a case to proceedings. However, decisions on whether an officer has committed gross misconduct and, if so, what sanction to apply, are ones entirely for misconduct panels led by independent legally qualified chairs (not for the IOPC). Since 2020, panels also now have the option of reducing an officer in rank, where they are found to have committed gross misconduct. The reforms also gave greater powers to LQCs to hold pre-hearings, for more