Investigation into recruitment irregularities and the actions of a civilian staff member – British Transport Police, June 2018

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police reviews how it manages interactions with people who report wrongdoing through the internal CARS reporting system. This should include both how they are kept informed and their involvement in providing information to the investigation.

This follows an IOPC investigation in relation to a report made by way of the CARS system. The CARS system is used for members of BTP staff to make confidential reports about wrongdoing.

In this case, the people who reported wrongdoing had only limited contact with the Professional Standards Department Intelligence Unit (PSDIU). In the initial PSD investigation they were not treated as witnesses and did not have accounts taken from them. In the second PSD investigation a key witness had only minimal contact with the investigator and did not provide a formal MG11 statement. The initial CARS report raised a number of issues. There was a lack of explanation from the PSD to the reporters about what was going happen with certain issues that had been raised. The lack of engagement from the PSD was detrimental to the reporters’ confidence in the process and quality of the PSD investigation.

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police considers working practices in the Professional Standards Department to consider and take action to address any issues with:

- how evidence relied on to form views and conclusion is detailed in investigation reports
- how supervisors provide input on investigators’ draft reports
- how investigators are expected to record policy decisions
- how witness statements and any conversations that are relevant to an investigation but not considered to be witness statements are captured
- how information is passed between the reactive team and PSDIU when work is transferred between them

During our investigation we found that there were various issues with the processes followed in PSD.

PSD Investigators’ Reports reviewed during the investigation did not identify the specific evidence that was being relied upon to express views and reach conclusions. This meant that appropriate authority delegates were not always provided with the fullest information to make their decisions. IOPC statutory guidance states in chapter 14 that both special procedures and non-special procedures investigations should include an accurate summary of the evidence and should attach or refer to any relevant documents.

Evidence obtained during the investigation showed that a supervisor amended a draft report provided to him with an opposing view. There was no record of the original author accepting those changes or a review of the evidence that supported that view meaning that the process that led to the final report was not transparent.

The investigation identified that PSD investigators were using different methods of recording policy decisions. One DI stated that all decisions are recorded on Centurion to negate the need for paper records while another had a formal policy book in which decisions were recorded. This can cause problems for overseeing the progress of the investigation and having a clear audit trail.

We were told during the investigation that it was common practice that where no formal witness statement is being taken, it is common practice to summarise the conversation within the Investigator’s Report and that at least one investigator believed there was no requirement to add it to the Centurion system. This could mean that the investigation does not have access to the full evidence provided by the witness or that evidence could be misrepresented within a report with no means of verifying it.

During the course of the PSD investigation, the PSDIU Appropriate Authority asked a DI to perform a limited review of facts that had been presented. On conclusion of this task, a short report was provided which indicated the original responses by the subject were incorrect and open to challenge. It has become apparent that this report was not shared with the DCI of the PSD reactive team, whose responsibility it was to arrange for the matter to be re-investigated and the issues in the report addressed.

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police reviews the current practice of passing investigations between different teams within the Professional Standards Department and different appropriate authority delegates and sets out clear roles and responsibilities for all those involved in carrying out a PSD investigation.

During the investigation it became apparent that two separate DCIs were performing elements of the Appropriate Authority role as part of standard practice. The DCI of the PSDIU reviewed reports and decided whether the matter should be investigated by the reactive team. The severity assessment was then made by a DCI in the reactive team. Once the investigation was complete the final report was returned to the original DCI of PSDIU. The report did not go back through the DCI of the reactive team for supervision or quality assurance. There was a lack of meaningful supervision, and no quality assurance until the report returned to the original DCI who noted gaps in enquiries.

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police reviews its recruitment policy in light of the issues raised in this investigation and makes amendments to address any areas for improvement. This should include:

- ensuring that the roles, responsibilities and lines of accountability of both the HR department and the hiring manager are clear and realistic
- clearly articulating when and how potential conflicts of interest should be considered, recorded and mitigated
- clear guidance on using external participants on interview panels including what (if any) vetting is required and how any candidate information is shared with them .

As part of an IOPC investigation we reviewed British Transport Police’s recruitment policy. We found that some of the areas that came up as issues in the investigation could benefit from more clarity which may help avoid similar situations arising in future.

While the recruitment policy does set out who should perform certain tasks, this does not appear to have been adhered to, for example things which should be done by HR being done by the hiring manager or others on their team, and this was not challenged. Other obligations were not carried out at all.  British Transport Police may want to consider whether a simple recruitment checklist, completed for each recruitment exercise, may assist in ensuring that all steps are taken by the appropriate person and there is clear accountability for this. Any review of roles and responsibilities needs to be realistic about what can be achieved with the resource available. For example, there seemed to be an impression that although the policy says “Where possible HR or Recruitment representatives must be included in interview panels” there were never the resources available for this.

In this investigation, an external person who had previously supported an interview panel and provided questions to them for the recruitment exercise was a candidate in the same recruitment exercise with no formally documented actions to mitigate any conflict of interest. There was also evidence of previous contact with candidates not being acknowledged or consideration given to whether there was a potential conflict of interest. This leaves recruitment open to suggestions of bias and unfairness.

An external panel member was engaged to support a recruitment process with technical however they were not vetted and were provided with personal information about candidates which could create data protection issues.

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police puts in place measures to ensure that the recruitment policy is adhered to.

This follows an IOPC investigation which considered two separate recruitment exercises. Although there was a recruitment policy in place, this was deviated from in significant ways. For example, a candidate who was known to the hiring manager was interviewed without having met some of the essential requirements for the role. Certain parts of the process, for example providing candidates with feedback, were not carried out. This does not appear to have been challenged. Mechanisms to empower the HR department to monitor and enforce the recruitment policy could help to avoid such issues occurring in future.

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police put in place a robust process for visitors to BTP premises to sign in and, where appropriate, be accompanied by a BTP employee.

The IOPC investigation examined visitor logs for BTP’s Leeds office to try to establish when certain visitors attended. It was apparent that not all visitors were signed in or accompanied when visiting BTP premises. We were told during the investigation that the signing in process was “non-existent” and a regular visitor to the office told us that they have not signed in on numerous occasions. This is not only an issue where an investigation is looking to establish facts but is also a risk for security and fire safety.

The IOPC recommends that British Transport Police puts in place mechanisms to monitor deletion of documents or files from shared and personal computer drives and to recover them where appropriate.

In this investigation, allegations were made about the deletion of documentation from shared computer drives and there was suspicion that documents had been deleted from personal drives. British Transport Police were not able to confirm whether these deletions had happened which impaired our ability to carry out a thorough investigation into these allegations. Any inability to carry out such monitoring and recover files could also cause problems in relation to compliance with data protection obligations.