Recommendations - Durham Constabulary, February 2023

The IOPC recommends that Durham Constabulary ensures it has local policy and guidance in place to support officers and staff to respond appropriately and effectively to reports of concern for welfare. The policy and guidance should support officers and staff to:

- communicate effectively with those who have reported a concern for welfare;
- understand when the police, another agency/agencies, or both should take action;
- reassess decisions in light of further information that becomes available.

Durham Constabulary should engage with relevant external agencies to inform the development of its local policy and guidance.

This matter has arisen following a DSI review, where it was identified that Durham Constabulary do not have a policy or guidance in place around how concern for welfare calls for service are handled. In this incident, officers determined that deployment to the concern for welfare was not required, as it was believed that mental health services were best placed to manage the incident, despite mental health services themselves raising the original concern. The implementation of such a policy, as used in other police forces in England and Wales, would assist police officers and staff in making sound and reasonable decisions around how such calls are handled and resourced. The policy will also assist in providing a clear framework around which agency should take primacy for managing the concern for welfare incident at that time, based on any further information which becomes available or a change of circumstances to the original report.

The IOPC recommends that Durham Constabulary ensures police officers and staff within the control room document their rationale on command and control logs, when it is considered that powers to enter a persons property under Section 17 of PACE are not available or appropriate.

This matter has arisen following a DSI review, where it was identified that a control room supervisors and Force Incident Manager (FIM) were of the view that the powers afforded to officers under section 17 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) were not available, due to the relevant criteria for use not being met, following an external mental health team requesting a concern for welfare check. The officer who investigated the DSI matter was of the view that powers under section 17 of PACE were available to officers following the second call. Neither the supervisor nor the FIM provided any rationale for why the criteria had not been met on the command and control log and it is currently unclear if such policy or guidance exists in this regard. A contemporaneous account in this respect would have assisted others and may have also resulted in other officers or staff members to challenge that decision, particularly if there were variances in the conclusions being reached around the availability of such powers.

The IOPC recommends that that Durham Constabulary revisits the resourcing message which has been provided by the Senior Management Team to Force Control Room staff, in respect of handling calls for service from partner agencies, to ensure that the messaging is balanced and that future operational policing decisions are evidence based and meritorious, and not unduly or unintentionally influenced by concerns over resourcing capabilities.

This matter has arisen following a DSI review, where it was identified that a control room supervisor and Force Incident Manager (FIM) referenced receiving a recent input from Durham Constabulary’s Senior Management Team around control room staff being more robust with partner agencies, when a call for service was received in respect of concern for welfare matters. The FIM stated his understanding that Durham Constabulary are looking to be more robust around calls for service from partner agencies and for them to be held to account for their actions. The FIM also stated that they believed a number of partner agencies called police to alleviate themselves of any risk without conducting their own enquires, even if the police were not the most appropriate service to deal.

In respect of this particular incident, it could have been perceived that a police response was appropriate based on the circumstances known at the time and evidence suggests that some staff members did try to resolve the incident with earlier police deployment. The comments made by the FIM and supervisor could suggest that the message passed by the Senior Management Team had negatively influenced the FIM and Supervisor’s decision making in respect of this incident, which resulted in police resources not being appropriately deployed.