Police handling of complaints is inconsistent, says IOPC - Northumbria Police
An overall fall in the number of complaints against the police masks wide discrepancies in the way police forces handle them, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said today.
The national police complaints statistics for England and Wales 2017/18 show that some forces choose to formally investigate most allegations made against them, while others use the less formal ‘local resolution’ process. This points to an overly complex complaints system and changes coming into effect next year to simplify complaints handling are welcomed by the IOPC.
The statistics show:
• A total of 31,671 complaints were recorded by forces - a decrease of 7 per cent on 2016/17’s figure. Northumbria Police recorded a total of 738 complaints, a decrease of 3 per cent on last year.
• Each complaint may consist of more than one allegation and there was a small reduction in the number of allegations recorded. 274 allegations per 1,000 employees were recorded nationally, compared to 279 in 2016/17. Northumbria Police recorded almost the same number of allegations as last year at 1,673 compared to 1,676 in 2016/17. When considered per 1,000 employees, this increased from 322 in 2016/17 to 327 this year.
• The proportion of allegations being dealt with by the less formal local resolution process vary between 10 and 75 per cent across forces in England and Wales. Overall, 42 per cent of allegations finalised in 2017/18 were locally resolved by police and 44 per cent were locally investigated. Northumbria Police finalised 25 per cent of allegations by local resolution.
• Thirty-nine per cent of complaints made against police nationally fall into a broadly-defined ‘other neglect or failure in duty’ category; The second largest category of ‘incivility, impoliteness and intolerance’ accounted for 12 per cent of all complaints. Work is underway to define the complaint categories in a more meaningful way.
• On average, it took Northumbria Police 141 working days to locally investigate an allegation, compared to 173 nationally. For allegations finalised by local resolution, it took an average of 47 working days to resolve the allegation, compared to 72 days nationally.
Regional Director Miranda Biddle said:
“The statistics published today can help police forces in our region to improve the service they provide. The information received through the complaints system can also help the police to deal with any worrying trends proactively within their communities. However, it’s crucial we don’t forget that behind every complaint someone is dissatisfied about the service they’ve received from the police, or how they’ve been treated by them. Some of the most valuable lessons are learned from the experiences of people who have felt the need to complain.
“I talk regularly to forces and PCCs across the region about how complaints are handled and how we can find ways to improve the service they provide. We hope the changes coming next year will make the system much more consistent and transparent which should help improve public confidence. The decrease in the number complaints recorded indicates that improvements are being made at local level and that the police are already adopting some of these changes when they deal with less serious complaints.”
A number of changes to the complaints system will be introduced in 2019. As part of our work to support the changes, we plan to improve how allegations are defined, so the categories provide more clarity about what specifically is being complained about.
We are also ensuring that in future, less serious complaints dealt with outside the formal system will be captured and logged so we can see clearly what is driving people to complain at all levels. This new data will assist the police service and our own thematic work to make improvements to policing as a whole.
For a full breakdown of the complaints statistics please see the full report here https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/statistics/complaints_statistics_2017_18.pd