Fewer officers will lead to more complaints against police

IF POLICE officer numbers are reduced and workloads are increased, then complaints against cops in England and Wales are going to go up.

That’s the view from South Yorkshire Police Federation. “We’re all human… we have breaking points,” said Chairman Neil Bowles.

He was responding to an Independent Police Complaints Commission report that showed a slight rise of 6% in complaints against police officers.

“People are going to make mistakes, people are going to get short tempered and I bet most of those complaints are in civility or neglect of work. It’s just bound to happen and things are going to break.

“We can educate officers as much as we can about keeping themselves out of trouble, but we’re all human. We have breaking points.

“If you’re going to reduce numbers and increase workload then complaints are going to go up.”

It also emerged in the IPCC report that the average time it takes to settle grievances has increased by almost two weeks over the past year.

The organisation’s annual report into complaints statistics showed that the time taken to resolve complaints in 2014/15 had increased to 147 days, 12 days longer than the year before.

Mr Bowles added: “The IPCC certainly don’t publicise how many complaints are actually substantiated compared to the amount that are made. They don’t publicise the amount of time that they take investigating the complaint which is far longer than any police force Professional Standards Department. I think they make announcements to serve themselves.”