Independent Office for Police Conduct Still Has ‘Fundamental Issues’

THE Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) says it has made “significant improvements” in the timeliness of investigations, with more than 90% completed within 12 months, but the Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation says he still has “fundamental issues” with the body.

The IOPC’s Impact Report 2020/21 shows that 91% of ‘core’ investigations were completed within 12 months – up from 83% in the previous year – but this does not include major investigations such as Hillsborough.

The Police Federation of England and Wales’ Time Limits campaign has pushed for police disciplinary investigations to be concluded within 12 months from the moment an allegation is made.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said he welcomed the new figures but questioned if more serious investigations were being completed within that time frame, and said he believed IOPC should be a supervisory-only body.

Steve said: “I welcome the 91% statistic, but I would question whether that’s the case with the more serious incidents that we have. My view remains that the IOPC struggle resource-wise to carry out the amount of investigations they have to look at.

“I think that the IOPC should be a supervisory-only body and should leave the investigations, in the vast majority of cases, to the Professional Standards departments and maybe just supervise what they are doing.

“That’s my view, because we have very competent anti-corruption departments who are specialists in dealing with this type of thing.”

Steve added that he had still experienced issues with investigations dragging on.

He said: “In South Yorkshire there are a number of cases going on at the minute that we have fundamental issues with, in the way they’re being conducted by the IOPC.

“We’ve to look at the whole process and there needs to be a review body. The IOPC needs to be held accountable itself, because sometimes when we call into question the methods it’s employing, there doesn’t seem to be any recourse, and that cannot be right.

“We cannot have an organisation that is completely autonomous and acts with impunity when there’s a perception that what it is doing may be crossing lines.”