IOPC Must Be Held Accountable For Its Actions

AN OVERARCHING authority must be set up to properly hold the Independent Office for Police Conduct to account, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Chair Steve Kent has called for better scrutiny and oversight at IOPC.

He said: “We keep finding ourselves in a position of really bad practice with IOPC. Time limits on investigations is just one aspect of that. But you’ve also got poor practice in terms of unnecessary investigations, the sheer number of investigations, getting involved in investigations that have already been handled by professional standards, and completely and utterly inappropriate sanctions.

“We have a culture where we see a lot of examples of practice which, in my view, if our professional standards behaved in that way they would potentially face sanctions and scrutiny for it. The IOPC face nothing. So for me, we should be hammering that point about accountability.

“There needs to be an ombudsman, a Home Office department or any organisation which the IOPC are accountable to, because as it stands they are one of the most autonomous organisations, with a lot of power, in the whole legal system. And how can that be appropriate that there’s no recourse?

“There’s nobody pulling them back, there is nobody pointing out what they’re doing is unethical on occasions.

“We need to get the Government to put something in place which holds them to account and scrutinises them.”

Improving the system would make investigations faster and more effective, therefore saving money and improving public confidence, Steve said.

He added: “We find ourselves sometimes coming up against a brick wall with the IOPC because they don’t have to answer to us and they don’t have to answer to anybody. I have seen some examples of really bad practice, for which there needs to be a level of accountability.”