Government’s Police Vetting Plan Is ‘Unrealistic’

THE Government’s plan to overhaul police vetting is “unrealistic” and a “knee-jerk reaction”, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

The Home Secretary has asked the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice for police vetting to make it stricter and clearer for all forces.

But South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said that, although vetting was important, it would not always identify someone with a predatory mindset and that there needed to be more investment in Professional Standards and Anti-Corruption units.

Steve said: “This is a total knee-jerk reaction by the Government. Of course police officers need to be vetted properly, and we do that in our force. But the Government has come out with a totally unrealistic, populist approach to say that everybody in the country is going to be vetted within a certain timeframe, which is practically impossible for police forces, stretched to their limits.

“We also have to acknowledge the elephant in the room – is there the possibility that vetting will only go so far in detecting the extreme bad apples in policing? We also need colleagues to report bad behaviour, and Professional Standards and Anti-Corruption departments to look into things and root out these people.”

Steve added that a lot of rhetoric in the media was “really concerning”, suggesting that every officer who has a complaint against them should be dismissed, whereas he stressed that many complaints were not upheld and were “false or vexatious”.

In addition, there needed to be robust systems in place for officers to report concerns about their colleagues, Steve said.

He said: “We in the Federation see officers reporting on their colleagues when they’re doing inappropriate things, and that is acted upon and officers are rooted out.

“From speaking to colleagues across the public sector, I genuinely think policing is ahead of the curve when it comes to rooting out inappropriate behaviour.

“And that’s what we need to continue to encourage, because we’re in danger of just thinking, ‘everyone’s vetted, we’re fine’. No, that’s not good enough.”