Complaints against officers are decreasing, report finds

THE number of complaints made against the police has fallen, a new report shows.

The National Police Complaints Statistics for England and Wales revealed that more than 31,000 allegations were made in 2017/18 – a 7% drop in complaints from the year before.

However, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) believes the reduction is ‘masking’ some issues and is calling for forces to show more ‘consistency’ when dealing with complaints.

Some forces formally investigate most allegations made against them, while others use the less formal ‘local resolution’ process, it says.

“What’s more important than overall numbers is how complaints are viewed by the forces themselves,” IOPC Director General Michael Lockwood said.

“They offer a great opportunity to learn from and address any common concerns that their local communities express. Done properly, this can be really positive for police and community relations.”

He hopes changes to the system, due to be in place from 2019, will see more transparency in how complaints are handled.

“The complaint statistics we collect are invaluable for drawing together the data from all police forces into one place,” he said.

“The handling of complaints varies a great deal and we hope that changes next year will promote a culture across policing which is more consistent and transparent.

“This year’s drop in recorded complaints may mean that forces are already adopting some of the changes and dealing with some less serious complaints outside the formal system.

“If complainants are satisfied with this approach, it is to be encouraged. We want police forces to view complaints as an opportunity, not as a threat,” he added.

As part of the proposed changes to the system, the IOPC says it will improve how allegations are defined to allow for more clarity into what exactly what is being complained about.

Work is also ongoing, it says, to ensure less serious complaints which fall outside the formal system are captured and logged to understand what drives people to complain in the first place.

Headline stats from the report revealed;

A total of 31,671 complaints were recorded by forces – a decrease of 7 per cent on 2016/17’s figure.

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, compared to 279 in 2016/17.

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.

Thirty-nine per cent of complaints made against police 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.

In 2017/18, the total number of appeals received across the police complaints system fell by eight per cent from 7,564 to 6,943. There was a 14 per cent drop in the total number of appeals made against the outcome of force investigations.

For more; https://policeconduct.gov.uk/news/police-handling-complaints-inconsistent-says-iopc