Investigations by the police complaints watchdog, the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) still take too long (nine months on average; with 15 per cent taking over a year, according to the latest 12 month rolling figures), according to a review of the IOPC. The review points to the impact this length of time has on complainants and bereaved families, and police officers and staff under investigation.
As referrals continue to rise, the IOPC is investigating a smaller and smaller proportion of complaints, conduct and deaths and serious injuries (DSI) referred to it, according to the Fairfield review. In 2018/19, the IOPC investigated one in six referrals it received. This year (2023/24) it will investigate one in 28 and this will fall further to one in 32 by 2025/26. “This could decrease public confidence in the system,” the review warned. The IOPC’s weighting of cases that fit certain themes may mean it reacts to issues in the public eye, at the expense of emerging issues it might therefore miss, the review also warned. It acknowledged that many issues can cause investigation delays; some of these are outside of the IOPC’s control.
The IOPC also faces significant financial pressures, according to the review. The review quoted the Home Office that the IOPC’s cash budget will fall a further five per cent between 2022/23 and 2025/26. “On current forecasts, this would mean the IOPC would see a 34pc real-terms cut to its budget over seven years,” the review said. Over the last five years, its real-terms budget has been cut by 23pc.
Since the departure of its inaugural Director-General (DG) in December 2022, the IOPC has been in ‘a state of flux’, the review found, ‘but the issues we found are longstanding’. The review described the IOPC’s corporate organisational design as ‘suboptimal’. It stated that the reviewers found many highly committed, professional and dedicated IOPC staff. However, IOPC staff often performed admirably ‘despite, rather than because of, the systems and structures that should support them’. The review made some 93 recommendations about the IOPC’s effectiveness, governance, accountability and efficiency.
The IOPC conducts around 3,000 reviews annually of whether complaints and deaths and serious injuries from police contact have been handled ‘reasonably and proportionately’. After reforms in 2020, which replaced a system of ‘appeals’ with ‘reviews’, the number of applications it received for reviews of complaint handling grew substantially. The IOPC has measures to tackle this, but a significant backlog remains, the review found. As of October 2023, the IOPC was taking 24 weeks on average to complete reviews from receipt of the relevant papers. On its current trajectory, it will not reach previous turnaround times (10 weeks) until September 2025. This is unacceptable, the review stated.
The Hillsborough disaster in 1989 resulted in the deaths of 97 Liverpool Football Club supporters. The then IPCC, the forerunner of the IOPC, began an investigation into police misconduct after the disaster in October 2012. At its peak, the IOPC employed 200 on that work; now it’s 75; they’re (mainly ex-police) investigators, ‘a communications team, an engagement team, and staff working on information management overseeing and managing materials for preservation to the National Archives’. The IPCC set up a directorate for Major Investigations in 2017, “in recognition that the most complex, large-scale and high-profile investigations require different structures and support. This had initially included the IOPC’s Hillsborough work until this became its own ‘directorate’.” The IOPC expects to start around three major investigations a year over the next few years, that typically take over a year.
After each investigation, the IPOC is meant to carry out a debrief, whether for potential learning for that investigator, investigation or the IOPC, but the reviewers heard that such a learning cycle is ‘not really done’. The reviewers found it concerning that this was only one example of how ‘very senior IOPC operational staff do not appear to understand, follow or encourage their teams to follow formal IOPC guidance’.
Background
In March 2023, the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman appointed Dr Gillian Fairfield, chair of the Disclosure and Barring Service, to lead the independent review of the IOPC, an arms-length body. The Home Office has announced Rachel Watson as new Director General of the IPOC. As a government appointment, it was filled on an interim basis by Deputy Director General Tom Whiting since December 2022. For the IOPC response to the review, visit the IOPC website.
