B: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE CURRENT SYSTEM
16. In assessing the effectiveness of the present
disciplinary and complaints sytem it is helpful to keep in mind
the distinction referred to above between cases of poor performance
of their duties by officers and cases where there may have been
actual misconduct or corruption. While there are concerns about
the way in which the system deals with both areas, they raise
in practice somewhat different issues. It is helpful to deal
briefly first with poor performance, before going on to discuss
misconduct.
The system for dealing with poor performance
17. Although procedures for tackling poor performance
are standard in almost all other walks of life, usually involving
a staged process of interviews and warnings leading ultimately
to possible dismissal, this is not so with the police. In practice
of course minor instances of poor performance (as with minor instances
of misconduct) can be addressed on a day to day basis by informal
action such as advice or rebuke.[29]
But, as the Home Office evidence put it, the absence of formal
procedures for dealing with inefficiency "means that the
police service has a detailed formal set of procedures for dealing
with misconduct, illegality or ethical failure, which is currently
being used by default to deal with inefficiency, or failures of
competence."[30]
18. This issue was one of those addressed in the
1993 Consultation Paper issued by the previous Government.[31]
The ideas in that paper have been discussed between the relevant
parties and the resulting proposals were summarised in the Home
Office written evidence.[32]
Under these proposals occasional lapses would, as in any employment,
be dealt with as part of the day to day management process. If
this produced insufficient improvement in performance, there would
be a formal interview in which the officer "would be told
the shortcomings in performance, given a chance to explain, told
what is necessary to bring the performance up to standard and
given a period of time in which to effect the necessary improvement."
If there were insufficient improvement a second interview would
take place, at which a written warning would be given and a further
period of time for improvement set. If there was still insufficient
improvement, there would be a hearing before a board presided
over by an Assistant Chief Constable; the powers of the board
would include dismissal. We were told that these proposals had
been broadly agreed between the Home Office, the police associations,
the Metropolitan Police and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary.[33]
19. Two features of the proposals should be noted.
First (unlike the position in respect of misconduct, which we
discuss later) we understand that it is generally agreed that
it should be the civil-not the criminal-standard of proof which
would underpin this procedure. The Police Federation accepted
this in their oral evidence and their chairman, Mr Broughton,
noted "You must understand how dramatic it was for us to
embrace and agree that procedure. For the first time officers
could be dismissed for poor performance ...".[34]
20. Secondly, it is important to note that the distinction
between cases to which this procedure will be applicable and those
to which it will not is between efficiency (or performance) and
conduct; it is not between 'serious' and 'minor' cases. There
may be problems also in applying the full discipline or conduct
procedures to minor instances of misconduct, but it was generally
agreed that these should not be resolved by treating them as instances
of inefficiency. The Police Action Lawyers Group were concerned
on this point and stressed that "all cases of misconduct
should be dealt with separately".[35]
Indeed one of the strengths of the proposals, in the view of
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, is that they should have "the
added benefit of reducing the present 'clouding' of the disciplinary
procedures for the grey area between performance and behaviour".[36]
21. The proposals have drawn support from outside
the police as well. The PCA, for example, called for them to
be introduced at the earliest possible opportunity".[37]
We welcome the proposed introduction to the disciplinary system
of a procedure to deal with inadequate performance by police officers
and urge that this is done without further delay.
Does the present system enable misconduct to
be identified and dealt with?
22. Two issues overlap:
- do the basic disciplinary procedures provide
an effective way of punishing guilty officers (and protecting
innocent officers)?
- does the complaints process allow members of
the public to activate those disciplinary procedures in proper
cases?
Almost every participant in the system expressed
criticisms to the Committee about some aspects of the effectiveness
of the present system. The evidence that there are real problems
is of four kinds: individual examples, general statistical evidence,
the lessons from civil litigation, and the opinions of those professionally
involved.
The evidence from individual
cases
23. It is certainly a widely held perception that
in many cases individual police officers who have been involved
in incidents where it is clear there has been some wrongdoing,
or where clear evidence may exist against the officer, appear
to go unpunished. Obviously the fact that it may have looked
clear to some observers that something has gone wrong or that
acquittals in criminal or disciplinary hearings appear implausible
is not in itself proof that individual officers have escaped justice
for misconduct. There may be a number of reasons why there has
been no conviction, and we examine some of these in this section
and elsewhere in the report. Nevertheless such cases are at least
consistent with the view that the system is not working as well
as it might, and justify further inquiry into whether changes
are needed.
24. Different kinds of cases were mentioned in the
evidence received. Our attention was drawn to the fact that no
convictions of police officers had arisen from a number of celebrated
miscarriages of justice cases in recent years,[38]
despite the strong evidence of fraud and perjury on the part of
some of the police officers involved. In addition no officer
of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was convicted in respect
of their conduct during a period when their operations led to
over 30 convictions which later had to be quashed.
25. Coroners' juries' findings and other evidence
have shown up cases where a decision not to prosecute police officers
in a number of cases of deaths in police custody is surprising.
The organisation Inquest submitted eleven case studies[39]
suggesting various apparent inadequacies in the discipline and
complaints systems, ranging from non-prosecution or disciplining
of officers against whom there was apparently substantial evidence,
to failures to receive satisfaction over complaints about lack
of sensitivity in dealing with relatives. Further illustrations
of possible failures in the system came from cases where a failure
to establish a complaint has gone hand in hand with a successful
civil suit of the police over the same incident. The submission
from the Police Action Lawyers Group gave details of five such
incidents.[40]
26. These examples all have in common the feature
that it has been possible to cite objective evidence-namely the
judgement of another kind of court-for the proposition that there
was at least a case for some kind of criminal or disciplinary
action against an officer. In other incidents or examples the
evidence may be more subjective, but such incidents may also be
more numerous.
The general statistical evidence
27. This Committee is not realistically in a position
fully to establish whether these criticisms of the complaints
system arising from particular cases are justified. But the critics
point also to statistical evidence that the system, in particular
the complaints system, is ineffective. Around 100 officers[41]
are dismissed or required to resign each year as a result of disciplinary
hearings. This is out of over 400 who have a disciplinary charge
against them proved, and around three-quarters of these cases
arise entirely from internally generated discipline proceedings
and not from outside complaints.[42]
Table A shows figures for complaints for the last two years:
TABLE A: Complaints against the police (England
and Wales)
|
1995/96
|
1996/97 |
|
Number
|
% of all complaints
|
(% of formally investigated complaints)
|
Number |
% of all complaints
|
(% of formally investigated complaints)
|
Total recorded complaints:
of which:
Withdrawn, or dispensation(1):
Total resolved:
of which:
Informally resolved:
Formally investigated:
of which:
Not substantiated:
Substantiated:
of which:
Charges(2) brought:
Other action taken:
|
35,840
15,535
20,305
11,652
8,653
7,904
749
162
577
|
100%
43%
57%
33%
24%
22%
2%
<0.5%
<2.0%
|
(100%)
(91%)
(9%)
|
36,731
14,286
22,445
11,652
10,820
9,986
834
141
678
|
100%
39%
61%
32%
29%
27%
2%
<0.5%
<2.0%
|
(100%)
(92%)
(8%)
|
(1) Dispensation given by PCA allowing police not
to pursue the complaint, because complainant cannot be contacted
or will not assist, or complaint is repetitious
(2) Either criminal or disciplinary charges
28. Not surprisingly, there are a range of different
conclusions which can be drawn from these figures:
- fewer than one half of 1% of all recorded
complaints lead to criminal or disciplinary charges
- around 2% of all recorded complaints are substantiated
following a formal investigation
- around 8% of formally investigated complaints
are substantiated
- around 33% of all complaints in 1996/97 could
be said to have resulted in some form of satisfaction for the
complainant, either in the form of substantiation of the complaint
following formal investigation or by being resolved informally.[43]
The 2% figure, illustrating a very low rate of effectiveness,
was the rate most widely quoted by critics of the complaints process.[44]
Liberty felt that even if the higher 8% figure was used the system
was still shown to be ineffective, since "The notion must
be absurd that well over nine out of ten complaints are 'false'
or unmeritorious ..".[45]
The Minister of State implicitly gave some support to the 33%
figure,[46] although
other witnesses advised caution against assuming that just because
complainants assented to informal resolution of a complaint they
were necessarily satisfied.[47]
We find the present lack of clarity in this area to be unsatisfactory,
and we recommend that in future the totals for 'informal resolution'
should be broken down in such a way as to indicate more precisely
the outcome in each case.
29. Since one incident can give rise to a number
of separate complaints, from one or more complainants, the Police
Complaints Authority preferred to talk in terms of the number
of such separate incidents, or 'complaints cases'. They also
discounted cases which had been withdrawn or informally resolved,
since they did not fall to be considered by the Authority. In
addition, in assessing outcomes they totalled up the number of
officers who had been the subject of any form of disciplinary
action, including 'advice'. On this basis the figures were:
TABLE B: Complaint cases considered by the
PCA
| 1995/96
| 1996/97 |
Total number of cases considered:
of which:
| 9816 | 10243
|
| Dispensations granted: |
5656 | 5238
|
| Formally investigated cases:
| 4160 | 5005
|
| |
Total number of officers disciplined:
of which:
|
1129 |
1269
|
| Disciplinary or criminal charges:
| 269 | 251
|
| Other action (e.g. admonishment):
| 860 | 1018
|
Source: PCA Annual Reports 1995-96 and 1996-97.
The PCA suggest that the fact that over 1000 officers
are subject each year to some form of disciplinary action arising
from a complaint shows the system to be more effective than some
of its critics claim.
30. In addition to the complications in the interpretation
of the statistics arising from such issues as how to treat withdrawn
complaints or those subject to dispensation or how to treat 'informally
resolved cases', or whether to consider complaints or complaints
cases, there are other factors to consider as well. For example,
there is some evidence that only a small proportion of those who
are aggrieved actually make a complaint.[48]
It should also be borne in mind that while a complaint may be
'substantiated' the action taken in respect of the officer as
a result may be significantly less than a complainant might be
expecting.[49]
29 Home
Office memorandum, Appendix 1, para 5. Back
30 Appendix
1, para 24. Back
31 Review
of police discipline procedures,
Home Office Consultative Paper 1993, paras 22-28. Back
32 Appendix
1, Part I, Annex B. Back
33 Appendix
1, Part I, para 23; Q 683. Back
34 Q
614. Back
35 Appendix
12; see also Liberty Appendix 11. Back
36 Appendix
15, para 5.6. Back
37 Appendix
10 para 63. Back
38 The
memorandum from Birnberg & Co. referred to the Birmingham
Six, Guildford Four, Maguire Seven, Tottenham Three, Cardiff Three,
Carl Bridgewater and Judith Ward cases, among others (Appendix
14). The DPP told us that there had been at least six prosecutions,
involving 17 defendants, none of which had so far resulted in
convictions (one of these cases was still pending) (Appendix 32). Back
39 Annexes
to Appendix 25. Back
40 Appendix
12 (Case summaries). Back
41 The
average number 1992-1996 was 98, though the number for 1996/97
was only 77 (Home Office Statistical Bulletin 21/97, Table 6). Back
42 The
average number of officers against whom one or more charges was
proved for 1992-1996 was 430, though the number for 1996/97 was
only 377; 102 of the 377 arose from complaint cases (Home Office
Statistical Bulletin 21/97, Table 5). Back
43 Informal
resolution is a procedure laid down under s. 85 of the Police
and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 allowing less serious complaints
to be resolved locally at an early stage following consultations
to resolve the matter by a specified officer with the various
parties. The Act makes clear that a complaint can only be resolved
under this procedure with the assent of the complainant. This
method might well resolve the matter to the satisfaction of the
complainant, for example where the police indicate a degree of
acceptance of improper conduct or handling of a situation and
perhaps offer an apology, or where the complainant accepts on
further explanation the reason for the conduct (though in such
a case the complainant could choose to withdraw the complaint
instead). Back
44 For
example GALOP (an independent voluntary sector organisation which
offers assistance in incidents involving homophobic violence and
the police) told us that they informed callers to their helpline
that a complaint had only a 2% chance of success. (See List of
Unprinted Memoranda.) Back
45 Appendix
11. Back
46 Q
697. Back
47 In
some cases where a complainant consents to informal resolution
it may be that he or she accepts that there is no realistic way
in which anything can be achieved by further attempts to assess
what has happened, or may simply not be willing to go through
the whole formal investigation process. See PCA (Appendix 29). Back
48 The
1994 British Crime Survey suggested that only around 10% of people
who had at some stage been "really annoyed" at a police
officer lodged an official complaint (Home Office Research Findings
No. 28). Back
49 PALG
(Appendix 12). Back
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