Complaints police too busy to fight crime

Published on Saturday 3 January 2009 19:20

ENOUGH Scottish police officers to patrol the city of Perth are spending their time investigating complaints made against their colleagues.

Amid fears that resources are being diverted from major crime fighting, even Scotland's Police Complaints Commissioner Jim Martin said far too many policemen and women are bogged down dealing with minor complaints from the public and that much of the task could be handed over to civilians.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that there are now 83 officers whose full-time job is to handle complaints against forces or to look into alleged wrongdoing by their colleagues.

Senior police insiders yesterday said they were increasingly worried that they are sacrificing resources to deal with allegations that usually turn out to be unfounded.

Martin said: "I don't think we need so many police officers to be involved in dealing with complaints. Most cases could be perfectly handled by civilian staff."

The wage bill for all the officers working in professional standards and complaints processing is understood to be at least 2.5m a year.

Scotland on Sunday understands just one of the 83 full-time officers in forces' professional standards and complaints departments is a constable. The rest are from a variety of promoted ranks, with many inspectors and chief inspectors now devoted to investigating their own.

Complaints against the police have risen relentlessly in recent years, with the vast majority proving to be unfounded.

One in every eight police officers faced a complaint last year in Scotland, according to figures published earlier this month. The figure was as high as one in five in Tayside.

The Scottish Police Federation (SPF) – while supporting tough measures and investigations of officers accused of wrongdoing – said it was worried about the amount of resources being piled into the complaints system.

Its general secretary, Calum Steele, said: "Figures show there really is an increasing number of complaints being recorded against the police. While nobody would expect complaints to be taken lightly, there does seem to be a disproportionate amount of resources devoted to investigating complaints against the police.

"I am sure the wider public would be very grateful if the same resources were devoted to investigating the crimes and offences they report."

The SPF polled all Scotland's forces to find out how many full-time officers worked in both professional standards and complaints handling.

There were 33 in Strathclyde, 17 in Lothian and Borders; 11 in Grampian; six in both Tayside and Central; and five in both Northern and Fife.

Martin believes police should only be mobilised to investigate their own in those cases where there are allegations of criminality.

Most complaints, however, are accusations of poor service or conduct that does not amount to a criminal offence.

Martin, who launched his first annual report late last year, only deals with complainers who have not been satisfied by the response they get from forces. He currently gets one such complaint every day.

Martin has forced several chief constables to apologise to people he feels have been let down by the police.

And he has not shied away from rapping forces when he feels he needs to. He is now going to carry out a wholesale investigation of forces complaints procedures.

Some senior officers are understood to be unhappy about some of Martin's decisions, which they think will add to their already substantial burden of complaints handling.

Garry Sutherland, the deputy chief constable of Northern Constabulary and the spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland on professional standards, defended the current complaints regime, and the number and rank of officers involved.

Sutherland said: "These investigations follow tried-and-tested guidelines and require the experience and expertise of serving officers to take forward some of the work.

"The level of resources which is directed towards the handling of complaints is a matter for the deputy chief constable in each individual force and will be appropriate to the level of work required.

"The current process for dealing with complaints is overtly fair and transparent and allows the complainant, if dissatisfied with police action, to have the complaint independently reviewed by the complaints commissioner."

He added: "We are currently considering the additional burden placed on forces by the recommendations made in some of the reviews conducted by the complaints commissioner, but it is too early to comment further on this."