Important note: This is an archive of the website that was formerly at www.morrisinquiry.gov.uk. It is being hosted on the MPA website for archival purposes only and may contain out-of-date information.

This resource is from the Transcripts section. This section contains a transcript of the public session with Sir Alistair Graham of the Police Complaints Authority on 19 February 2004. Mr Ian Bynoe was also called to this hearing.

Sections available here:

• Transcript of public session: Sir Alistair Graham, Mr I Bynoe and Mrs W Towers of the Police Complaints Authority
  • Questions by Sir William Morris
  • Questions by Miss Weekes
  • Questions by Sir Anthony Burden

This transcript is also available with original line and page numbering.

Transcript of public session: Sir Alistair Graham, Mr I Bynoe and Mrs W Towers of the Police Complaints Authority

Thursday, 19 February 2004
10.30 am

Sir William Morris: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to you, Sir Alistair. Welcome to you and your colleagues.

Can I start first of all, Sir Alistair, by saying thank you very much indeed for your accepting our invitation to attend the inquiry and to give us some evidence and for letting us have your written submission, which we have found extremely helpful.

I appreciate that for some, perhaps not your good self, but for some of our witness this process can indeed be a very daunting experience. I thought it would be helpful if I set out quite briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing. But first let me introduce myself and the other members of the panel.

I am Sir Bill Morris recently, retired general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, a post which I held for some 12 years, and I have been asked to chair the inquiry. As you can see, there are two other members of the panel. On my right is Sir Anthony Burden, who recently retired as Chief Constable of the South Wales Constabulary after a very long and distinguished career in the Police Service. On my left is Anesta Weekes QC, who is an eminent barrister. She sits as recorder and part-time chair of employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.

Sir Alistair, as you know, we have been asked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into the professional standards and employment matters of the Metropolitan Police Service. Let me say straight away that our focus is on MPS as an organisation and not the individuals that make up that organisation.

The inquiry we are conducting is inquisitorial and not adversarial in nature. We are very keen to inquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference so that we can make appropriate recommendations for further good practice rather than concentrating on making criticisms of the MPS or indeed organisations or particular individuals within it.

To help us in our task, we are very keen to hear from all our witnesses not just what is wrong with the Metropolitan Police but what is right with it. But most importantly, we seek suggestions and look forward to yours as to how things can be put right if there is anything which is deemed to be wrong.

Let me say also that a transcript is being taken so that we can have a proper record of the evidence given by all our witnesses. This will be posted on our website later today.

At the end of these introductory remarks, I will lead on the questions to you, followed by my colleagues, first Miss Weekes, and she will be followed by Sir Anthony Burden, and any supplementary questions that I might find necessary. At the conclusion of our questions, we will offer you the opportunity for a brief closing comment, if you so wish.

In your submission, which will be posted, as I said, on the inquiry's website following your evidence today, you have set out the following information to guide us. First, the police's role; second, whether there are any disparities in the treatment of black and other minority police officers in relation to grievance, complaints, disciplinary proceedings and hearings. You have also set out as a heading, "Delay in Complaints and Grievance Process", "The Metropolitan Police Service Department of Professional Standards" and "Pilot Project in the New IECC".

We would like to ask you some questions about the material in your submission and seek your views on a range of matters which are of interest to us. But before we raise these questions, however, for the benefit of the transcript, I wonder if you would mind formally introducing yourself to the inquiry.

Sir Alistair Graham: Thank you, Sir Morris. By all means. My name is Sir Alistair Graham. I am Chairman of the Police Complaints Authority and have been Chairman since 1st April 2000. On my left is Mr Ian Bynoe, who is one of the two deputy chairs of the Police Complaints Authority. He for many years has been both a member of the Authority, also deputy chair, and also has been appointed by the Home Secretary as a member of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. So he will be going on into the new organisation from 1st April.

Behind me is Mrs Wendy Towers, who is the second deputy chair. I should explain that Mr Bynoe has overall responsibility in the Authority for dealing with what we call the misconduct review aspect of police complaints. This is Wendy Towers, who as deputy chair has also been a member of the Authority for some years; she has responsibility for the supervision aspect of the Authority's work.

Questions by Sir William Morris

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much indeed for that explanation and introduction of your colleagues.

We particularly wanted to hear from you and your colleagues because the Police Complaints Authority has been in existence, as I understand it, for approximately 20 years or so and has obviously built up a wealth of experience in the areas which are relevant to our inquiry. Without doubt, the PCA has made a significant contribution towards confidence building between the Police Service and of course the public in respect of the complaints procedure and practices.

However, things are moving on, as you have indicated already, and soon we will have some important changes in the complaints process. So as we look forward to the Independent Police Complaints Commission getting fully into its own stride we would like to invite to you share with us what you consider are the most important lessons to be learned from the PCA's experience.

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes, well that is a very big question, and of course the Police Complaints Authority had the opportunity to influence the new police complaints system which comes into operation from 1st April 2004. If you look at the evidence we gave to the House of Commons select committee for home affairs, we put suggestions there for changes to the police complaints system, and a number of those recommendations were embodied in the proposals that were first consulted on and were then embodied in the new legislation.

Of course, the main criticism of the system that has been in operation since 1985 is that it is the police investigating themselves, though of course in terms of the most serious incidents, like deaths in custody or road traffic incidents involving police vehicles, very often where there are fatalities, it will not always be the Police Service where the incident takes place that actually investigates that; it will be a different Police Service.

So if you take a fatal fire arms incident, say, in South London, and the death of Mr Derek Bennett in that particular case, it was investigated by a team of police officers from Northumbria police force, and also using some police officers, I think, from the Avon and Somerset police force. So it was not always a police force investigating itself. And our responsibility there is to supervise that police investigation, and at the end of the investigation to give a statutory certificate of satisfaction with the investigation that has taken place, and then, at a later stage, we may have a responsibility in the disciplinary process.

That function will continue under the Independent Police Complaints Commission. But in some of the most serious incidents – and this will depend on the capacity of the new body – they will have the opportunity to independently investigate them, and they are building up a team of investigators to be able to do that. That is a very significant change and certainly will hopefully have an impact in terms of public confidence in the new system.

As they will undoubtedly find, I think, it is a daunting responsibility in making sure that you have the right level of expertise to do that, particularly for a volume number of investigations. I think it has been a problem for police complaints bodies throughout the world. I do not think it is just a problem for England and Wales.

In some ways the most significant change, I think, is that the Police Service for very large numbers of complaints are going to investigate them themselves, and instead of, at the end of the investigation, after it has been reviewed by a senior police officer, referring it to the Police Complaints Authority for us to, in consultation with the Police Service, come to a conclusion about disciplinary matters, they are going to be able to, during the investigation, at the end of the investigation, go back to the complainants themselves and to give information about what has been found out during the investigation and the conclusions that they have come to.

This is a very dramatic change, and it is a dramatic change in culture for the police service because, unlike the current system which rather, under the Police Act 1996, puts an emphasis on non-disclosure of information, the new statutory system makes a much stronger presumption in favour of disclosure of information.

Also, by being able, during and at the end of a police investigation into a complaint, to go back to the complainants – hopefully this will speed the whole process up. And if the Police Service can successfully convince the complainant that their complaint has been properly investigated and the appropriate conclusion has been come to, then that is the end of the matter. The new Independent Police Complaints Commission does not become involved. So I think that is a very significant change and I hope will lead to an increased speed with which complaints are dealt with.

But, of course, if the complainant is still dissatisfied with the investigation and the conclusions that have been come to, they have the right of appeal to the new independent body. And they can take a totally fresh look at how the complaint has been investigated. It in some respects may well be very similar to the misconduct review that we carry out in the vast bulk of complaints at the moment. So that is a very significant change.

There are two other changes which I think are worth highlighting that I think will be a significant improvement. We do not have any role to play in the process of informal resolution. I think the experience of everybody who deals with complaints in the public service is the more quickly you can deal with them, the more likely you are to get complainant satisfaction. The longer it takes, the more distrust and concern builds up about whether their complaint has been properly dealt with. A substantial – something like one in three complaints are dealt with by this process of informal resolution. We play no part in that unless it moves to a formal investigation of the complaint.

Well, the new body will have an inspectorial function jointly with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of professional standards departments, like the Directorate of Professional Standards in the Metropolitan Police Service, about how informal resolution is being dealt with. So I think that, hopefully, may mean that there can be greater use of informal – or what is going to be called local resolution under the new system.

I saw yesterday that Sir John Stevens made reference to an increased use of restorage of justice approaches in dealing with complaints, and I thought it was worth drawing to the inquiry's attention that we did produce a report on restorage of justice and police complaints a year or two ago, and I am happy to leave a copy of that report with the inquiry if they would find it useful.

One final point that perhaps is worth making, of all the changes that are taking place in the new system, is that once we have come to a conclusion that disciplinary action is appropriate, and that a police officer should be brought before a disciplinary tribunal to face disciplinary charges, we have hardly any role to play after that process is underway.

There is a provision that allows us to satisfy ourselves that the case for the disciplinary charges are going to be properly presented, so we might have some informal input into that, and we may well attend the disciplinary tribunal, but we do not have any significant role in that. Whereas, of course, in future there may be an independent member on the disciplinary tribunal to represent the wider public interest.

Where the Independent Police Complaints Commission are insisting on disciplinary charges being brought, I believe they will have the opportunity to ensure that their legal representatives present the case for those disciplinary charges on behalf of the Commission. So that is a significant change for the future.

But I would want to put the emphasis on, as I tried to do in the written evidence, relations between the Police Complaints Authority and the Directorate of Professional Standards on a day-to-day basis. We have had difficulties over one recent case, which you will be aware of, but generally speaking relations have been very good.

In particular what I think is a crucial function of a complaints body is to learn lessons from the investigations into complaints, and I tried to produce some examples of where, by working together, we could reduce delays and the processing of complaints; we could particularly reduce deaths in police custody, in which we have made significant progress; we could review policies on police pursuits, which is an issue that has been of very considerable concern to the Police Complaints Authority.

Relations on those issues have been absolutely excellent, and we would believe that the Directorate of Professional Standards has done an outstanding job in many areas, like deaths in police custody, in learning the lessons and trying to feed them through in new processes, changes in training, to improve police performance in some of these areas.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much for that.

Looking at the evidence you have produced and the documentation, looking at your annual report, it appears – and I put it no higher than that – that the interaction between the Police Complaints Authority and the Metropolitan Police Service has been orientated around the Directorate for Professional Standards.

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes.

Sir William Morris: Am I right, sir? And if I am, do you think that both parties might have gained more out of the relationship from a more proactive approach? As you have just described, it seems as if the approach has been reactive rather than any proactive work.

Perhaps you could just indicate where the relationship really coalesces in the context of the Directorate for Professional Standards?

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes. Well, our main relationship with the Metropolitan Police Service has been with the Directorate of Professional Standards. As you could argue for most police forces throughout England and Wales, it is the Professional Standards Department that are our main a point of contact because that is where the core of expertise is inside their police force to investigate complaints from members of the public and to carry out internal investigations. And also, they are normally the part of the organisation that has the responsibility of analysing the results of police complaint investigations to see what lessons should be learned to feed back into the Police Service to try and improve performance in that respect.

But that is not to say that there are not other contacts at a more senior level, because there certainly has been in the Metropolitan Police Service. They would regularly invite to us events or, if they were doing some perhaps best value reviews in some particular areas, we might be invited to submit evidence and information to that.

But, inevitably, the main day-to-day contact has been with the Directorate of Professional Standards.

Sir William Morris: Is there anything that could or should have been done differently, now that you have an opportunity to look back?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, the whole issue of the length of time that investigations take, and the point that we have made in our evidence that we were seriously concerned at one time at the length of time it took – if a joint decision was taken or we used our statutory powers to direct that a police officer should be brought before a tribunal, the length of time it would take before that officer actually appeared before a disciplinary tribunal.

I think, you know, that must have had an impact from a sort of morale point of view on the credibility of the disciplinary system. And it did lead to the first day or two, sometimes, of every disciplinary tribunal having to concentrate on abuse of process arguments which were put forward by the legal representatives on behalf of the police officers because of the length of time; as well as, we pointed out in the evidence, the possibility that witnesses, you know, could not remember clearly the incident that the disciplinary was arising from.

I think my colleague will add to that.

Mr Bynoe: Chairman, I have been at the Police Complaints Authority since August of 1998 so my experience of working with the Metropolitan Police Service is slightly longer than the Chairman's and also slightly longer than Mrs Towers'. It is a long way back to go back to that year, but of course it pre-dates the creation of the directorate. And I think it is right to put on the record that the changes that came about when the Complaints Investigation Bureau was replaced by the Directorate of Professional Standards were ones that were importantly necessary. It was essential for the Metropolitan Police Service to raise their game with regard to the standards of investigation, both of critical and serious incidents and of the whole broad range of complaints coming from members of the public.

At the same time as I think efforts were made to raise the skill level and the resources devoted to investigations, both of serious incidents and also public complaints, there was at the same time a determined attempt to make decision-making more consistent, in that more than five years ago in the Metropolitan Police Service there were – shall we term it – there was a tension between the centre and the district in relation to disciplinary decision-making.

I recall at the Police Complaints Authority a sense of uncertainty, in making disciplinary decisions, as to where the power lay in relation to final decisions on discipline; as to whether it was for a commander at an ACPO level in the Metropolitan Police ultimately to have the say with regard to discipline or whether it was for the director of CIB to make that final decision.

The changes that were introduced with the creation of the directorate, and in a sense the centralising of decisions about particularly substantiating complaints on disciplinary decisions, have achieved a degree of consistency which was lacking in the former structure and in the former system of decision-making for public complaints. I say nothing about internal issues because I do not know whether it is mirrored in the same way.

But of course, when decision-making has to be, in a sense, sucked into the centre for the central resources, or the central decision-makers to make decisions, that can lead to delay. I am sure it can. In other words, the price of greater consistency may be greater delay because other eyes have to read the material and others have to make decisions, and there is not district or area level flexibility in regard to that.

I cannot point to clear data which proves that it takes longer for decisions to be taken in the new system than it did in the old, but I certainly know from cases that I could have a meeting with the area ACPO level officer and get them to decide something, decide a disciplinary decision where we insisted on a hearing, say, and the investigator and the local officer have said no. You could achieve that much more quickly than you may be able to do under the new system. I think that is something the inquiry should look at most carefully.

But we would applaud the changes made with the creation of the Directorate and, in a sense, the greater consistency to disciplinary decisions that have resulted.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much.

Sir Alistair, annexed to your written submission you have provided some information about the two pilot projects which the Police Complaints Authority have been undertaking; that is in conjunction with the Thames Valley and Durham Constabularies. As I understand it, these pilots were initiated under the Reform Legislation of 2002.

I wonder whether you could share with us the overall objectives of these pilot studies.

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, the pilots arose from the PCA's membership. I represent the authority on the programme board, which is a sort of steering group, chaired by the Home Office, responsible for the transition to the new police complaints system which will come into operation from 1st April 2004. I forget exactly when that programme board was first set up; it must be 18 months to two years ago.

I agreed that I would chair a sort of sub-group of that board for trying to set up a number of pilots testing out elements of the new police complaints system in a sort of live situation as far as it was possible to do that under the present legislation, given that the new legislation will not come in until 1st April. And we said, "Well, could we try out some aspects?" the most important of which being the Thames Valley pilot in testing out the appeal mechanism under the new arrangement, whereby the police investigate a complaint, it is reviewed by a senior officer, and then go back to the complainant and explain to them what has happened during the investigation and the conclusions that they have come to, which might be that there were some issues that needed to be addressed or that the complaint has not been upheld and explaining why it has not been upheld. And then giving those individuals a right of appeal, not to the Independent Police Complaints Commission because it was not in operation then, but to the Police Complaints Authority, for us to act as if we were the IPCC, in an appellate sense, but also to satisfy the complainant that we would still review it as under the current legislation.

So we were in fact doing both things: doing what we would normally do, which is to review a police investigation and to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to bring disciplinary charges against a police officer, and also, in parallel, to look at it as appellate.

That is a slightly unreal way of doing things, and the report we produced is the latest piece of information, although I think I did alert the secretary to the inquiry that the research department of the Home Office had been doing some formal evaluation of some of these pilots, and I think they may well have more detailed evaluation reports than we have been able to produce.

So the Thames Valley pilot was the most important pilot. And then there were other pilots in different aspects. For example, there is an appeal under the new arrangements against the police deciding it is not appropriate to record and investigate a complaint, because under the current legislation and new legislation the statutory powers are given to the Police Service in terms of recording complaints. Because they may decide a complaint from a member of the public is not about alleging misconduct by a police officer but is about organisational matters and should not be dealt with under the statutory system.

We tried, though we did not make a great deal of progress, in terms of a substantial pilot. We only had a small number of appeals under the Avon and Somerset pilot to look at that aspect of the new system. But the evidence did suggest, I think, that it would be unlikely to produce a high volume of appeals about recording of complaints.

Whereas the Thames Valley pilot did suggest that one in three complainants, if I remember rightly, might well lead to an appeal to the new independent organisation because the complainant was still dissatisfied. It reinforced the difficulties for any complaints body, whether it is the Police Complaints Authority or the Independent Police Complaints Commission, satisfying a complainant about the investigation of a complaint when, even under the new system, the vast bulk of complaints will be investigated by the Police Service rather than by, you know, an Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Then even with an appeal to a new independent organisation, our conclusions are that it will always be difficult to satisfy many complainants because unless it comes with the conclusion that they were looking for in the first place they are going to remain dissatisfied.

The only other area that we explored in the pilots was that the function of the Independent Police Complaints Commission will have to more strongly influence the way in which disciplinary charges may be brought at a disciplinary tribunal. We, with the co-operation of a number of police forces, did play a more proactive role in satisfying ourselves about the quality of, if you like, of the prosecution of certain disciplinary charges. But once again, I am not sure that we came to any dramatic conclusions about how this might operate under the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Sir William Morris: Given the trial that you have talked about in terms of Thames Valley, using the dual procedure, the old and the proposed, are you in a position to draw any definitive conclusion yet at all?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, it is a speedier system. I think we came to that conclusion. It should speed things up. Undoubtedly, the success of the new arrangements for the Police Service in improving the perception of how public complaints are dealt with will depend to a large extent on the process they adopt during the investigation in keeping complainants informed about how complaints are being dealt with.

Also at the end of it – at the moment, we give a sort of summary of the conclusions of an investigation and the evidence that has been before us in writing. If in fact the Police Service can spend more time in a face to face sense talking to complainants about what they have done in the investigation, what conclusions they have come to and why they have come to those conclusions, then I think the evidence is that it might improve complainants' satisfaction with the police complaints process.

It all at the moment seems a rather complex – a very arm's length type of process, and I think the new system does allow the Police Service to get much closer to complainants about their complaints, and hopefully to learn lessons about how they can improve public satisfaction of policing, because – I will come back to it. I do think it is extremely difficult in many cases to satisfy a complainant about how their complaint has been dealt with. But I do think a complaints process is absolutely vital for learning lessons about the impact of policing in the community and improving police performance over a period of time. I think we have made quite a lot of progress with the Police Complaints Authority in learning those lessons and we can demonstrate: lives have been saved, police processes have been improved, and the Police Service has been very willing to co-operate with us in that area. And I sincerely hope that the new body will keep up the momentum and emphasis on that.

Mr Bynoe: Could I just add a comment? It introduces the word "incentives". If it is a given that in the vast majority of cases the police will continue to investigate, at least at the initial phase – because, of course, on an appeal the Commission itself can investigate; it has that power in the legislation – but if we assume that in most cases the police will still be the primary investigator. The weakness of the current system is that it makes of the Police Complaints Authority an agent; it looks like an agent of the police in the delivery of its conclusions and the outcome of the complaint to the complainant.

On many occasions in the Police Complaints Authority we have correspondence from complainants who talk about our officers as though we somehow employ police officers. In the new system, because in the majority of cases the investigating Police Service will have this initial and crucial feedback responsibility with the complainant, the new Commission will not be seen as a part of the Police Service. You cannot possibly have such a conception of it. It is a body to which you appeal. It is a completely independent body to which you appeal. You take your grievance about what the police have done. So that will become much clearer than the current system, which in a sense is one which is built on no trust.

The Authority was set up to look at everything, absolutely everything the police investigate, which, in a sense, is built on a foundation that we do not trust the police to do it therefore we give the independent body the job of doing it. But in the public's eye there has been insufficient distance between the two bodies.

Coming back to incentives, there is a strong incentive for the Police Service in the new system to get that relationship of communication and trust better with the complainant, because if they can avoid an unnecessary appeal, or a misconceived appeal being made – and I still predict that the Commission will often agree with the police investigation in many cases, there will be agreements as there are in the PCA at the minute. One in seven disciplinary outcomes are ours rather than the police's, but that is unlikely to grow vastly in the new system. The big incentive to the Police Service is to avoid the appeals being made, and that therefore puts a strong emphasis on communication, improving communication, the results of the investigation.

I would foresee that the police will see the great benefit of simply virtually handing over the results of the investigation, the discloseable investigation report, "Here it is" to the complainant, "This is what we have done." If it is a highly professional, clear, well written report that examines all the evidence, presents it objectively, analyses where the conclusions lie, the complainant is going to be hard-pressed to produce an appeal out of that. So the incentive system in the new structure is very much better than it is currently.

Sir Alistair Graham: And I think it is worth adding on that point about communication, which is an absolutely critical issue for the Police Service with complaints, that we did during the pilot try to persuade the Police Service in the Thames Valley that they should work out a standard format of investigating officer's report that could be given to the complainant at the end of an investigation into a complaint. I believe there is an ACPO group, headed by an officer from the Sussex police force, that is doing some work for the preparation for the Police Service on the new complaints system. I think some work is being done to see whether it is possible to work out a format of investigating officer's report, clearly redacting or not including anything that may be sensitive, informant or anything of that nature.

But I do think if in fact, as has been suggested by my colleague, at the end of an investigation you have a face to face meeting and you are handing over and taking a complainant through the investigating officer's report into the complaint, then that would improve public satisfaction in the complaint.

The same may be true if one had a meeting with the police officer who is the subject of the complaint and go through the investigating officer's report with him or her. That might also improve confidence in the system from a police officer point of view as well.

Sir William Morris: Thank you both. I will now ask Miss Weekes to put her set of questions to you. Thank you.

Questions by Miss Weekes

Miss Weekes: Good morning, Sir Alistair. Can I start, first of all, by asking you some questions about the policy of approach to dealing with police officers who are the subject of a public complaint, followed by your views as to the statutory framework and some additional questions on double jeopardy and proportionality.

Can I make it clear that because, of course, the PCA will no longer exist by the end of March, I ask my questions in order to take on board the lessons to be learned in those four areas, the lessons to be learned from someone with your undoubted experience of dealing with police officers who have been subject to a complaint.

I think you will agree, would you not, that it is equally important for the public to be confident and to be satisfied as well as it is for officers to be confident and satisfied that they have been dealt with fairly if a complaint has been made against them?

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes. You would want in an ideal world, which it is not, of course, that everybody should be satisfied; the wider public, individual members of the public and the police officers who are the subject of the disciplinary process.

Miss Weekes: I am going to concentrate on the officers themselves, if I may. As far as you are aware, was there a main or general policy in relation to how officers should be treated if they are subject to a public complaint? Because we know that there are thousands of policies within the Metropolitan Police Service. Is there one in relation to how officers are treated?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, we, of course, are only aware of what would be in any general regulations. It would not be our responsibility, and never has been our responsibility, to have a particular focus on the sort of link between morale, personnel affairs and the disciplinary process. That has never been part of our responsibilities. And it is not possible, for example, it has always been – I do not know if my colleagues can explain the background to this, but in terms of the records we keep, we have never in any sort of analytical sense kept details about police officers subject to the complaint. In any press releases that we would issue arising out of a discipline process we have never named individual officers. That is not to say that they do not come into the public arena because the local press can, you know, be quite good in identifying. And there has always been a sensitivity about this.

For example, in our annual report, if we give some sort of vignette details of particular complaint cases, and we have had letters from time to time in the police force saying, "Well, the way you have described that it is possible to identify the police officer", and usually it is only possible to identify the police officer because there has been some local publicity, not that we have ever given the name of the police officer concerned.

So our emphasis has always been on the public complainant and the communication relationship with them. The sort of personnel aspect of how you deal with an officer going through the process – clearly in discussion between my colleagues and individual police forces personnel issues will arise which may have to be taken into account and may be part of a debate.

Did you want to add anything to that?

Mr Bynoe: Is your question: do we know, or have we ever considered what arrangements the Metropolitan Police Service have to guide whether a complaint is taken from a member of the public?

Miss Weekes: No. Forgive me if I have given that impression. No. Perhaps I could go back to it because I think it is quite important.

Mr Bynoe: Perhaps I can put it this way: the scenario, for example, we see files and a majority of them are already, or some of them are somewhat historic. But on files for misconduct review you will see the Metropolitan Police Service's standard complaint for member of the public form, and that is sort of a given. If the file does not have one of those, it will not have travelled to us. So what we do not see we do not know. What we do not know is where the members of the public present themselves in certain situations in certain places expressing disagreement or objection or concern and that is not turned into a complaint, whereas in other circumstances it would be.

I was wondering whether that was what you were searching for.

Miss Weekes: No. Perhaps I can clarify because I think Sir Alistair got the point. Officers undoubtedly would like to be kept in touch with what is going on with the complaint that is made against them. They want to know on a regular basis what stage it is at. If there is a delay they would like to be told what is the reason for the delay. And I think your general wording of personnel issues is entirely right.

It is clear from Sir Alistair's reply that the emphasis was really on the member of the public, and that may have been entirely right. Do you think now one of the lessons to be learned is that there should be some general accepted policy about how an officer is treated during the time that he or she is subject to a complaint? I have just flagged up two minor things, which may not be minor as they may be very important to that officer.

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, if I was a police officer being subject – in any organisation if you are subject to a disciplinary matter, yes, you would want to be kept informed as to what stage it had reached, the disciplinary process, what conclusions have been come to, yes –

Miss Weekes: And who should be in charge of that?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, it is a mixture of the department that is responsible for the discipline process and the line manager, is it not? That, I would have said, is good – it is a mixture of the two, is it not? The person who is responsible for the discipline process, and liaising with the line manager – I always think the line manager should take direct responsibility for keeping an individual officer informed about the progress.

But you have to remember that our concern has been – and the concern of the new system is public confidence in the police complaints system. Public confidence, as I think Mr Bynoe explained earlier on, if you are seen to be too close to the Police Service, or oversensitive about the position of the police officer, then that undermines public perception about your independence in dealing with a complaint about the public. You know, we could show you hundreds and thousands of letters from members of the public of saying, "Oh, well, you are all concerned about a cover-up on behalf of the Police Service."

Miss Weekes: Of course, Sir Alistair, it would not be right for the PCA or the new IPCC necessarily to do that, but you do agree it would be important to have some policy of an approach as to what happens to the officer during the complaint?

Sir Alistair Graham: Undoubtedly. In fact any large organisation who has a formal disciplinary process, particularly if you have a statutory disciplinary process and as a result of that your legal rights to go to an employment tribunal are restricted, which they are, then obviously you need to have proper personnel procedures relating to the police officer. I would not disagree with that at all. But that should not undermine the capacity of the person dealing – the perception of the independence of the organisation charged with dealing with complaints from members of the public.

Miss Weekes: I think you have identified the line manager perhaps as being an appropriate person.

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Because it would take into account, of course, the stress that police officers go through, the effect upon their families, upon their morale, and the fears that they have of being demoted or losing their job. So those issues need to be handled, do they not, by somebody?

Sir Alistair Graham: Sensitively, yes, they do need to be handled. And they need as far as possible – I think that takes you back to a common theme about trying to make sure that the system processes these things as quickly as possible.

Miss Weekes: Yes. Can I move on to the statutory framework. We are now going to have a new Act when the IPCC comes into play; it will be the Police Act 2002, and it is already in place but not all the provisions are yet operative, but they will be certainly by April. That Act will principally deal with all complaints issues and disciplinary issues. There are, however, the police regulations of 1999 which will still exist, and they also touch upon the issues of conduct, discipline and complaint.

Lessons to be learned. Do you think the time has come for an even more streamlined approach and cutting away of statutory provisions and complex procedures in relation to public complaints and the processes that attach themselves to when an officer receives a public complaint?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, I do think the current regulations put a strong emphasis on an officer knowing as quickly as possible as to whether he is subject to a complaint and what the nature of the allegation is, and I think the regulations currently provide for officers to be alerted about that. It can come to light during an investigation that other officers need to be alerted. Because one of the worries one has always had, the danger of the complaint system is that the front line person is more often subject to the complaint, and you have to look, of course, at the supervisory management responsibilities. If, for example, an allegation of neglect of duty is concerned, then very often it is not just the front line officer who is responsible but the supervisors and middle managers.

So as an investigation takes place you may have to issue what we call regulation line notices, alleging allegation to other officers as well. But I think the regulation for that should be done as quickly as possible.

In terms of speeding up the system, we have always been in favour of as large a proportion of complaints as possible being dealt with by what we currently call informal resolution, which will be local resolution in the future. As I pointed out earlier, we did some work on restorative justice techniques. Once again, I think Thames Valley were the leader in this particular area. I think there is a great deal of scope for the Police Service increasing the skill levels of people in the Directorate of Professional Standards or the Professional Standards Department in other police forces to be able to go through restorative justice or – to be honest, we use the term restorative justice but it is more often a mediation type of process.

The trouble with that is, of course, the more you go down that route, the more time consuming it is. It can be expensive either in training requirements or in bringing in outside mediators. So it is not a cost-free option. But as a general principle, there is a direct link between complainant satisfaction in how a complaint is dealt with and the speed with which it is true. And I suppose that same formula must apply for police officer morale. The faster, quicker – as long as it is fair and transparent – the disciplinary issues involving police officers are dealt with, the better the discipline. Nobody is probably very fond of disciplinary systems in any field of employment, but it is more likely officers will have confidence and support on that system.

Miss Weekes: Apart from speed, if I can go back to the purpose of my question, do you have anything to add or to help us with in terms of lessons to be learned on the number and complexity of statutory provisions and the regulations that exist in this area?

Sir Alistair Graham: From an officer point of view?

Miss Weekes: Yes. Everything is from an officer's point of view.

Mr Bynoe: I do not really want to answer the question about the complexity of the legislation because I would like to go further back than that. In the philosophy of the legislation one must remind oneself that it is based on military discipline. This is a very old-fashioned way of dealing with concepts of professional misconduct. It is not a system adopted in other professions which were not based in the sort of 19th century military discipline historically.

If one was going to maybe improve officer perceptions of the system, you would not tinker around with the detail of regulations, you would be more radical and you would perhaps seek to take out of a formal disciplinary system some of what is currently in there.

In many years at the Police Complaints Authority, you know, I have to state that I am staggered at the occasions one sees officers performing, one hopes, a professional role but being completely unprepared to tell their managers or investigators what happened. They will attend an interview, read a pre-prepared statement and then refuse to answer any questions, and believe that that is entirely consistent with the role of professional police officers. Now they are subject to a Regulation 9 notice and the current caution means that they are perfectly entitled in law not to say a word in answer to a question. But it offends, I think, the public sense of what it is to be a police officer, that there is this inhibition which seems to be ingrained in some ways in the service.

I do not, of course, make this sweeping comment about all officers; this is a few, but it is still very much part of the system. The complaints system is perceived as them punishing us. It prevents investigators getting to the truth. It inhibits open and honest description by officers in reflection on what they may or may not have done.

And away from the formal disciplinary process I am sure officers are more frank. I am sure in the informal resolution process – which is not part of the formal discipline process, and any evidence created in a formal resolution cannot be used, it is not admissible – I am sure officers are more frank.

But when it gets into formal investigation, regrettably, the current philosophy approach seems to trigger perhaps negative reactions from the service. There will be obviously gross misconduct which has to be taken most seriously, formally and properly investigated, with elaborate due process protections, and investigators working to what may be a legalistic system. But maybe in relation to some neglects, examples of poor performance, it is time to say that they are not appropriately being dealt with in the way that currently it is being.

But Sir Alistair rightly reminds us of the importance of public confidence, and a driver to public confidence is to see that people take responsibility for what they do. And in the public's mind, formal processes are largely to do with people being accountable and taking responsibility, so I would not pretend to think that it is an easy task changing the culture and changing the philosophy, but I would say that the lessons I would take from five years in the PCA is that the current system is one that triggers negative reactions from police staff, and I question whether that is really needed. It certainly is not productive.

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much for that. Can I move on to two other areas which you may be able to help us with. From your experience and from an officer's point of view double jeopardy is an important point in the line of complaints and discipline.

If there has been a public complaint – I stick to public because that is your area, but it could also arrive internally through an investigation, through a complaint by another officer or his line manager – that might become a disciplinary matter, and it might become a criminal matter for which that officer is then prosecuted if the CPS decide there is a sufficient case to go to a Crown court. What that officer would be most concerned about is whether or not he will be proceeded against in the criminal trial and still dealt with by way of disciplinary proceedings. So the whole question of double jeopardy throws up – and please correct me if I am wrong – two things. What happens to his conduct complaint in terms of discipline whilst the criminal trial goes on, and if he is convicted or found not guilty, what then happens to discipline conduct. Am I right, it throws up those two vexed questions for the officer?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, normally while the criminal process is taking its course nothing will happen usually as far as the disciplinary matters are concerned. Very often, if criminal matters are concerned, we will issue a certificate of satisfaction, a statutory certificate of satisfaction only relating to criminal matters. The criminal matters are then dealt with. Then the investigating officer will produce a report referring to any outstanding disciplinary matters. That is then a matter for the authority to consider, whether there are outstanding disciplinary issues, and there are some legal issues.

Normally the Police Service will have taken legal advice as to – because I think the issues – I am not an expert, I am not a lawyer, but the issues relate to whether the evidence that you might require for the disciplinary charges have already been fully dealt with in the criminal court. Normally if that evidence has been dealt with in the criminal court, you cannot sort of, in a sense, retry it in a disciplinary sense.

But we do have to remember, of course, that there are different standards of proof. The criminal standard of proof, beyond reasonable doubt, whereas the disciplinary standard of proof is balance of probabilities. And because somebody has been acquitted and found not guilty in relation to criminal charges, that is not to say that they are still not clearly in breach of the police code of conduct as far as disciplinary matters, and it is appropriate for those disciplinary matters to be dealt with through the disciplinary process.

Miss Weekes: I think you would agree that it is absolutely correct to still have statutory provisions which allow the Metropolitan Police Service to consider any disciplinary matters that might be outstanding even where a man has been acquitted on a criminal charge. There is no doubt about that?

Sir Alistair Graham: Absolutely not.

Miss Weekes: Let us look at that time from an officer's point of view. What would you say are the lessons to be learned for the future about how that discretion – because it is discretion, is it not? – is dealt with, because once a man has been acquitted at a criminal trial, he could be proceeded with for disciplinary matters, may he not?

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes.

Miss Weekes: And the statute leaves that discretion, does it not?

Sir Alistair Graham: It does, but as far as we are concerned, there would be information from the investigating officer for us to consider whether there was appropriate evidence to proceed with disciplinary charges. It seems to be right that there should be discretion. For example, if a police officer has been involved in a fire arms incident and he is faced with the most serious criminal charges, which may be murder or manslaughter, arising from that, and that is a long drawn out process, it can be, if we think of the James Ashley shooting in Sussex or something like that – I have forgotten how many years the criminal issues took to resolve – then you have to have some discretion to decide, given what the officers have gone through over that very long period of time, and actually may face criminal trials, there needs to be some discretion about: are there genuinely outstanding disciplinary matters or are you just pursuing a disciplinary judge for the sake of it?

But sometimes, in pursuing criminal – I can think of cases where criminal charges have been pursued but they have been dropped at a relatively early stage, perhaps because the judge ruled that there was no case to answer, or the Crown Prosecution at the last minute decided that perhaps the quality of the evidence they have does not hold up or something. And it is then entirely right that you should pursue disciplinary matters because it would be unfair, particularly if we may be talking about a death in police custody, there may have been a high profile campaign around that by the family. You know, they very often will be legally represented –there is a lot of public debate taking place, and not to pursue outstanding disciplinary charges would be in fact not to follow through the public accountability of the actions of police officers.

Miss Weekes: Would you agree, then, that one of the lessons we must look at with the function of the new IPCC is how the police approach that discretionary area, because of course you are right, it does depend upon the serious nature of the action complained of, and a death in police custody is undoubtedly extremely serious. Any death involving a police officer is. But if it was to do with whether or not he put down the correct expenses on his sheet that might be at a different level, might it not, so the discretionary operation is different in respect of that?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, you are quoting an extreme example in that particular situation. I think there are a whole range of factors that I can think of: how senior is the police officer concerned; do any of the outstanding discipline matters get to the heart of confidence in that officer's ability to perform his police functions in the future; does it get to integrity and trust issues? You know, I can think of a whole range of factors that you would want to bear on a particular case.

Miss Weekes: Do you think these factors that will bear upon the exercise of discretion are clear to both those who will exercise the discretion and the officer who will be subject to it? Are these matters clear? Is this something that we should be looking at?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, I suppose the question you are asking is: is it sort of codified in a precise sense? No, it is not, but we do have the police code of conduct, and the principles and values built into that police code of conduct, which I think are very explicit if you look at them, as a guiding path to the operation of that discretion. So I think there are some clear guidelines there that help, apart from, as I say, the fundamental question about: does this bear on the capacity of this police officer to effectively perform police functions in the future?

Miss Weekes: I want to turn to my last area, which is about proportionality. I think I would be safe in saying that some officers think that the method of the length of time that they have been investigated and then the final outcome does not measure up to three years of a complaint, and then at the end perhaps being rapped over the knuckles. There is an issue about proportionality, is there not, often, when there is a complaint against officers?

Sir Alistair Graham: When you talk about proportionality, are you talking about the length of time that process takes or are you talking about the amount of police effort to investigate?

Miss Weekes: Both, and the outcome. Can I perhaps concentrate my question by quoting from your annual report. I will say it is the PCA annual report, page 33, just in case our document managers can bring that up. If they cannot, I will quote it. It is page 33 of the annual report. What was said in that was:

"Many complaints, albeit capable of proof before a tribunal, do not warrant the potential punishment available when a disciplinary hearing is convened."

I hope I have quoted that correctly, and it is page 33 –

Sir Alistair Graham: I have got that in front of me.

Miss Weekes: So it is that aspect of proportionality I am interested in, and why it was put into your report. Can you help with us that?

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes. My colleague actually wrote those words. To be honest, I think, looking at that particular paragraph, it was just given to members of the public who do not know very much about it, a simple explanation of the rationale for written warnings.

Mr Bynoe: Well, it simply is reflected in table 4, which appears on the following two pages, 34 and 35, where you will see that the written warnings total 290 required by the police force, 35 required by the PCA. Then "Advices", 908 required by the Police Service, 155 by the PCA, guidance 79 and 35.

These are vastly greater numbers in total than the 289 disciplinary charges.

So I was writing that to explain that most disciplinary outcomes following investigation do not go into the disciplinary hearing. Why? Because it does not warrant it. That is the police view in the occasions where they have sent their file and we agree, and then it is our view when we have insisted on that outcome, and we require things to go upwards not downwards, as you probably appreciate.

Miss Weekes: Yes.

Mr Bynoe: So the way the system falls out is, as you rightly comment, not into the disciplinary tribunal but into non-formal means. The written warning is a formal outcome, I have to say, in a way.

Sir Alistair Graham: But I think it is important to go back to your issue of proportionality, which is where you started from in terms of the question. The question was about, you know, this may take a long time, a fair amount of police effort, and some relatively minor outcomes. Well, of course, in many cases, that is the complaint of the members of the public, that a serious incident has taken place in which they have got serious question marks about police behaviour, and at the end of it, because sometimes the length these things have taken, police officers may have retired, and if they have retired they cannot.

We have had situations where they were about to retire and we have said, in fact, it is important that the police officer is suspended from duty because that in fact gives the Police Service more discretion about retirement if, you know, they have completed their 30 years and can qualify for retirement.

So I think from a public perception, and accountability of the Police Service, it will to some extent depend on the seriousness of the incident that triggered the investigation, not necessarily the scale of outcomes that happened as far as proportionality is concerned.

Miss Weekes: Just one final point on that. You mentioned Operation Lancet, the Taylor Review at page 79 of your annual report. You highlighted the recommendations in that review, did you not?

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes.

Miss Weekes: In relation to the very sensible recommendations as to how high profile cases should be dealt with, and that was what the review really concentrated on. Have you any additional comments to make for lessons to be learned for the IPCC as to how high profile cases should be dealt with? Again, looking at proportionality of the investigation, time spent.

Mr Bynoe: Well, we can talk from experience of a major investigation into a force being conducted externally in which we have both used William Taylor's approach but also used him as a reviewing person, and set up some of the – put into place in that investigation some of the measures which were recommended by the review to ensure that there was the monitoring of lines of enquiry, scope, resources, timeliness and such issues as those.

I do not currently have responsibility for that file and for that investigation, so I do not speak from personal knowledge. But I can say that the Taylor Review has been put into practice. And also may I say that the principle of reviewing investigations, of seeking external review, is now becoming – I look towards my colleague, Wendy, who has responsibility for that – is now becoming commonly seen in serious investigations, high profile investigations.

In-force investigators or even external investigators are seeking Police Service colleagues externally to review the current state of the investigation. So peer review in this sort of way is becoming very much more commonly seen in PCA-supervised investigations.

Miss Weekes: I ask that question because you will appreciate that high profile cases comes within our terms of reference.

Mr Bynoe: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Is it possible for us to have sight of that file at some stage? Not necessarily now.

Mr Bynoe: That investigation?

Miss Weekes: Yes, the one you have referred to. If it is not appropriate I will understand.

Mr Bynoe: We can write you a briefing to elaborate on the points that I have made, and draw in other cases as well where external reviews have been used. That would not be any difficulty at all. But I think the individual investigation is probably sensitive.

Miss Weekes: I understand that, but a briefing may assist myself and my colleagues, if that would be possible.

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes, we will try and arrange that.

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much indeed.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much for your responses. I am going to suggest that we take a very brief five minutes' rest for the benefit of the stenographer. We can stretch our legs and then resume. 

11.45 am
(A short break)
11.52 am

Sir William Morris: We will resume with some questions from Sir Anthony Burden.

Questions by Sir Anthony Burden

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you.

My colleague, Anesta Weekes, has already dealt with the detail of legislation and the changes, but we heard from the Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, yesterday, who said that in his view police officers should in the future be the subject of contracts of employment, sweep away all the old baggage of the office of constable and Crown servant status, and he will also sweep away all of the current procedures in relation to discipline and start again.

Mr Bynoe has referred briefly to the fact that it is vested in a history and military discipline sort of background. Can I just ask, from a PCA viewpoint, because we have to make a recommendation on such matters, would you see a root and branch starting again if that were an option?

Sir Alistair Graham: It is difficult because it depends what conclusion – you can understand the desire to bring police officers in line with other men, but of course it would radically change. You would get many, many more employment tribunals, would you not, on a whole range of issues, and there are a fair number at the moment relating to racial discrimination, gender discrimination type issues. I mean, the whole rationale was about public confidence in the Police Service and the accountability of police officers, who unlike any other employees in this country, have very major powers. The state gives them – they are agents of the state – the state gives them, you know, powers to arrest, powers to take them into custody, all of those things.

Would the public be satisfied if you swept the system away without some form of proper accountability? So that would be the question – I do not think one can give a simple answer, and I would be very surprised if Parliament was willing to radically change a new police complaints system that has not got off the ground yet; it does not start until 1st April. So I would have thought in realistic terms it would be difficult to go back to a clean sheet. And I cannot remember whether the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police Service made very strong representations at the time when there was consultation taking place about this new system, which there was. There was quite a lengthy period of consultation. He is not an uninfluential person, and whether he made the strong representations he made to you yesterday about the need to take a totally fresh look. Because that really was the time to do it, not just before we are about to introduce a new police complaints system.

Sir Anthony Burden: You have already referred to the fact that you do not keep statistics on individual officers.

Sir Alistair Graham: I am a bit unclear why exactly that is, but I think it does relate to objection from people like the Police Federation to us keeping that sort of information. So the emphasis in terms of our records has always been: we can give you a very good profile about complainants but not about police officers who are involved in disciplinary matters.

Sir Anthony Burden: From what you have just said I think you are intimating that any attempt to gather statistics, for example in monitoring the ethnicity of officers under investigation and the outcome of those investigations and any discipline that follows, that there is some importance in having that sort of information available, if that were possible.

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes, I can see why you would want to have that information. If there is, and I have seen the sort of public comment about it, a perception that somehow police officers from black and other ethnic minority groups who are in the Police Service are having a tougher time under the disciplinary regime compared to white officers. We have never seen any detailed evidence, and I recently had a meeting with the National Black Police Officers Association to talk through them. We have had meetings, not all that often, but from time to time.

I have not seen any evidence which supports that contention in a statistical or any other sense, and it is not something that we are able to support or deny, in a sense.

Sir Anthony Burden: No. Let me just formally put that to you. In relation to the Metropolitan Police Service, then, the PCA has no concerns that the proportionality of investigations or the decision to discipline has in any way been influenced by the ethnicity of the officer concerned.

Sir Alistair Graham: We have no evidence it has been influenced by the Metropolitan Police Service, and we are certainly, you know, strongly of the view it has not in any way, in an adverse sense against any police officer – we did give you some sort of sample, if you like, and I am not pretending to draw any conclusions from the case studies. We just thought we could fairly easily draw out some case studies of disciplinary process involving black and ethnic minority officers from our recent experience, and we gave you those in short form just to give you a feel of how – because we thought it useful to demonstrate how the disciplinary process worked in practice.

We are not suggesting you, or that ourselves are drawing any conclusion from those particular case studies.

Sir Anthony Burden: Forgive me, in relation to those you are referring to annex A; there are five case studies there. They all refer to officers complained of from minority ethnic backgrounds. They are all five cases where the Metropolitan Police have decided not to take formal discipline, as I understand it, but the PCA had instructed that formal disciplinary proceedings actually take place.

Mr Bynoe: The fifth case is one where misconduct tribunal was proposed by the MPS. The other four are occasions where the PCA has exercised its powers and has altered the outcome.

Sir Anthony Burden: But those were just drawn at random. You are not asking us to read anything into that?

Sir Alistair Graham: No, you should not draw any conclusion. But in terms of a general principle I think it is very important both for harmonious relations in the Police Service and for public confidence in the discipline process, that all officers should be treated equally and consistently regardless of ethnic background. As a general principle I believe that is very important.

Sir Anthony Burden: Yes. We have a submission from the Metropolitan Police Authority which is suggesting that there should be a stronger role for police authorities in managing complaints processes, and they say this:

"There may be a case for a fundamental structural reform to put the investigation of professional standards matters at arm's length from the management of the force and to underline its independence by making it directly accountable to the MPA."

That is not IPCC cases, of course, because they recognise that the more serious cases will be dealt with directly by the IPCC. But they make the distinction that the majority of cases will still be investigated by the MPS. Could we ask your views on that?

Sir Alistair Graham: I do not think I personally – I have not read their evidence, I am just going on what you have read out. No, I do not think I would support it. I think disciplinary issues have to be the responsibility of line management in any organisation, and that applies to the police and it applies to anywhere else with appropriate safeguards and any disciplinary processes of fair dealings as far as police officers are concerned.

I have attended, up and down the country, a substantial number of disciplinary committees of police authorities; they are usually called complaints and discipline committees. I have sat in, and I have certainly made a presentation to the Metropolitan Police Authority complaints and discipline committee, and from my experience they do look at a sample of files from time to time, members of the – to satisfy themselves about the process that has taken place.

That seems to me an adequate supervision of monitoring. I would not want to see them – and I doubt if necessarily police officers would, given the composition of authorities, which is a mix of elected counselors, independent members and magistrates. I suspect such an arrangement would lead to less confidence in the discipline process for most police officers rather than more confidence.

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you. The last point from me is on delays. I am pleased to hear you say that delays have been reduced, but the last management information that we have presented to the MPA – and I do appreciate this will not be available to you – but out of 522 live public complaint cases being handled on 10th November last year, 33 per cent of those cases were over the 120 days target and, on average, at that time to complete a public complaint took 213 days, which I am sure you would agree is still unacceptable.

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: Could you tell us – we heard again from the Commissioner yesterday his views on some of the reasons for delay. But we are looking internally at the MPS, within our terms of reference. What in your view are the most common reasons for delay in the investigation of complaints within a Directorate of Professional Standards department?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, my colleagues might be better because they deal more with detailed cases on a day-to-day basis, but I am sure he made reference to the Crown Prosecution Service can sometimes take a long period –

Sir Anthony Burden: Forgive me, I appreciate other agencies may build in some element of the delay. But, really, our concern is with the service itself and the efficiency of the department to deal with complaints. Are there any factors which continually occur, either within the Metropolitan Police or across other police services, which you feel are matters of delay?

Mr Bynoe: In my view, the single factor which arises most often – and there will be many factors which arise from time to time in different cases – is the time taken to arrange interviews with officers, and particularly officers who seek to be represented by a lawyer at the same time. And in cases where there are perhaps – there may not be many complaints but where there are many officers subject to investigation, getting the interviews and the disclosure to interviewees sorted, and arranging their transcripts following interview, is often the single factor that slows things down.

I would say from personal experience that also report writing can take time. Evidence gathering might be well progressed and well resourced, but by perhaps the time – this is not the case for short form reports, but for lengthier ones, analysing a mass, a morass, of detail and producing a high quality report can often be a challenge.

Sir Anthony Burden: Could I just follow up on that point with a final question, if I may. Therefore, from your experience and the experience across all forces that you supervise, are you aware of any initiative anywhere that has or is most likely to be successful in eliminating delays, and are there any best practice forces that you would like to point us in the direction of, please?

Sir Alistair Graham: Well, we did give you evidence about the proportionate – the pilot in trying to reduce delays in the Metropolitan Police Service, and there clearly may be lessons from that for the rest of the Police Service.

Sir Anthony Burden: But in terms of any other forces or any other initiatives that may be proving fruitful?

Mr Bynoe: I am surprised that the service does not use the Home Office guidance on ill-founded complaints more with limited investigation files.

Obviously, the authority can say, "Well, we require more to be done" on receipt of a limited investigation file, but it is something that probably could have been used more.

The system is now going to change, is it not? The commission will be in a different relationship with the Police Service than the PCA was, but I foresee commissioners locally will have of course a much closer relationship in a sense with defined police services and with particular territories. They must ensure that professional standards departments sort of know what the standard of investigation needs to be. And the commission can give a steer on that.

I think in the commission there is a strong feeling that being more independent and, in a sense, having its own investigative arm, it is able to say more confidently and more robustly maybe, "You do not need to investigate any more", and be believed when it does that because they are investigators, the Commission.

Sir William Morris: Sir Alistair, that, I think, completes the points that we wanted to explore with you. I just want to say thank you very much indeed to you and your colleagues for your help and assistance. I just remind that you in my opening statement I said that I would offer you the opportunity for a brief closing comment, should you wish, and if you do so wish then now is your time.

Sir Alistair Graham: Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity to share our experience. I think there are only two or three points.

There have been a number of questions around: should we have a sort of root and branch examination of the discipline and complaints system. We are on the verge of implementing a new system. We have certainly been working hard, and my colleagues in the IPCC, to get the Police Service ready for that. I would sincerely hope nothing concerns the inquiry that detracts from making a success of that new system. Because, as we said, I think there are some important incentives in there, particularly when the vast bulk of complaints – and it is so easy in these things to concentrate on the very small number of high profile ones which get newspaper publicity and attraction. We should think about the high volume of complaints that come from members of the public and how they can be dealt with most effectively, from everybody's perspective.

There are these new incentives, new opportunities for the Police Service to strike a better relationship and build up confidence, remembering from our perspective that successful policing in this country does very much depend on members of the public being willing to co-operate with the police, provide information which will bring people to justice. And I do think a good system for dealing with complaints makes a contribution to that public confidence of wanting to co-operate to achieve successful policing in this country.

The other point I think it is worth stressing from what we have said previously is that there is scope for the representative bodies on behalf of the Police Service, like the Police Federation, to perhaps reconsider some of the advice that they give to police officers in terms of being more open about what took place in a particular incident, so that instead of having very many no comment interviews you actually have police officers being open about what took place in particular incidents so that we can have fair dealing all round, because, as you can see from the figures that we have produced in our annual report, the overwhelming approach in the current disciplinary system very often is to giving police officers advice, at worst written warnings, rather than taking large numbers of police officers through heavy-handed disciplinary tribunals.

I think if we can pursue that process of learning from incidents, feeding back to officers, improving performance, then the new system will serve everybody's interests in a more effective way than perhaps people perceive the current system does.

Sir William Morris: Thank you.

Before you go, can I just make a final point, and we say this for the benefit of all our witnesses, because it may that be when we have heard from other witnesses we may well want to ask a few more questions, either in writing or by asking you to come back to these hearings. If we do decide to do so, we will naturally try to do our best to do it in a way which causes the least inconvenience to you and your colleagues. But for the moment, all that I wish to say further is to once again thank you and your colleagues for contributing our inquiry.

Can I just indicate to the members of the public that it is my intention now to adjourn the inquiry until 2 pm this afternoon, but can I ask you to remain seated whilst the witness and the members leave the room. Thank you very much.

12.15 pm

On this website:

• Evidence: Sir Alistair Graham
  Evidence provided by and documents referred to by Sir Alistair Graham in his appearance at the Inquiry.