Posted: Monday 22 March 2010
Commissioner calls on ACPOS to develop national guidance on complaints recording
John McNeill, the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, is to looking to ACPOS to lead on the development of comprehensive, national guidance on how complaints about the police are recorded.
John McNeill will write to ACPOS President, Pat Shearer, this week setting out his concerns that the current method of recording and presenting allegations by Scotland's police forces, does not assist in identifying the number of individual complainers who have expressed dissatisfaction about the police and, therefore, may not truly reflect satisfaction levels.
This move follows a recent review by the Commissioner where a member of the public challenged the way that police had recorded a complaint made by different individuals.
In 2006 ACPOS published a report that looked at standardising heads of complaint but to date there is no formal, national guidance on the appropriate methods for recording police complaints. According to John McNeill the time is now right for ACPOS to look at this important area.
The Commissioner intends to contribute in line with his function under Section 42 of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006 that obliges him to secure efficient and effective police complaints handling.
John McNeill said: "It's all about consistency, the public needs to be confident that no matter where they make a complaint it will be recorded and reported in a consistent way across all of Scotland's police forces. I am looking to ACPOS to take the lead in actively developing national guidance."