Posted: Monday 5 September 2011
Applications to Police Complaints Commissioner on the increase
Almost 600 members of the public contacted the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland (PCCS) in the last year to find out how to make a complaint about the police, a 48 per cent increase on last year.
These figures are revealed in the Commissioner's Annual Report for the year ending 31 March 2011, which will be published today (5 September).
During the same period, the Commissioner carried out 150 complaint handling reviews involving a total of 533 individual complaint allegations, a 70 per cent increase from 314 in 2009-10. During the year he accepted 174 new applications from the public seeking a review of their case.
Overall, the Commissioner found that 290 complaints, which represents just over half (54%) of the total reviewed during the year, had been handled reasonably by the police, down from 66 per cent (208 cases) last year.
Strathclyde Police, Scotland's largest force, accounted for the largest number of complaints with 182, up from 124 the previous year, representing one third (34 per cent) of all complaints received by the Commissioner. Of the remaining seven forces in Scotland, only Grampian Police recorded a reduction in complaints at 13, down from 45 last year.
Professor John McNeill, Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland said: The increased number of complaints coming to my office demonstrates the continuing need for a dedicated independent police oversight body that the public can turn to, when they believe that the police have got it wrong in the way they have handled a complaint."
This is the second annual report published by the Commissioner who was appointed by Kenny MacAskill in 2009. As well as providing independent scrutiny of the way the police handle individual complaints, the Commissioner's remit extends to reforming and modernising Scotland's police complaints handling process.
In the foreword to this year's annual report Professor McNeill wrote that "considerable progress" had been made and that many of the building blocks were now in place to achieve that goal, specifically the publication of statutory guidance on complaints handling in March.
Following a public consultation in 2010, the Commissioner published the guidance called "From sanctions to solutions". The guidance sets out minimum standards for the way that all police forces in Scotland should respond to complaints from the public and signals a move away from a culture of blame towards one where lessons are learned from complaints received from the public. This includes an increased focus on front line resolution, accurate and consistent recording of types of complaints and identifying organisational and individual learning from complaints."
The Scottish Police College, with input from the PCCS and ACPOS, is currently developing a training package to help the police introduce and understand the new approach which will be introduced during 2012.