Independent Police Complaints Commission
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House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Independent Police Complaints Commission Eleventh Report of Session 2012–13 Volume II Additional written evidence Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 10 July, 18 September, 23 October, 6 and 20 November, and 4 and 11 December 2012, and 8 and 29 January 2013 Published on 4 February 2013 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP (Labour, Leicester East) (Chair) Nicola Blackwood MP (Conservative, Oxford West and Abingdon) James Clappison MP (Conservative, Hertsmere) Michael Ellis MP (Conservative, Northampton North) Lorraine Fullbrook MP (Conservative, South Ribble) Dr Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) Steve McCabe MP (Labour, Birmingham Selly Oak) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Mark Reckless MP (Conservative, Rochester and Strood) Karl Turner MP (Labour, Kingston upon Hull East) Mr David Winnick MP (Labour, Walsall North) The following Member was also a member of the Committee during the Parliament. Rt Hon Alun Michael MP (Labour & Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Tom Healey (Clerk), Richard Benwell (Second Clerk), Ruth Davis (Committee Specialist), Eleanor Scarnell (Committee Specialist), Andy Boyd (Senior Committee Assistant), Michelle Garratty (Committee Assistant), Iwona Hankin (Committee Support Officer) and Alex Paterson (Select Committee Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3276; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] List of additional written evidence Page 1 G4S Ev w1 2 Dr Rodger Patrick Ev w1 3 Women Against Rape Ev w7 4 E C Lucy Ev w8 5 Campaign4Justice Ev w8 6 Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) Ev w13 7 Newham Monitoring Project Ev w14 8 Taherali Gulamhussein Ev w19 9 StopWatch Ev w20 10 Charles Kirk Ev w23 11 Sara Jane Loughran Ev w25 12 Celia Jeune Ev w29 13 Tony Wise Ev w30, Ev w33 14 Donna M Gardner Ev w38 15 David Mery Ev w43 16 Denise Hart Ev w44 17 Dr Rita Pal Ev w47 18 Family of Sharon McLaughlin Ev w47 19 Anton Venter Ev w51 20 National Policing Improvement Agency Ev w53 21 Liam Silcocks Ev w54 22 Keith Cornwall Ev w55 23 Satish Sekar Ev w57 24 Neil Coggins Ev w63 25 JusticeNow Ev w66 26 Richard Wildblood Ev w67 27 Ian Puddick Ev w68 28 Natasha Sivanandan Ev w68 29 Patrick Allfrey Ev w73 30 Patricia F Gallan Ev w75 31 Sir Jeremy Heywood Ev w76 cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [01-02-2013 12:48] Job: 025757 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/025757/025757_w032_michelle_IPCC 40 - Jeremy Heywood.xml Home Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev w1 Written evidence Written evidence submitted by G4S [IPCC 01] I am writing to you in relation to the Committee’s inquiry into the IPCC as G4S shares your view that the IPCC plays a vital role in ensuring fair play in policing and improve public confidence. We believe this is essential to uphold and improve confidence of the public accountability in policing. Private providers have supported police forces across the UK for over 20 years. G4S, for example, currently provides custody services and transport solutions in Lancashire, South Wales, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire forces, freeing up warranted police officers to focus on core policing tasks. To ensure that members of the public can expect the same, if not better, service, when a G4S colleague supports the police in their case, G4S informed the IPCC back in 2010 that our employees would be subject to the same scrutiny and sanctions from the IPCC applied to civilian police staff. In addition, and in the absence of statutory regulation, we have contractually included IPCC co-operation and compliance into our strategic partnership contract with Lincolnshire Police. However, as it currently stands other private providers are not required to follow our lead. G4S therefore supports the IPCC’s call for the power to investigate all civilian staff who support police duties in order to preserve public confidence in the service. Also, IPCC Statutory Guidance on the Handling of Complaints expressly excludes private sector Custody Detention Officers as the Secretary of State has not made regulation for the creation of a separate complaints system for such designated staff. However, we believe that private providers working with the police should follow our example, ensuring there Is no difference in the handling of complaints against civilian in-house police staff or staff working for private providers and fully cooperate with the relevant investigating organisation, whether it is the Police Professional Standards Department or the IPCC. This means there is currently no statutory requirement for contracted staff to co-operate with any investigation being conducted by the police or IPCC other than when asked to assist in a criminal investigation. This should be changed. John Shaw Managing Director G4S Policing Support Services June 2012 Written evidence submitted by Dr Rodger Patrick [IPCC 03] Executive Summary The research into the impact of Performance Management on the Police Service indicated that “gaming” behaviours ie “cooking the books” or “fiddling the figures” was negating the potential benefits of the reform programme. The findings based on analysis of the performance data and official documents, some obtained under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, suggested the phenomenon was organisational in nature. It was also evident that the malpractice was managerially driven in a “top down” fashion and had spread as a result of ineffective regulation and governance. Establishing the evidence for this assertion involved the examination of a number of investigations carried out by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into incidents involving “gaming” type behaviours. It was clear from the review of these investigations that the IPCC were unable or unwilling to identify and address the organisational deficiencies’ or hold Chief Officers responsible for the outcomes. 1. Categories of Police“Gaming”Practices 1.1 This report is structured around the four distinct types of “gaming” behaviours identified during the research. Taken in their totality they constitute what can be referred to as the “perverse policing model”. The involvement of the IPCC will be itemised under each “gaming” category defined as follows: — Cuffing: The under-recording of reported crimes, the term being derived from the magician’s art of making objects disappear up the sleeve or cuff (Young 1991). — Nodding: This involves collusion between officers and suspects to confess to large numbers of offences, usually whilst in prison after sentence, in return for favours such as reduced sentences, access to partners, drugs or alcohol. The term is used to describe the act of a prisoner pointing out or “nodding” at locations where they claim to have committed offences. (Wilson et al 2001:63). — Skewing: This involves moving resources from areas of activity which are not subject to performance measures in order to improve performance in areas that are monitored for control purposes (Rogerson 1995). cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [01-02-2013 12:48] Job: 025757 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/025757/025757_w032_michelle_IPCC 40 - Jeremy Heywood.xml Ev w2 Home Affairs Committee: Evidence — Stitching: This includes a variety of malpractices designed to enhance the strength of evidence against a suspect in order to ensure the desired criminal justice outcome. Fabricating evidence or stitching someone up are forms of this behaviour. 2. Methodology 2.1 Examination of the trend data “before and after” known events or scandals involving “cuffing”; “nodding”; or “stitching” enabled consistent patterns to be established. This also provided an estimate of the scale of the problem and in turn could be used to identify the likely presence of the various “gaming” behaviours. The distorting effect of these three “gaming” practices made it difficult to use this method to quantify “skewing” and geographically mapping the deployment of police officers over time was one method used to overcome this obstacle. The other was the examination of IPCC reports into the investigation of serious cases, usually homicides, where police involvement was believed to be inadequate. In order to overcome researcher bias the findings and documents were commented upon by a group of retired officers with specialist experience of the areas of policing under study. 3.“Cuffing” 3.1 This form of “gaming” behaviour is relatively well documented in both the academic and practitioner literature. Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary provided a detailed account in their thematic report on police integrity (HMIC 1999), so the IPCC should be alert to its presence and symptoms. 3.2 It may also be of interest to the committee to note that during the research the correlation between “cuffing” and complaints against the police was explored. However it appeared at least one large force was categorising some complaints as “quality of service issues” thus negating this approach. This in itself is a form of “cuffing” and the equivalent of the alternative crime registers uncovered in the West Midlands Police by HMIC (1999).