Port of Tilbury-Police Constable

[Fedster + 1,307]

Head of professional standards for NPCC calls for 'revolution' in attitudes.

CC Martin Jelley

 

The police misconduct system must become more focused on learning and improvement and less on punishment, the national lead for professional standards says.

Regulations are being reformed to help change the misconduct system, but a change in culture is also needed, according to Chief Constable Martin Jelley.

In an interview with Police Oracle he revealed that 39 recommendations have been sent to the Home Office from the NPCC in a bid to bring about change, following months of work on the issue.

"We need a bit of a revolution. It is a system that does feel as though it is too focused on punishment and the desire at my level and elsewhere is to move it to being about learning and development with a strong performance regime to support it," he said.

"The system we’ve got, whilst workable, is not a great system for the public and it's not a great system for our officers and staff.

"It must feel very blame focused and because of the processes and procedure we go through often investigations are not concluded for a very long period of time. That's obviously not great if you're a member of the public who made a complaint and it goes on for a long time and its certainly not great if you're an officer under investigation for a very long period of time.

"That will impact on your family, your welfare and other things."

CC Jelley compared the police complaints process to shopping, giving the example of someone taking back food which is off and asking for a refund.

"When you go into the supermarket you're not looking for the person who stacked the shelves to lose their jobs.

"While policing is a very different activity, we seem to go at it from a position which is looking for blame, which is looking for punishment when actually, can we learn, sometimes apologise and move on from this very quickly. That's where we want to see a shift in the system going forward."

He said work has been under way for some time with the Home Office and Independent Office for Police Conduct, formerly the IPCC, adding "you'd be surprised at the level of consensus" about the need for change.

One of the concerns, the Warwickshire chief says, is that too many cases beginning as gross misconduct when they should be performance matters, citing the example of incivility as being one which is commonly miscategorised.

He said that while professional standards departments are responsible for this, reforming the regulations they work to will make this a less frequent occurrence.

He added that chiefs, the Home Office, IOPC and others "all want system that focuses on the most serious elements of misconduct and takes a more pragmatic and proportionate view".

It is expected that the regulations will be changed in the early part of 2019, but CC Jelley says a cultural change is as important as the law

View On Police Oracle

[HazRat 762]

After the Taylor reforms we were supposed to be learning, but we seem to have read that as discipline as many people as possible.

[Zulu 22 + 4,571]

It used to be that anyone making an honest mistake had nothing to worry about. At best it may be no further action or for advice to be given, at worst a reprimand. I agree that for the last few years they are looking for a scapegoat, to be punished, for anything that goes wrong. They are including honest mistakes as Gross Misconduct. They need to remember that once disciplined and dismissed that is any further career over. For a dishonest criminal offence I have to worries about, but honest mistakes, often made with the best intentions that have back fired, a com0letely different matter. 

If somebody does something stupid and a supervisor dare raise his voice, a little, he/she is accused of bullying which is often nonsensical. I always preferred a telling off  than disciplinary any day. 

[HazRat 762]

We had a system recently where supervisors weren’t permitted to take informal action. Instead every discipline incident had to go to PSD. They soon reversed that decision when they were so inundated with forms that they couldn’t cope with the volume!

[Mac7 808]

We had a system recently where supervisors weren’t permitted to take informal action. Instead every discipline incident had to go to PSD. They soon reversed that decision when they were so inundated with forms that they couldn’t cope with the volume!

 

 

Very similar to a system we have whereby everything goes to PSD. Minor matters used to be dealt with by the officers Sgt/Inspector. Not anymore. I don’t know if that is force policy or national policy.

 

We work in a blame culture in the police. That’s one of the biggest issues that needs to change. If an officer is subject to a complaint they are left feeling isolated, unsupported and as if the vultures are circling overhead. There is certainly a culture of guilty until proven innocent.

 

Over the last few years the police have been obsessed with transparency which has led to us inviting complaints and pandering to the complainer. In turn that has spilled out into the public domain where any adverse police contact potentially results in a complaint and a full investigation. When I say adverse that could be something as simple as telling the person the truth that their investigation is going nowhere or stating you believe they are lying. This is certainly a factor in the demise of stop search.

 

It’s not often I agree with a CC these days but it should be about learning and developing officers not beating them with a stick. That only causes resentment and results in low morale as well as forcing good officers to leave.

 

For sure there will be officers who overstep the mark and I’m sure everyone will agree they can expect everything that’s thrown at them. But 99.99% of officers are decent, hard working and care for the job.

 

Sometime you have to make split second decisions or decisions on the best available information at the time. If in hindsight that was incorrect you should not be hauled over the coals for it.

 

A cultural shift is the biggest thing for me. That needs to come from the top down and something I cannot see happening from the current crop (bar a few exceptions). That and making the “I” in IOPC truly independent. How many times do we see bias from them or going time and time again for the same officers. The amount of recent acquittals is an embarrassment.

 

 

[IrateShrike + 1,847]

IOPC (formerly IPCC) funding is disproportionately increased year on year whilst police budgets are disproportionately cut.

Anyone else a rat here?

[Reasonable Man + 1,231]

Throughout my 36 years of policing I have heard many stories of officers being 'hung out to dry' and being made scapegoats and shafted by the job etc etc but have never heard of a real case of that happening. More the opposite in fact.
I have found the reality is either half a story to the troops that gathers momentum and so the urban myth is believed or the 'shafted' officer is one of the good old boys on the section who did something 'out of character' and so a lot more latitude is shown than would be to a stranger.
Maybe back in the 70s officers didn't get sacked for sexually assaulting other officers or exposing themselves but if not tolerating such behaviour these days is political correctness gone mad then I'm a March hare.

[Pavillion 43]

I think the punishment or action taken should be suitable for the alleged conduct.

In my dealing with the police I have rarely found this to be the case. I have always found it to be lenient and always in the favour of the accused officer.

If one genuinely makes the mistake of forgetting to renew their insurance policy or go out with a tyre with less tread depth then legally allowed should we allow them to learn from an honest mistake.

What about somebody being only slightly over the limit for alcohol?

Edited February 15, 2018 by Pavillion

[Indiana Jones + 1,082]

1 hour ago, Pavillion said:

What about somebody being only slightly over the limit for alcohol?

See Home Office circular 46/1983

[David + 4,981]

 

1 hour ago, Pavillion said:

If one genuinely makes the mistake of forgetting to renew their insurance policy or go out with a tyre with less tread depth then legally allowed should we allow them to learn from an honest mistake.

And if someone ploughed into you or your loved ones then you found out they had no insurance - through a genuine mistake, of course - or the cause of the crash was because a tyre was less than the legal limit of tread, or because they were only a little bit over the limit, you'd smile and say, well, they were legally allowed to drive due to an honest mistake, never mind, these things happen? Or would you be screaming 'bloody police aren't doing their job, I've lost my car through an uninsured driver', wail wail wail?

 

1 hour ago, Pavillion said:

In my dealing with the police I have rarely found this to be the case. I have always found it to be lenient and always in the favour of the accused officer.

So, what you mean is, you didn't get the result you wanted. Perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn't lenient and the finding was that - shock horror - you were in the wrong?

[Mac7 808]

I think the punishment or action taken should be suitable for the alleged conduct.
In my dealing with the police I have rarely found this to be the case. I have always found it to be lenient and always in the favour of the accused officer.
If one genuinely makes the mistake of forgetting to renew their insurance policy or go out with a tyre with less tread depth then legally allowed should we allow them to learn from an honest mistake.
What about somebody being only slightly over the limit for alcohol?

In your line of work (whatever that is) do you get “punished” for making errors?

[Hyphen + 693]

I have to say I fully agree with this CC, it’s nice to actually see a balanced and common sense opinion being put forward.

It is a good point that is raised, in many other walks of life people complain (rightly or wrongly), rarely is it with the intention of getting someone sacked or to have them publically disciplined. I used to work in complaints for a large mobile phone company and a large consumer company. I appreciate that it isn’t necessarily life and death but people used to want to feed stuff back, want refunds etc but would never call for the product designer to be sacked or for the company to have a public disciplinary hearing and for details of the staff member to be made public etc.

The biggest issue within the police is with many of the upper management levels. Somewhere along the line we lost our way, the biggest buffoons are generally the ones we listen to the most and base policy decisions around. The vast majority of normal law abiding people are ignored. Until we can change this bizarre culture things will continue to get worse.

If officers are genuinely corrupt, dishonest or criminal then I am all for them being hung out to dry. 

If an officer acted in good faith and is of good character then why not look at learning and developing the officer to ensure that the mistake is learned from? Often the issue will also be organisational rather than down to just one individual.

The strange thing is we can still take a complaint, fully investigate and then resolve it with learning/discussion and an apology rather than a full misconduct hearing or sackings and it would still be open and transparent. I think people need to be reminded of this.

[Pavillion 43]

51 minutes ago, David said:

Or would you be screaming 'bloody police aren't doing their job, I've lost my car through an uninsured driver', wail wail wail?

No, I would not, but fill your boots if it makes you happy.

 

51 minutes ago, David said:

So, what you mean is, you didn't get the result you wanted.

Thats correct, the punishment levied in my opinion was far to lenient.

 

51 minutes ago, David said:

Perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn't lenient and the finding was that - shock horror - you were in the wrong?

I have yet to have a complaint not upheld, so perhaps I was correct.

 

Back to topic, I think it would be best if an independent body also investigated the police for the less serious allegations of misconduct. This might help toward increasing transparency and better outcomes for the Police and society

In my experience the police do not act as a neutral party when investigating its own.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Pavillion

[Pavillion 43]

41 minutes ago, Mac7 said:

In your line of work (whatever that is) do you get “punished” for making errors?

 

 

I do not work.

[Pavillion 43]

48 minutes ago, Indiana Jones said:

See Home Office circular 46/1983

I did, but your missing the point.