Federation urges police watchdog to help build trust with public

14 August 2023

West Midlands Police Federation discipline lead Dave Hadley has called on the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to take action to build trust with members.

Dave said one step would be for the IOPC to look at how it communicates with the public about investigations and acknowledge the occasions when it gets things wrong.

He was commenting on the 2023 IOPC Stakeholder Report. The report aims to understand perceptions and knowledge of the IOPC among stakeholders, to assess the IOPC’s performance on key measures and to explore the IOPC’s communication and engagement with stakeholders.

There were areas of the IOPC’s work that stakeholders praised, including: 

• The IOPC’s shared learnings are consistently lauded for their robustness and quality. 

• Stakeholders are extremely pleased with the engagement and communication they have with individual contacts at the IOPC. 

• Stakeholders recognise that the IOPC is making considerable effort to improve issues such as timeliness despite limited resources.  

However, there were other aspects of the IOPC’s work where stakeholders have concerns: 

• Stakeholders question the IOPC’s impact and effectiveness within the police accountability system. They feel in a time of growing mistrust in policing, the IOPC should take a greater leadership role in helping to restore trust and confidence in policing and accountability. 

• Stakeholders are still unsatisfied with the length of time investigations take, referencing the negative impact this has on both members of the public and officers. 

• Stakeholders highlight an information gap among the public around the IOPC and its role within police accountability.

Dave said the IOPC has improved and that the Federation had “tried hard to ensure our working relationship is productive for the good of members and policing in general”.

But he took issue with comments in the report that the IOPC “should be more proactive with the way it communicates with the public”.

He said: “If anything, the biggest annoyance I have with the IOPC is with its media strategy.

“The IOPC is too quick to trumpet its achievements, especially when it does so before the evidence has been heard at a hearing or trial, and it’s reluctant to highlight its failures.”

Dave cited a recent gross misconduct hearing which, he said, would have been proven to be untrue by a review of CCTV.

He added: “The officer had the Sword of Damocles hanging over them for 21 months, only for the case to be found not proven.”

Dave said the decision to take the issue to a hearing was criticised by the chair, and that the IOPC should’ve publicly acknowledged its error.

“It only serves to create distrust among the membership, who are important stakeholders in the process too,” he said.

“Like police officers, the IOPC should be capable of reflecting on its shortcomings and correcting its ways.

"To do so publicly, would assist in building trust between them and the membership they have to investigate.”