Complaints management information

Report: 5
Date: 12 October 2006
By: DAC John Yates on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report includes data for the 12 months to August 2006. It focuses on the key changes or exceptions within the data, as trends are slow to change.

Workload

There has been an increase of 17% in the number of public complaint allegations being recorded over the past 12 months from a monthly average of 504 to 605. The number of conduct matter allegations recorded over the same period has stabilised and the monthly average is now 87.

Timeliness

The average number of days to complete a public complaint investigation remains below the revised threshold of 90-days. It reduced by 13% from 93 days in September 2005 to 81 in August 2006. The average number of days to complete an investigation into a conduct matter continues to improve and it also remains below the revised threshold of 90-days. It reduced by 1%, from 85 days in September 2005 to 84 in August 2006. The average number of days between the decision to hold a misconduct hearing or final disposal is considerably below the revised threshold of 100-days at 83 days in August 2006.

A. Recommendations

That

1. Members note the illustration of trends in the report and the Borough performance information contained in Appendices 1 and 2.

B. Supporting information

1. Appendix 1 contains data relating to Borough or Operational Command Unit performance.

2. Appendix 2 contains diversity information in respect of the Borough or Operational Command Units.

MPS/DPS performance

Table 1 - Allegations recorded (see supporting material)

3. There has been an increase of 17% in the number of public complaint allegations being recorded over the past 12 months from a monthly average of 504 to 605.

4. Over the 12 months to August 2006, the average number of conduct matter allegations recorded each month has stabilised at 87.

5. The overall average increase in public complaints in the 12-months to August 2006 is not proportionate across all allegation categories. Using the actual 12-month rolling average figures, covering a two year period, it was possible to see that there was an distinct upward trend for certain types. The most significant trend appears with rises in Failures in Duty, Malpractice and to a lesser extent, Discriminatory Behaviour and Incivility.

6. This rise in Discriminatory Behaviour can be traced back to the introduction of the IPCC when there was a widening of the definition of such allegations to include Religion, Gender and Sexuality etc. This category also incorporates the new type of allegations made about ‘Fairness and Impartiality’ bought in by the Commission in April 2004. Although there has been a numerical rise in these types of allegations, as a proportion, they have reduced from 7% of the total in 2004/05 to 6% at the end of 2005/06. For 2006/07, to the end of August, this allegation type is 5% of the total.

7. Failure in Duty allegations continue to rise steadily. At the end of 2005/06 such allegations had risen by 1000 and represented 38% of all allegations recorded against 27% in both 2003/04 and 2005/06. The rise has continued into 2006/07 with 41% of all allegations being in this category at the end of August. Since the inception of the IPCC, DPS are investigating a higher proportion of failure in duty allegations that have come via the Commission. It is possible that, before the IPCC, some of these issues may not have been bought to the attention of DPS.

8. Incivility allegations have also risen in numerical terms since the inception of the IPCC in April 2004 but have reduced as a proportion of all allegations from 22% of the total in 2003/04 to 17% in 2005/06. At the end of August 2006, they represented 17% of all allegations.

9. Oppressive Behaviour allegations that had previously risen significantly due to the ‘Pro-Hunt’ demonstrations now appear to be on the decline as a proportion of the overall total. In 2004/05 they represented 38%, which reduced to 30% in 2005/06. This has carried through to 2006/07 when, at the end of August, they were 29% of the total.

10. Table 2 illustrates the number of public complaints recorded over the period September 2005 to August 2006. It is also broken down by type, calculated per 100 officers and the period split into 3-month periods.

Table 2 – Public complaints (see supporting material)

11. Table 3 illustrates the numbers of allegations by type and whether a period is above the MPS period average in which case the figures will be in both blue and bold text. The MPS total number of allegations, per 100 officers, over the 12-month period is also shown for comparison.

Table 3 – Allegations by type (see supporting material)

12. Period 2 and 3, December 2005 to May 2006, shows the rise in Failure in Duty allegations resulting from the Danish Newspaper Cartoon protests. Other allegations types appearing above the period averages are small enough as to not be significant.

Table 4a - Timeliness - Public Complaints (see supporting material)

Meeting target: Investigating complaints within the 90-day threshold (81 days)

13. The average number of days to complete a public complaint has levelled at 81 days and has remained similar since December 2005.

14. Since September 2005, the average number of days taken to complete an investigation has reduced by 13% from 93 days to 81 in August 2006.

Missing target: A month on month reduction in the average number of days to complete an investigation (0% increase on the previous month)

15. There were no monthly reductions in the average number of days taken to investigate a complaint since April 2006 and in July 2006 in rose by 1 day.

16. Presently, the potential to improve yet further in this area is unlikely, as the current level has been achieved through changes to business processes and practices. However, with effect from July 2007, the changes to legislation bought about by the Taylor Review will afford another opportunity to review these practices.

17. It should be noted that, with the implementation of these reforms, there is the prospect that timeliness will suffer with the move to see lower level of misconduct investigation undertaken locally. There will be a greater need to implement a robust performance management framework, with associated performance indicators, that can be monitored centrally and poor performers held to account.

Table 4b - Average days taken to submit dispensation/discontinuance requests to the IPCC (see supporting material)

Missing target: Submitting requests for Dispensations / Discontinuances to the IPCC (81 day target)

18. Since September 2005, the average number of days taken to submit a dispensation or discontinuance request to the IPCC has reduced by 13% from 83 days to 72 days. However, this remains above the recently reduced 60-day target.

Table 5 - Average Days taken to achieve a Local Resolution (see supporting material)

Meeting target: Average days taken to achieve a Local Resolution (60 day Target)

19. Since September 2005, the average number of days taken to achieve a local resolution has reduced by 6% from 54 days to 51 days. This is currently within the recently introduced 60-day target.

20. Analysis of local resolutions reveals that, in the 12-months to August 2006, 55% have been achieved by DPS staff and the remaining 45% by Boroughs themselves. The proportion of local resolutions undertaken by DPS has increased, when compared to the previous 12 months, where it was previously 47%.

21. The decision for DPS staff to undertake as many local resolutions as possible was made at the Investigations Command SMT to ensure that timeliness remained under control.

Table 6 - Percentage of cases over 120-days* old – Public Complaints / Conduct Matters (see supporting material)

Meeting expectation: A reduction in the percentage of public complaint cases over 120-days [1] old

22. Following the impact of the significant incidents in July 2005 and the subsequent increase in the percentage of public complaint cases over 120-days* old, DPS continue to reduce this from a peak of 27% in October 2005 (179 of 667 cases) to 23% (195 of 839 cases) in August 2006. Although the trend remains downwards, there is still some way to go to achieve pre-July 2005 levels of between 14% and 17%.

Conduct matters

Table 7 - Average days taken to complete an investigation (see supporting material)

Meeting target: The average number of days to complete an investigation (84 against a 90 threshold)

23. The average number of days to complete a conduct matter investigation remains below the revised threshold of 90-days. It reduced by 1%, from 85 days in September 2005 to 84 in May 2006.

Meeting expectation: A reduction in the percentage of conduct matter cases over 120-days [1] old

24. Following the significant impact of the incidents in July 2005, Conduct Matters over 120-days [1] old rose from 36% (48 of 133 cases) in June to a peak of 60% (64 of 107 cases) in November 2005. However, since then, the trend is downward and at 31% (39 of 125 cases) in May 2006 is at its lowest since monitoring of this indicator began in 2001.

Misconduct

Table 8 - Misconduct – Average number of days from decision to hearing or final disposal (see supporting material)

Meeting target: Average days to reach Misconduct decisions (83 against 100 threshold)

25. The average number of days between the decision to hold a misconduct hearing or reach a final disposal remains below the revised threshold of 100-days.

External partners – CPS decision making

Table 9 - Average number of days from report to receipt of decision from CPS (see supporting material)

26. Table 9 illustrates the timeliness of the CPS decision-making in respect of the Specialist Investigation work, such as Deaths Following Police Contact and Discharge of Police Firearms and the more routine complaint and conduct investigations of the Borough Support Units.

External partners – IPCC decision making

Table 10 - Average number of days from report submission to receipt of decision from IPCC (see supporting material)

27. Table 10 reveals the average time taken for the IPCC to reach decisions in dispensation and discontinuance cases.

Table 11 - Number of appeals made to the IPCC by type and outcome (see supporting material)

28. The chart above show the number of appeals made to the IPCC where a decision has been received from the Commission within the last 12 months. It illustrates the type of appeal being made and the validity of that appeal as determined by the IPCC.

29. In future reports we intend to supply data for the current 12 months compared with the previous 12 months. To achieve this we need to ‘back record convert’ the data we hold manually to the new TRIBUNE fields.

Outcome trends

Table 12 - Public Complaints Finalised allegation by result

30. The average percentage of local resolutions has reduced in the 12-month period from 34% in August 2005 to 32% in August 2006 and remains considerably below the target of 50%. Whilst the proportions of the other outcomes affect this figure, it is likely to remain low until BOCUs are able to take on more responsibility for the resolution of their own complaints and undertake lower level investigations.

31. There are however tensions between the desire to see more issues being dealt with locally e.g. Local Resolutions and the scrutiny DPS is under to improve timeliness. DPS investigators losing close control over a complaint being investigated/resolved on borough can adversely impact on their timeliness and the inclination is for them to recall the file and deal with it themselves.

32. The increase in the proportion of allegations shown as not recorded as public complaints, under the Police Reform Act, in the current 12-month is due to the finalisation of 809 allegations arising out of the Danish Newspaper Cartoon protests.

Borough (BOCU) / Operational Command Unit (OCU) Performance – public complaints: allegations and people

33. At each Professional Standards and Complaints Committee, members will be presented with a comparative analysis of public complaint data relating to groups of (B)OCUs in relation to MPS professional standards matters.

34. The BOCU groupings are made using the Territorial Policing Performance Focus Meeting (TP PFM) cluster.

35. These families have been grouped together based on demographics and volume crime within the boroughs in question. Both of these factors are likely to affect complaints. By using these family groups and converting actual numbers of complaints recorded into a ‘per 100 officers’ figure enables more accurate comparisons to be made.

36. This information provides a benchmark against which the Authority will be able to judge DPS’s Professional Standards Support Programme (PSSP) in the future by looking for variations in performance from this report to the next occasion the same family group appears.

37. Variations in performance of each of the boroughs when compared to their peers are highlighted in both blue and bold text. Variations could be for any number of reasons such as a particular operation/initiative being run on the borough or environmental factors such as the number of licensed premises, entertainment venues or shopping centres. The demographics in relation to both the resident and transient population and the length of service and experience of the officers concerned will also be relevant factors.

38. It should be noted that, once the ‘per 100 officers’ element is introduced to the data, some of the numbers are small which makes it difficult to draw any significant conclusions from them.

39. Because a Borough is different from their peers does not automatically mean that they are worse.

40. Where significant variations are noted, DPS will work with the boroughs through the PSSP to discover the potential causes by drilling down into the data to establish the exact nature and likely cause of the variation. Where appropriate action will be taken by the borough in partnership with DPS to bring closer to them closer to the average of similar boroughs in their group.

41. The group of boroughs under focus for this period are from TP PFM family group 1. The data and associated analysis is presented in Appendix 1.

C. Race and equality impact

Appendix 2 includes MPS data in respect of diversity relating to both complainants and officers that is compared against the family of Boroughs or Operational Command Units in focus.

D. Financial implications

None

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Michael Clark, Higher Performance Analyst and Andrew Campbell, Temporary Detective Chief Superintendent, MPS.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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