Devon & Cornwall Police complaints handling has “not been good enough” according to a statutory report published by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.
The report, which covers the year to March 2024, identifies several ways in which the force has failed to meet statutory requirements.
These include “failing to consistently notify” the police and crime commissioner’s office of complaints that require more than twelve months to resolve, and a “complete failure” to notify it of the outcomes of more serious allegations made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
The report also identifies a “number of wider, systemic concerns about the timeliness and quality of the force’s complaint handling, starting from the initial handling of complaints on first receipt, ongoing quality of contact with the complainant, timeliness and quality assurance of complaint investigations, and consistency and quality of outcomes”.
Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez said that Devon & Cornwall Police “has not been providing an adequate service to people who make complaints”.
She added: “Despite the undoubted hard work and commitment of the people actually dealing with public complaints, the systems, resources, the importance given to these matters and the leadership displayed have, simply, not been good enough. And not good enough by a long way.”
She also said: “Equally disappointingly, I see no evidence that the force has consistent mechanisms in place to learn from complaints received, nor from complaint reviews upheld”, adding that there had been “little if any improvement” in the year since the period covered by the report.
However the report also shows that her office, which handles appeals against the outcome of complaints and the way complaints were handled, itself completed only 108 such appeals during 2023-24, a third fewer than in 2022-23, and took significantly longer to do so than before.
Average number of days taken by Devon & Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner’s office to handle an appeal. Source: Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
Public complaints about Devon & Cornwall Police are dealt with in the first instance by an in-house team which is responsible for logging, recording and investigating complaints as well as keeping complainants informed.
The force’s chief constable is ultimately responsible for all complaints made about officers, staff and services under his control.
In addition to handling appeals against the outcome and handling of these complaints, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner handles complaints about the chief constable himself, with the Independent Office for Police Conduct acting as the review body. None were made in 2023-24.
The OPCC has a statutory duty to ensure there is an “effective and efficient police complaints system in place” which requires it to undertake and publish an annual review of complaints handling, among other things.
2023-24 Devon & Cornwall Police complaints handling review.
Source: Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
Devon and Cornwall Police logged 1,550 complaints in 2023-24, down a quarter on the previous year.
57% of the complaints it received concerned service and duties delivery, 22% concerned police powers policies and procedures and individual behaviour allegations made up 12% of the total.
469 complaints reached an outcome during the year, prompting 131 appeals to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. It deemed 80 of these appeals valid and upheld 37 of them.
After upholding 40 of 117 appeals in 2022-23, the OPCC says that this indicates an “upward trend in the number of complaints where the handling and/or outcome of the complaint investigated by the police was not reasonable and proportionate, and the complainant did not receive an acceptable response to their complaint”.
However, the report also found that the OPCC took “significantly longer” to complete appeals in 2023-24, taking an average of 182 days to do so, compared with the previous year, when it took an average of 102 days – despite it handling 46 fewer appeals in 2023-24 than the previous year.
The OPCC says that this was due to an “unexpected and temporary halving in specialist review officer capacity” and an “increasing number of complex reviews related both to previous matters and other high-profile issues”.
The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner also makes recommendations to Devon & Cornwall Police when it upholds appeals concerning the force’s complaints handling.
It says that the force failed to meet the statutory 28-day deadline for its response to every one of 29 such recommendations that it made between 21 November 2023 and the end of March 2024 – with an average response time of 100 days – after meeting the deadline for all 37 recommendations made in the year to 21 November.
Devon & Cornwall Police says this is “an area of business that is expected to be rectified” following staff restructuring and recruitment, while it is “working towards establishing a professional standards department”.
This department is itself in the process of establishing a public service team which will provide “several reporting mechanisms” for timely complaints handling as well as other improvements.
Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez said that the chief constable, currently James Vaughan, must make “timely, substantial and enduring improvements across this hugely important area” which would demonstrate that the force is learning, both from the complaints it receives and from appeals that are upheld against the outcome or handling of those complaints.
