How police watchdog ‘mishandled complaints’
SCOTLAND’S controversial police watchdog has been criticised for mishandling complaints about the country’s two most senior officers.
The Scottish Police Authority (SPA), the ‘civilian oversight’ body for Police Scotland, has been told it botched the way the grievances were investigated.
Both Chief Constable Phil Gormley and his former deputy Neil Richardson were alleged to have been negligent in how they handled the allegations.
The complaints about the mishandling were not upheld by the SPA. But another watchdog, the Police Investigations & Review Commissioner (PIRC), has found the SPA did not handle them reasonably.
The Commissioner – former prosecutor Kate Frame – has now ordered the SPA to review its decisions and apologise to the man who made the complaints.
It comes as Mr Gormley is separately being investigated by PIRC for alleged gross misconduct, amid claims he bullied a senior officer.
The latest controversy is another setback for the SPA at a time when its chairman, Andrew Flanagan, has been criticised for clinging to his post despite being forced to announce he would quit two months ago over bullying claims.
Last night, Andrew Barker, general secretary of the Scottish Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association, said: ‘The association has had concerns from the outset about the manner in which the SPA handles complaints about our members and we have raised these concerns with the SPA on a number of occasions.’
The complaints came from a man who sent a letter to Mr Richardson in November 2015 raising concerns about officers in the Professional Standards Department (PSD).
This was passed to a superintendent in charge of the same department, who replied in December that year.
The man then wrote to the chief constable complaining about this. An inspector of Mr Gormley’s secretariat wrote
‘Concerns from the outset’
back saying his letter had been passed to Mr Richardson – one of the officers the man had complained about.
In March 2016, it was alleged to the SPA that the passing of these letters to the person or department they were about was negligent, but the body did not uphold his complaints. The PIRC review found the body did not adhere to protocol when handling the complaint against Mr Richardson. It found there was no reasoning in SPA responses as to why it decided the allegation would not, if proved, amount to misconduct.
There was no explanation of what inquiries were carried out, what facts were established, or how these facts led to the complaint not being upheld.
It was deemed by the Commissioner that the inquiry into the complaint was insufficient and the response inadequate.
Meanwhile, the PIRC review said it was not acceptable for a letter of complaint about a police officer to be passed to that same individual. As the complaint was about a senior officer, it should have been sent to the SPA. The report said the Commissioner would contact Mr Gormley and his secretariat to make this clear.
The SPA has been told to send a fresh response to the man addressing the issues raised and explaining the outcome of the reconsiderations.
After the appointment of deputy chief constable Iain Livingstone in May 2016, a review of the PSD was ordered.
He said changes had been made to ‘address the issues relating to Police Scotland identified in the PIRC report’.
An SPA spokesman said: ‘We note the outcome of the PIRC’s complaint-handling review.
‘A reconsideration of the relevant complaints will be initiated as soon as possible and we will work closely with the PIRC to address the learning points highlighted within the report.’