Police could tackle discrimination better

The review found that: Forces were communicating better with complainants.

There had been noticeable improvements in handling internally generated complaints, from within the police forces. The majority of allegations (7 out of 11) were upheld.

There were still concerns about the way complaints from the public were dealt with. The quality of investigations and reports was unsatisfactory in two-thirds of cases examined and no complaints were upheld.

Failings included not properly assessing the seriousness of the allegation, not asking probing questions and not seeking comparator evidence where relevant.

The IPCC’s appeals work suggests that these concerns are general across all police forces. Complainants who are dissatisfied with the way forces investigate their complaints can in some cases appeal to the IPCC.

In 2016, the IPCC was more likely to uphold appeals about discrimination investigations by local forces in England and Wales than appeals about other matters with 47% of discrimination investigations were found to be flawed compared to 40% of appeals in general.

IPCC chair Dame Anne Owers said: “It is heartening to see that there have been some improvements in the handling of discrimination allegations. However, this review shows that there is still a way to go before forces can be confident that they are dealing effectively with discrimination complaints that come from the public.

“We have made a number of recommendations based on our findings which I hope will assist all forces in an area that is particularly important for public and community confidence.”