Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to improve transparency around police misconduct records.

The British tradition of policing by consent relies on mutual bonds of trust between the public and the police, and where police officers fall below the high standards the public rightly expects of them, it is crucial they are held to account.

Since 2015, there has been a presumption that all police misconduct hearings are made public, bar in exceptional circumstances. There is a statutory requirement for forces to publish the outcomes of misconduct hearings, unless preventing disclosure is considered necessary (e.g. in the interests of national security), for a period of at least 28 days. Members of the public can access published police misconduct outcomes via the website of the relevant police force.

There are processes in place for the collection and publication of police misconduct data. The Home Office publishes data on the number of police officers subject to misconduct investigations, including breakdowns by outcome and misconduct finding level, as part of the annual Police Misconduct, England and Wales statistical series, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-misconduct-statistics

Officers and staff moving from one force to another must obtain a new vetting clearance from the force they are transferring to before they are confirmed. In accordance with the College of Policing’s vetting authorised professional practice (APP), the parent force’s professional standards department (PSD) must provide a full complaint and misconduct history and any counter corruption intelligence relating to the officer concerned to the receiving force.

In addition, the Police Barred List prevents those dismissed for gross misconduct and gross incompetence from re-joining policing. Forces must check whether a proposed employee or appointee is on the barred list before hiring them.