Essex Police Federation responds to “Government review of police dismissals”

THE only change needed to investigations into police officers is to streamline the process to remove undue stress on officers and their families, Essex Police Federation has said.

Chair Laura Heggie was responding to an announcement by the Home Office that it intends to launch a “targeted review of police dismissals to raise standards and confidence in policing across England and Wales”.

While the Home Office says the review is intended to ensure the system is more effective in removing officers who are not fit to serve the public, Laura said innocent officers with no clear case to answer are being “broken”.

She said: “The current system is working in Essex… we certainly don’t see officers being dealt with leniently – far from it.

“The process still needs to be sped up, as investigations are taking far too long. When an officer is under investigation there is a huge amount of stress not only placed on them, but their families go through it with them.

“We have officers who are broken at the end of a lengthy investigation, when they are exonerated and then just expected to start back at work like nothing has ever happened.

“We often see officers removed from their frontline duties – either on restrictions or being suspended – which adds to that anxiety and places more pressure on their colleagues.

“We shouldn’t forget that’s another officer missing from the frontline who could and should be out there protecting the public of Essex.

“The investigations could so easily be streamlined, with too much time spent writing reports, sometimes months, when it is clear there is no case to answer.”

The Home Office said the review is likely to consider:

• the effectiveness of the existing system to dismiss those who fall seriously short of the standards expected by policing and the public
• the impact of the introduction of changes to misconduct panels, including legally qualified chairs
• whether forces are making use of their powers to discharge officers during their probationary period
• Working with policing partners, it will also assess whether the regulatory framework for the police disciplinary system should be changed.

More here https://www.gov.uk/government/news/police-dismissals-to-be-reviewed