Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the average time taken to investigate complaints by professional standards teams in police forces.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) collects and publishes information from all police forces in England and Wales about the type of complaints they are receiving and how long they take to deal with them. The most recent police complaints statistics report can be found here:

https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/our-work/research-and-statistics/police-complaints-statistics

The first stage of complaint handling is for the relevant police force or appropriate body, such as a Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office, to consider how best to handle the complaint. Certain types of complaints can be resolved informally where it is appropriate to do so and the issue can be resolved quickly to the complainant’s satisfaction.

The IOPC data shows, in 2022/23 police forces finalised 55,524 allegations in complaint cases that were handled informally. On average, these allegations took 16 working days to finalise.

All complaints should be handled in a reasonable and proportionate manner by police forces. For formal complaints, this may mean responding to concerns raised and seeking to resolve them (in some cases via an investigation) and keeping the complainant properly informed throughout the process, and explaining the outcome, including closing the complaint.

The IOPC data shows, in 2022/23 police forces finalised a total of 71,805 allegations in complaint cases handled formally of which 17,098 were investigated accounting for 24%. Of those allegations finalised by local investigation, it took an average of 159 working days.