Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on its compliance with Section 9.4 of the IOPC Statutory Guidance, published on 1 February 2020; and what guidance her Department has issued on whether the IOPC has discretion to decline to investigate matters that fall within the mandatory referral criteria.

The IOPC has powers to issue statutory guidance under section 22 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to local policing bodies, the 43 Home Office territorial police forces in England and Wales and other law enforcement bodies, such as the National Crime Agency. Paragraph 9.4 of this guidance is directed not at the IOPC but at such police forces and bodies (known as “appropriate authorities”). Paragraph 9.4 places a requirement on them to “notify the IOPC where concerns or issues arise after the initial referral that indicate the matter should be referred [to the IOPC] again” in line with mandatory referral criteria.

The 2002 Act itself sets out the requirements on the IOPC as to how should carry out its functions. It gives the IOPC discretion to decide whether it is necessary that cases that have been referred to it under the mandatory referral criteria should be investigated and, if so, how they should be investigated. For example, the IOPC can decide it is necessary for it to investigate a case independently itself or it can decide that the appropriate authority should do so on its own behalf or that the appropriate authority or another force should investigate as directed by the IOPC. Paragraph 15 of Schedule 3 of the 2002 Act specifically sets this out. Other requirements on the IOPC are set out elsewhere in the 2002 Act and in the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020.