My Lords, the Independent Office for Police Conduct will have a vital role in securing and maintaining public confidence in the reformed police complaints system. That is why the Bill provides for an absolute bar on the new single executive head of the organisation—the director-general —ever having worked for the police. The Government do not believe it is appropriate for the Bill to impose further statutory restrictions on membership of the office beyond the post of director-general.
The corporate structure of the IOPC is radically different from the existing commission model. The new board—the office—will have a majority of independent non-executive members, and its functions are set out clearly in the Bill. These include ensuring good corporate governance and financial management. Importantly, the board’s functions do not include responsibility for investigations and casework decisions, for which the director-general alone will be accountable. This is in contrast to the current position, where commissioners undertake such investigative functions.
If a highly suitable individual applies for a non-executive role, perhaps as a finance expert, it would be wrong to reject them automatically simply because many years previously they worked for a short period as a police civilian, perhaps in a relatively junior role. To ensure that the organisation can deliver high-quality and timely investigations—the predominant driver of
confidence—the director-general will wish to ensure that the organisation has a diverse mix of people. As part of this, the director-general may wish to employ a number of people who have valuable policing experience, as the IPCC does now.
Under the new model, investigations and casework decisions will be undertaken by employees, all of whom will be working in a single line management chain reporting to the director-general. The Government fully expect the director-general to decide that certain employee roles, including some senior operational and public-facing positions, should not be filled by those with a police background, but those decisions should be a matter for the director-general.
We recognise that confidence is also driven by the perception of the organisation as impartial and independent from the police. That is why the Bill provides the director-general with an explicit power to determine the functions and roles that are not open to former police officers. This means that the director- general can go further than the current legislation, which requires only that a minimum of six people cannot have worked for the police—namely, the chair and a minimum of five other members of the commission. The Bill also strengthens existing arrangements in relation to transparency by setting out a requirement on the director-general to publish a statement of policy on the exercise of these particular powers of recruitment.
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But ultimately the director-general will be guided, as the IPCC is now, by the overarching principle to secure and maintain confidence in the complaints system. It is this principle driving the organisation’s current recruitment policy, not a statutory bar, which means that around 80% of the IPCC’s staff have never worked for the police. In addition, as I mentioned in Committee, there is as now a backstop power for the Secretary of State to set out restrictions in regulations on which persons may be appointed to carry out investigations, including those with a police background.
In conclusion, the Government believe that the Bill strikes the right balance by: first, placing core elements of the corporate structure of the Independent Office for Police Conduct on the face of the legislation; secondly, providing the DG with operational flexibilities to manage and structure the organisation as he or she sees fit; and, thirdly, requiring greater transparency of recruitment decisions on the designation of restricted posts.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is reassured of the Government’s intention for the reformed corporate structure of the IOPC and that he will be content to withdraw his amendment.