What is a Police Super-Complaint?
It sounds like something that has just been made up but police super-complaints do exist and have the potential to promote extensive reform of the service.
Whereas a complaint by an individual against an officer or a police force tends to deal with one specific incident, super-complaints are brought by designated organisations to address more general issues in policing. More specifically, according to s. 29A of the Police Reform Act 2002 they are complaints made when “a feature, or combination of features, of policing in England and Wales by one or more than one police force is, or appears to be, significantly harming the interests of the public”.
The super-complaints can deal with a range of issues. Most recently a police response was published in respect of modern slavery but other topics have included the use of stop and search powers, the approach to BAME victims of sexual abuse and the use of protective measures in cases of violence against women and girls. All of these are important issues that the police should deal with properly but the system has a number of inherent problems that just don’t seem to be going away any time soon.
For a start there are only 16 designated organisations that can bring a super-complaint. A process was drawn up in 2018 that allowed organisations to put themselves forward but since that original application period nearly four years ago, there has been no revision of that list and no opportunity for other organisations to become designated. A recent report from the Home Affairs Committee noted that the Home Office was undertaking a review to designate other organisations but pointed out that this was still a problem area that stymies access.
That same report then correctly concluded that if there is to be a super-complaints process then it should be accessible and that should not only mean expanding the list of designated organisations but also allowing for collaboration so that those organisations that are designated can bring a super-complaint on behalf of bodies that are not. Until it becomes easier to bring a super-complaint in the first place it is hard to consider the process to be meaningful.
What about the super-complaints themselves? Have they been effective?
Unfortunately, the answer appears to be a resounding ‘no’. The first super-complaint was brought by London-based charity Hestia in March 2019 in relation to the way that the police treat victims of modern slavery. The police response was only published earlier this month, more than three years after the initial super-complaint.
The actual content of the police responses does not inspire confidence either. Another super-complaint submitted by Liberty and Southall Black Sisters concerned victims of crime who do not have a solid immigration status in this country. Those victims are much less likely to report crime because of fears that the police will also pass on their information to Immigration Enforcement.
Clearly this was an important point that exposes a key problem experienced by some of our society’s most vulnerable people; an ideal candidate for a super-complaint. Nevertheless the Home Office rejected calls for a ‘firewall’ to prevent data about the victims of crime being share with Immigration Enforcement. Instead it announced that there would be a Migrant Victims Protocol that would offer support to victims but might still ultimately lead to them being expelled from the country.
As Southall Black Sisters pointed out, this Protocol fails to address the core aspect of the complaint:
“We are dismayed by the outcome of the Home Review. By rejecting our proposal for a meaningful firewall between the police and immigration enforcement, the government has clearly signalled the view that immigration enforcement takes priority over the safety of victims.
“We strongly disagree with the alternative proposal to create an Immigration Enforcement Migrant Victims Protocol which is meaningless since it risks consolidating the sharing of domestic abuse victims' data between the police and immigration enforcement as a standardised practice across all police forces nationally.”
The idea behind super-complaints is a good one and, in theory, they offer the chance for a reflection on police practices that could use improvement. However the failure by the police and the Home Office to engage with them in a meaningful way is a real shame as it leaves victims in a precarious state and does little to restore faith in the police amongst those groups who already view them with mistrust.
In this week’s episode of the podcast we have a tax case and the Supreme Court has to decide how far companies should be allowed to go when it comes to exploiting apparent loopholes in the law.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2022-uksc-9/
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Marcus