National recommendation - College of Policing, December 2019
The following recommendation was made in the course of one of our investigations.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
When a police officer transfers from one force to another, their disciplinary history with their parent force is shared with the receiving force's vetting department. However, during an IOPC investigation it became apparent that not all vetting departments share the disciplinary history with their professional standards department (PSD) once the transfer has been accepted. This means previous allegations of misconduct, including those which have been found proven and where sanctions have been imposed, are not known by the receiving force's PSD. The IOPC therefore recommends that disciplinary histories are shared by the receiving force's vetting department with their own PSD as a matter of course. The disciplinary history from the parent force should be recorded on the receiving force’s complaints and misconduct system so that it is available for consideration during any future assessments and/or identify any patterns of behaviour for learning.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
The College is already working with the NPCC to address a recommendation that came out of the 2019 HMICFRS PEEL spotlight report ‘Shining a light of betrayal: Abuse of position for a sexual purpose’. Recommendation 2 of the report said:
‘By April 2020, the NPCC lead for vetting and the College of Policing should devise a standardised list of information that should be shared between forces when someone transfers from one force to another. As a minimum, we would expect this to include information on performance, sickness, complaints, business interests, notifiable associations and any other corruption intelligence. All forces should then adopt this as soon as reasonably practicable.’
Both recommendations refer to the information that is available to forces when considering applications to transfer. This can either be through the carrying out appropriate vetting or the sharing of the information that is necessary and appropriate to allow the prospective receiving force to assess and subsequently manage the transferee. The College of Policing and NPCC have a working group that is examining both recommendations with a view to developing a list of the information categories that should be included in vetting checks and accompany the officer on transfer. This work will take in to account the potential risks associated with transferees as well as any legal and ethical restrictions on the sharing of information. The College will share the product of this work on completion. I hope this provides confidence that the College recognises the issues that have been raised in the recommendation and is taking lawful, proportionate and necessary steps to address them.