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27
Jan 2023
North Yorkshire has lowest IOPC complaints rate of all police forces
North Yorkshire Police has the lowest number of complaints against its staff and officers of any police force across the country.
The latest figures, for 2021-22, reveal 282 complaints were made to the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC) about the force.
The second lowest figure for complaints was 372, made against Suffolk Police.
North Yorkshire also had the lowest number of complaints when taking into account the size of each force, with 90 complaints per 1,000 staff. Norfolk and Suffolk were next, with rates of 145 and 146 respectively.
The Metropolitan Police had the most complaints of all forces, with 7,216 during that year. However, it also has the highest number of staff, at almost 47,000, giving it a rate per 1,000 employees of 155.
The force with the highest rate of complaints per 1,000 employees was Cleveland, at 697.
Last week, the force revealed it had received 740 complaints about its officers and staff in 2021-22. Today's statistics relate to complaints raised to the IOPC.
The numbers have been revealed as complaints against police are in the spotlight, following the case of Met Police officer David Carrick who admitted a series of sexual offences against women over a period of two decades in the force.
A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police said:
Allegations
In the statistics, published by the IOPC, North Yorkshire Police also had the second lowest rate of allegations made against its employees, at 280, behind British Transport Police's 208.
The IOPC said the number of allegations could be higher than the number of complaints because each complaint could contain more than one allegation. In North Yorkshire's case, the total number of allegations against its 3,122 employees was 874, from 282 complaints.
Of those, 370 allegations were about the level of service provided by the police, and 260 were about the use of power, such as to make arrests or to carry out searches.
There were 160 allegations about individual conduct, such as being unprofessional or lacking impartiality.
Thirteen allegations were made about discriminatory behaviour and two complaints were about sexual misconduct.
Read more:
- North Yorkshire Police using lie detector tests to target sex offenders
- More than 700 complaints to North Yorkshire Police in a year
However, North Yorkshire Police took the longest of all forces in England and Wales to finalise its complaints. On average, it took 190 days for each complaint, while the next highest were the Metropolitan Police at 157 days and West Midlands Police at 148 days.
The Local Policing Body (LPB) received 61 requests for reviews of the way complaints had been handled and it investigated 39% of these – the fifth highest rate of investigations of decisions by forces around the country.
It found, in 61% of cases, the action taken by the force was "not reasonable and proportionate" after a complaint.
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