Good morning. I welcome everyone to the eighth meeting of the Justice Committee in 2016. I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices, as they interfere with broadcasting even when they are in silent mode. No apologies have been received.
Item 1 is an evidence session on Police Scotland’s internal communications and on its policies and procedures in relation to the protection of staff who report wrongdoing or malpractice within the organisation. The session is intended to build on the committee’s recent evidence gathering on the interception of communications while moving the debate on to related matters of public interest concerning the work of Police Scotland.
I welcome Chief Constable Philip Gormley to the committee for the very first time and possibly the last time in this session—no, you are coming to the Justice Sub-Comittee on Policing.
I will be there next week.
This is your penultimate appearance. I also welcome Andrew Flanagan, the chair of the Scottish Police Authority, who has been here before, and John Foley, the SPA’s chief executive, who has been under long-term service with us—we have seen him many times.
Indeed, convener.
When a member asks you a question directly, your microphone will come on automatically. Otherwise, if you indicate to me that you wish to respond, I will call you and your microphone’s light will come on. You do not need to bother pressing anything.
We will go straight to questions.
Good morning. I would like some clarification. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we do not have a whistleblowing policy but have instead decided to deal with that issue differently from other organisations. A whistleblowing policy should be specifically about whistleblowing and not about disclosure, for example.
I am happy to answer that question. We have a range of what are called standard operating procedures, and, in preparation for this meeting, I had a look at them. They all deal with support that is provided to staff in a range of circumstances, including when they raise issues of concern or conscience. They are all fit for purpose.
How long is the list?
Would you like me to read it, convener? It contains about 12 SOPs.
Do committee members want to hear the list?
Members: Yes.
We want to hear the list.
We have standard operating procedures around attendance management; business interests; complaints about the police; discipline; equality, diversity and dignity; equality impact assessments; gifts, gratuities, hospitality and sponsorship; grievances; notifiable associations; the Police Service of Scotland (Conduct) Regulations; stress management; suspension from duty; transgender people in employment; and trauma risk management. We have a range of SOPs that touch on or support staff officers who have issues relating to their personal position or other issues that cause them concern.
Although those SOPs are perfectly respectable and, I think, fit for purpose in large part, do they add up to our developing a culture that enables staff to step forward with confidence? I have commissioned a review that will look at and understand the culture within the service and the key issues and dilemmas that staff face. It will look outside our organisation at best practice, whether in the international business world, in law enforcement or in the third sector. What I have found—particularly in the National Crime Agency, which I think has parallels for us—is that we are asking staff to operate in an increasingly complex environment. Some of the threats that they are now being asked to deal with take them into slightly different spaces, particularly around privacy and issues of conscience and concern. In fairly quick time, I want to understand whether there is any learning that we can incorporate into our approach.
There are other police services to look at, the most obvious being the Metropolitan Police in London because of the similarities of scale and complexity. The Police Service of Northern Ireland works in a very complicated environment and, post Snowden, as we ask staff to work in difficult and sensitive environments, there are issues over how they ventilate their views and make us aware of them.
The final piece, for me, is what we can learn from the national health service. We can look at the issues that the NHS has confronted in enabling staff to make known their views and concerns on policy, practice and procedures. I want to get not just a list of sensible SOPs but a feel for whether they add up to an approach that will develop a culture in which staff are prepared to come forward and in which they feel supported and confident in doing so.
Where does that lead us to? I will wait to see what comes back from the review, but I want us to be the best in class in developing that culture. I do not rule out developing within the organisation an ethics committee or an ethics council—other approaches are taken elsewhere. As we move into this more complicated world, it is not simply about having distinct SOPs that deal with specific issues, although those are part of it; it is about the overarching culture of the organisation. Does it add up to the sort of environment in which staff are able to speak up with confidence, and what can we learn from elsewhere?
One thing that we could have learned from elsewhere is, first, to answer the question and, secondly, to answer the question about whistleblowing. Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. However, in your whole answer I did not hear the word “whistleblowing”. I do not understand why an organisation that wants to encourage whistleblowing is not using the word “whistleblowing” in its language.
I am very happy to use the word “whistleblowing”, although there are some issues around that term and some people take exception to it as a description.
The real issue is how we enable staff who have issues of conscience or concern around law, practice or procedure to raise those issues within the organisation. As the chief constable, I want to understand that. I want to know whether there are unintended consequences of the approaches that we are taking on issues. For example, there may be issues around how performance management is implemented at a middle or more junior level of management. If staff feel under pressure, are not clear about what is expected of them or have issues, I want to hear about it.
I have commissioned a comprehensive piece of work to look outside the organisation at how staff are supported when they want to raise issues of concern—at whistleblowing, to use the vernacular. What can we then do with that information? How can we develop our service? How can we develop the sort of internal culture that is about continuous improvement?
There is some really good practice in Police Scotland. We have been recognised by Stonewall as being in the top 100 employers for our responses to people with transgender, transsexual and gay issues. There is some really good work within the organisation, but I want us to be the best in class.
All the SOPs that I listed provide elements of support. My question to the organisation, and therefore to myself, is whether they add up to the sort of position that we need to adopt. I want to look externally for what is the best possible whistleblowing—to use Mr Allard’s term—policy. The issue is not just the policy; it is how we use the information that comes back from staff—how we hear their voice and reflect on the ethical dilemmas and legal challenges that they are confronting to make sure that we provide the best possible service to the public.
I put it to the SPA that the issue is about encouraging whistleblowing, and we have heard from the chief constable about what happens afterwards, once people have made the commitment to be a whistleblower. Does the SPA have any views on how the policy should concentrate on encouraging whistleblowing?
The authority conducted an internal audit of whistleblowing policy in the first half of 2015, and there are three issues that I think need to be looked at further. Within the police service the policy is referred to as integrity matters although the audit found that, to all intents and purposes, it is a whistleblowing policy by any other name. There has been some resistance from Police Scotland to using the term “whistleblowing”—the chief constable can comment on that. However, if you put “whistleblowing” at the top of the policy and read it, you would see that it is a normal policy such as could be found in most walks of life.
The first of the three issues is that the policy is drawn more narrowly in terms of professional standards and criminal acts than would be expected in a more general whistleblowing policy.
Secondly, there are issues about how the policy has been communicated and rolled out and about its use as a policy—it could be better embedded. Within the staff survey, we saw issues about internal communication with staff, which I think could be improved. A small example of that is the fact that there are many posters encouraging people to report complaints—the integrity matters posters can be seen up on the wall in any police office—but those posters do not have the phone number on. That is a simple thing that should not happen.
The third area in which there is a weakness is that the policy does not deal with complaints or whistleblowing that might arise as a result of the work of those in professional standards or the counter-corruption unit. It is unclear—it is not specified—how someone should report a complaint if it is against the people who would conduct the investigations. The only alternative to going through the specified channels is for someone to go to their staff association or to Crimestoppers. I think that the SPA should, potentially, have an identifiable role in dealing with complaints or whistleblowing of that nature.
That is the policy. Can you tell us the number of whistleblowers—or whatever you want to call them—that there have been or the number of disclosures that have occurred since the inception of Police Scotland?
I do not have that information.
I am not sure that I can answer that specific question about the total numbers since Police Scotland was established. However, in response to the points made by the chair about integrity matters, which was introduced in March 2015 and superseded a system that was called—as I understand it—Safecall, I can say that there have been 133 referrals to integrity matters from members of staff.
Can you explain to me what the referrals to integrity matters were about? Can you give some examples?
I do not have specific examples, but 29 of them related broadly to issues of potential criminality and 104 were more general concerns.
Were they all of the whistleblowing type, or were they general comments?
I have not reviewed all 133 of them, as I am sure you would understand, but they involve issues that staff wanted to bring to the attention of the organisation. As I said, 104 involved general concerns—non-criminal concerns—and 29 were about criminal issues. Some of those referrals have led to misconduct proceedings and some have led to reports going to the Crown. There is a broad mixture of serious and not-so-serious issues.
Do you have any feedback on how the people who did that whistleblowing have been protected after making the disclosure?
I have no direct evidence on that. I have a relationship with the unions and the police staff associations, but no concerns have been brought to my notice in the past two months about how supported people have felt.
That goes back to the broader point that I made at the start of the meeting. We have some good initiatives and some good SOPs—integrity matters and the others that I went through with you. As we go forward, I need to understand how we can ensure that the organisation is in the best possible position to support staff and enable them to come forward. There are a range of routes for that: there are line managers, there is integrity matters, there are the staff associations and unions, and there is third-party reporting.
In taking integrity matters forward, we must build on the points that the chairman made. Does it deal with the totality of concerns? I need to reassure myself that we are in that position. Can we introduce a third-party element to it? That may or may not involve the Police Authority or a third party that staff can connect with. If staff do not trust the organisation to the extent that they do not feel able to connect with it on such matters, they must be able to connect elsewhere so that we are able to respond to those issues.
The organisation that I want to lead is one in which staff feel engaged, supported and confident in coming forward. It is one that is fair both to the individuals who raise issues and to those about whom issues are raised, and it is one in which we address systems and processes where we are potentially not getting it right.
Thank you very much for that evidence.
I am going to let somebody else come in, Christian, and you can come back in later. You have had quite a whack.
The potential introduction of third parties is interesting. I think that many of us on this committee—and, no doubt, members who are not on the committee—will have messages in our inboxes from officers who feel that, if they open their mouths, they are victimised. Either they have opened their mouths and they are alleging that they have been victimised or they will not open their mouths because they think that they will be victimised within the organisation. I am sure that you will be aware of that. In order to make people feel secure, how far down the road of that idea of introducing a third party have you got? People feel that, if they say something, they may not be promoted or things—subtle and not so subtle—will happen in their office, such as their getting moved.
I agree. It is difficult to deal with the issue anecdotally. There will be staff who feel like that, and individuals may have issues because they believe that they are being managed in a way that is inappropriate although we feel that the management is appropriate. There are a broad range of situations.
Sorry, convener—could you repeat the thrust of your question?
10:15
It goes back to your point about involving a third party that is external to the police. You have given a whole list of procedures—
Yes, I have.
Those procedures are in place, but I suspect that there are officers out there who will say, “So be it, but I’m not going to say anything because I’ve seen what happened to someone else.” Whether or not that is true, the feeling is there.
I am sure that other members of the committee will have received emails on the issue in their inboxes, with briefings and stories from serving officers who are not happy but who will not say anything because they feel that there will be some comeback for them. For example, they may feel that they will not get promoted or may find themselves at the end of a complaint that is aimed at them. That can happen in all big organisations.
Yes, it can.
I am asking about the third party element, which is an interesting idea that you are considering.
That is an area that I want to look at. In the eight weeks in which I have been in post, I have seen some good practice and some areas in which we need to reassure ourselves that we are in the best possible position as an organisation.
We should aspire—as I do—to be the leading police service in the UK. That involves ensuring that staff are confident and feel supported. If members of staff are feeling the way that you have described, whether that is reality or perception and whether or not it is justified, there is a real issue. I recognise that, which is why I have said what I have said. I am not trying to present the organisation as being in the perfect place. This is the sixth police force or law enforcement agency that I have worked in, and some of those organisations have gone through enormous upheaval and change. Such things cause issues for staff but we need to ensure that we develop the best possible response, and that is what I hope to do.
Staying on the issue of whistleblowing, I want to tease out the unease with the term itself. The word “whistleblowing” resonates with the public, as people tend to think that it ensures transparency in an organisation. My understanding is that such an action is referred to as making a disclosure or blowing the whistle. For a worker who makes such a disclosure to be covered by whistleblowing law, they must believe two things. First, they must believe that they are acting in the public interest and, secondly, they must reasonably believe that the disclosure tends to show past, present or likely future wrongdoing. There are various categories within that.
If we were to establish that definition as the grounds for use of the term “whistleblowing”, can we accept that we are happy with the term and that it can be used?
I do not want to overstate the position at all. I am simply aware that there are a range of views on the term “whistleblowing”. It does not offend me, but some people would say that it has a pejorative context.
The real issues are the ones that the committee has raised. We need to ensure that staff who feel that way can exercise their voice and are heard and that they feel safe and secure and are confident that the organisation will act on the matter when appropriate. I want to be in a position to do that.
I turn to the SPA audit and risk committee and the SPA’s review—
Before we get to that, can we go back to whistleblowing? I think that Gil Paterson’s question is on that subject.
My questions are all on whistleblowing, because I took a particular interest in the issue in 2014 after receiving a complaint during the Commonwealth games from an officer who was very reluctant to express his concerns. At that time, I wrote to the then Cabinet Secretary for Justice and got some interesting and useful information. I was somewhat surprised to hear that there is not really a policy for whistleblowing. The officer to whom I referred was certainly of the opinion that there was in place a function or process—I think that Safecall was mentioned earlier—by which police officers could raise their concerns.
That was followed up with a freedom of information request from my office. I can tell the committee—I am surprised that this has not come out in the SPA’s review—that, in 2013, there were 15 referrals through Safecall, which is run in the north-east of England, that referred to or affected Police Scotland, and 12 of those cases were concluded. In 2014, there were 18 referrals, 10 of which were concluded.
If there have now been 133 referrals, that is a good-news story, which begs the question why the SPA did not in its review do something as elementary as examining the data to determine where we are now and where we have progressed from.
Mr Foley looks as if he wants to respond to that.
Yes, thank you, convener. Mrs Mitchell’s figures are indeed correct. At that time, Police Scotland operated the system known as Safecall, which was in effect for whistleblowing. The numbers were low, as Mrs Mitchell suggests. The reason for the review of Safecall and the implementation of integrity matters was to improve the opportunities that people had to make referrals. People were encouraged, through integrity matters, to make more contact over issues that presented within Police Scotland, and that is what happened.
Integrity matters papers were presented and discussed at the SPA board and at the audit and risk committee on a number of occasions. As recently as January this year, Police Scotland took away some actions to review elements of it and come back—
Can I stop you there, Mr Foley? My point is that I have the figures here, but you were asked for them just a few minutes ago and you seemed unable to produce them.
I did not have the exact figures with me, but the numbers that you have given are broadly in line with my recollection.
It would have been helpful if, when replying to the question, you had said that, although you did not have them with you—
Well—
No, this is an important point, convener.
Yes, but I think that the point has been made.
It is an important point. The police—
Just a moment, please. The point is made, and it is a good point, but let us go on.
If we are to have a good analysis of where Police Scotland is falling down and where it is improving, it is important for the witnesses to come to the committee with such information, so that the committee can make decisions.
I also wish to ask Mr Gormley how decisions on policy that affect operational policing are communicated to staff.
That is on communications.
It is on operational policy.
Yes, but a couple of members want to come in on whistleblowing. We will have Gil Paterson and Rod Campbell and then we will move on to communications.
My colleagues have asked most of the questions that I originally wanted to ask.
I very much welcome your review, which I think is a good idea, but I suggest to the panel that we all know what whistleblowing means, and it would be a good idea to actually use the term. Everybody in public life knows exactly what it means, so we should be able to refer to it in that way.
On the question that Margaret Mitchell asked, if you have the figures, could you provide them—even if not now—as that would give us a good steer and would put some flesh on the bones so that we know what we are talking about? In particular, it is always good to know whether progress has been made.
Are there any historical figures on what happened under the previous model with the eight boards? I am sure that you will not have those figures with you, but are they available? They would allow us to make a comparison and to see whether things are getting better or are just the same as before.
We will provide the figures that we have so that there are exact numbers for the record. Going back beyond the creation of Police Scotland has been challenging when it comes to getting data from the original eight legacy forces. However, we will attempt to do that, and we will see whether we can get some trend information. As I say, however, that has proved challenging on previous occasions.
It is encouraging that there is a greater number of referrals. However, I am not sure that 130 referrals from a workforce of 22,000 necessarily reflects success. We should be encouraging more responses through whistleblowing lines. We might reach a situation in which we have a large number of cases that are not worth pursuing because they are not appropriate. For example, sometimes whistleblowing lines are used for human resources grievances, rather than for the purpose for which they are intended. However, we should encourage a higher number of disclosures through the process, and we can then work through them and monitor trends.
As I said, it is encouraging that the number has gone up, but I am rather cautious as to whether 130 is what we should be seeing, given the size of the workforce.
I think that it was 133 for the period. It would be useful if you could let the committee know the breakdown of the figure in writing. I have taken a note that 29 cases were related to criminality, but Philip Gormley said that the others were of a general nature. It would be useful to know what the grievances are. Could you send that information to the committee? It could obviously be anonymised, but the data would be useful, and I think that the committee would appreciate that. I am looking around for support, but I am not getting any. [Interruption.] Now I am. That is good.
I just want to clarify a small point of detail. Police Scotland was incepted on 1 April 2013, and I presume that Safecall was still going at that time. It would be useful to know when Safecall ended and integrity matters started. I have not heard that information this morning. Can anybody answer that?
I think that I can. I was not here at the time, but the briefing that I have been given stated that the principles of Safecall were replaced by integrity matters—which is in effect the whistleblowing policy and process—just under a year ago, on 2 March 2015. Since then, as has already been alluded to, there have been 133 referrals: 29 in relation to some form of criminality and 104 that are more general.
I would absolutely be prepared to provide a more detailed breakdown of the sorts of issues that have been raised, because those are the sorts of issues that I am interested in. They relate to organisational learning and development. That is about us understanding officers’ concerns, how they make their voices heard and how we respond to that, when it is appropriate to do so.
Mr Gormley, how are decisions on policy that affect operational policing communicated to staff?
Forgive me, but I have a flow chart that I can take members through.
A lot depends on the complexity of the issue. A major legislative change that would require the whole workforce to be reskilled or retrained—there are examples of that—is clearly a very different process from a more discrete change in guidance, which would have a much more limited impact on staff. There is a broad range, from a discrete change to a policy or procedure on a very technical element of policing through to a generic requirement to retrain officers in relation to a fundamental change in a legal process.
In essence, we are notified about a proposal for updated legislation or guidance, which is then considered by the strategic leadership board, which is made up of myself and senior chief officers. The board then identifies an individual to respond to that proposal. The proposed change is normally relevant to the individual’s portfolio responsibilities. If the proposal fundamentally affects officers in local policing, it will go to Rose Fitzpatrick. If the proposal is in the area of crime, it will go to Iain Livingstone. That individual is then responsible for identifying the organisational implications and with whom we need to engage—internally and externally—to understand the impact of a decision. For example, changing our response, either investigatively or procedurally, may have knock-on implications for other agencies and stakeholders such as the Crown, Victim Support or the third sector. We need to understand what the impact of our proposed response to that change in guidance will be on a range of people, and we need to offer advice to them.
Historically, I have been involved in a lot of mental health issues, in which we developed training and guidance for staff on how to respond to people in crisis. We are not mental health professionals, but mental health professionals—in the third and statutory sectors—help us to develop procedure, policy and responses to people in crisis, from which we develop guidance and training material. The nature of that material depends on how many people the change will affect and on the type of change. If something affected a very narrow group of individuals, it could probably be managed with face-to-face briefings. If it was a fairly transactional piece of legislation that did not require a fundamental response, approaches such as e-learning and distance learning might be appropriate. We set up intranet mini-sites to allow officers to train themselves. The approach taken depends largely on what the issue is.
The issuance of force memoranda, standard operating procedures and internal guidance—
10:30
Let us look at a big issue. We can go back to the issue of armed police and stop and search. When those two issues were raised, instructions were given to officers about how to behave in certain circumstances—what to do and not to do. Yet some officers still did it, because apparently the communications did not get through. We are not just talking about small things; that has happened with really big issues that were causing Police Scotland a lot of trouble. That is what we are asking about.
One issue that was raised by officers’ representatives was that, because so much comes through in emails and there is such a plethora of information, serious and important communications get lost among it. How are you addressing that? Busy officers do not have time to read every email that comes through from headquarters.
No, and I do not expect some issues to be dealt with by email from headquarters generally. We need to recognise where we have come from and where we need to get to. The amount of work that has been required in the first three years—the earliest stages of Police Scotland—to bring together an enormous range of approaches, policy, procedure—
We have lived that.
I am sure that you have.
We have lived that with Police Scotland for the past three years. I am just saying that those are the big issues around communication that my colleague is asking about.
I can give an example. It was Police Scotland’s criminal justice division’s policy to issue on-the-spot warnings for the possession of cannabis rather than reporting it to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Obviously, that was before you were in Police Scotland, Chief Constable Gormley. When I visited local commanders, it was clear that they were not aware of the policy. Worse still, they were just embarking on an operation to crack down on drugs. Clearly there was a huge disconnect.
I am not for one moment challenging that as a description of what happened, but I simply do not know. However, that is not where we need to be.
One issue that is significant for us going forward is understanding how national policy decisions impact locally. As I have gone around the country talking to staff, officers and local authority civic leaders, one of the issues that is coming out is not specifically about training but about asking us to hear local views about the impact of national decisions—
Can I stop you there? The example that I gave was about a decision by Police Scotland’s criminal justice division. When I queried some of the senior management about it, they said that the real motivation for the policy was that, because the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service was so overwhelmed, it was faster to give warnings.
I genuinely cannot comment on that. The point that I was making, perhaps clumsily, was in response to the issue that the convener raised about communication of national decisions on things such as stop and search, the arming of officers and how they are deployed. The issue is our ability to understand how a decision lands locally and its impact on some very diverse communities, because what people in Glasgow and Edinburgh regard as normal and acceptable is very different from what people in the Highlands and Islands regard as normal. That has been made very clear to me.
The decisions that I am talking about were national, not local.
That is my point. The arming of officers in Scotland was a national decision.
The arming was not the issue; it was the being in public places. There was a big stooshie, which I am sure that you are aware of, and then Police Scotland said that the issue had been remedied and everybody knew where they were, but they did not. That was a big issue that all officers should have been aware of, as was the issue about stop and search and the so-called voluntary stop and search, but it continued to happen despite a couple of the members of this committee having a good go at the issue for a long time.
It is to do with communication—we are back to that.
I think that we are violently agreeing.
It is nothing to do with local issues, such as whether—
The broader point around communication is in the point that I am attempting to make but am not making very well. When we make national decisions on national functions, we need to understand how they will affect local communities that have very different policing demands. The culture, practice and relevance of the policing approach in Glasgow will be very different from that in the Highlands and Islands—
Please, chief constable, let me stop you there. I perfectly understand the difference between a rammy in the Grassmarket and a rammy in a wee village and what people would expect in the Grassmarket at 2 o’clock on a Sunday morning after the clubs get out. That is not what we are talking about.
To go back to the issue of armed police being in the supermarket or wherever else in public and the issue of stop and search, those policies and the way that they were used had to be sorted, wherever the officers were. The policies did not need to be tweaked for different areas, but the information did not get through to certain officers on the beat. That is the bit about communicating. We understand the stuff about different policing cultures in different areas.
Okay.
Is that sorted now? If we get a big decision, is the process sorted so that the same thing will not happen again?
I would be foolish to sit here and give a 100 per cent guarantee. In an organisation with 23,000 people, and given the complexity of what we deal with, will we make mistakes in the future? I suspect that we probably will.
Is our ambition to ensure, when we introduce new pieces of legislation or significant changes in working practice, that we have a thought-through process, that we identify a lead and the right means of communication and that staff have the right guidance and training and understand what they are going to do? Yes, we have a policy and process in relation to that.
I hope that the examples that we have given have been helpful.
They have.
I know that you will go back to look at them and see where communication can be improved.
Frankly, some of the problems in Police Scotland were of the police’s own making. That is historical now, but that is what we are asking to be addressed so that it does not happen again.
I welcome the new chief constable. He maybe wishes by now that he had not taken the job.
I am very pleased that I did.
He knows that we are running out of time. We only have a few weeks: he is safe.
Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary in Scotland is conducting an inquiry into the breach of the “Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data Code of Practice 2015”. We have been told that it was due to an oversight that the changes in the code did not get to the single point of contact in the counter-corruption unit. Have you been apprised as to why that was? Are you confident that there are now procedures in place to ensure that that type of oversight in relation to that specific type of information—or indeed other important decisions—will not happen again?
Yes, I am. I am being briefed on the circumstances around that breach. You have heard evidence from Assistant Chief Constable Nicolson and, before him, Deputy Chief Constable Richardson. We accept absolutely that mistakes and oversights were made. On that specific set of issues, there is an action plan. We have responded to recommendations emanating from the learning from that oversight, and I am confident that that set of issues will not be repeated. HMICS will report back in the spring. Clearly, we will reflect very carefully on the recommendations and I will take them forward.
We were advised that one officer had raised concerns about the application but somehow their concerns were not taken forward. Again, can we be confident that, if in future an officer raises concerns about a particular issue, the channels of communication are such that their concerns will be taken seriously?
My ambition is exactly that. We have two processes in train at the moment. One is the HMICS review that will look at the circumstances of the case and come back with observations and recommendations that we as an organisation will take seriously and act on.
We have an investigatory powers tribunal, which is a quasi-judicial process. Again, some judgments will come out of that. At the end of that process, I do not rule anything in or out in terms of what we will subsequently need to do as an organisation.
Actions have been taken, and a robust action plan has been commented on favourably by the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office regarding our response to that set of circumstances.
We have the broader review by HMICS into the counter-corruption unit and the circumstances that led to that apparent breakdown of communication, misinterpretation and mistakes. We have an IPT, which will come to a conclusion. At the end of that, there will be lessons to be learned on an individual and an organisational basis. You have my absolute commitment that we will respond to those.
As the convener is reminding me, we were advised that the conduct had been reckless.
That was the determination by the IPT.
It was not just mistakes; it was reckless.
I do not dispute for one moment what IOCCO said.
We will not survive much longer, but a future Justice Committee will be interested in returning to those issues once the reports have been published.
The Scottish Police Federation has raised with the committee concerns about aspects of the counter-corruption unit; in particular, it is aware of members being ordered or invited to interviews that have a status that appears to sit outside criminal procedure or misconduct investigations. Has the Scottish Police Federation raised any of those concerns directly, either with you as chief constable or with the SPA?
Yes. The SPF has raised those concerns with us and that is a focal point of the HMICS investigation and review.
To clarify things in relation to your earlier question, HMICS is looking at the broader aspects of counter-corruption, rather than the issues that IOCCO raised; looking at those is IOCCO’s role. There is a linkage between the two, in relation to the overall operation of the unit and how those things may have come up, so there may be lessons to be learned around the IOCCO issues to come out of the HMICS report. However, its work is more focused on the issues that the SPF has raised with us.
That is interesting, because we get the impression that the counter-corruption unit is a standalone policing unit that is developing its own particular culture.
A wee bit of a law unto itself, in fact.
Again, I know that you will not be able to comment fully until HMICS has reported.
Not until we see the report. The fieldwork is on-going, and until we see that report we cannot comment on what it will—
No, but surely you are not doing nothing while you are waiting for the report. The report is important, but I hope that Police Scotland and the SPA are doing something just now about the CCU.
I leave the chief constable to comment on the actions that are taking place just now.
The review from HMICS is critically important to us understanding whether those perceptions and observations from the SPF have a basis. I am not saying whether they do or they do not, but I need to understand how HMICS sees the issue. The federation has not raised that matter directly with me yet; I am sure that it will, subsequent to this committee meeting.
So you are waiting for the report and then you will do something. I am just trying to understand.
A range of issues have been raised—
I know they have.
I am just trying to help the committee; forgive me. A range of issues have been raised by IOCCO—a broader view about the proportionality of how counter-corruption units operate, nationally and locally. The review will give us the basis to understand what is actually going on, and I will respond to that review. That is what is happening. HMICS is looking at the culture, practice and approach of the counter-corruption unit. If that independent review raises issues that support the SPF’s description, we will act.
Once you have seen the review, what is your aspirational timeline, if you like, for the actions that you will take thereafter?
It depends what the recommendations are, clearly. If HMICS delivers the review in the spring—I have no reason to suggest that it will not—they could range from the need for a fundamental rethink of the approach to the view that the CCU is in reasonable shape. Between those two parameters lies a set of decisions. If a fundamental shift in our approach or our response to those issues is required, that will take longer. Until we see the recommendations, it is very difficult to understand what the response needs to look like, but I will move as quickly as I can.
Will you involve the various professional bodies as well—the likes of the SPF and so on—and engage with them once the review has been published?
Yes. Again, I need to understand. It is very difficult to speculate—
Absolutely, but in principle you would engage with—
My in-principle position is always to engage with staff associations and the unions. That is my rebuttable presumption, because that is good leadership and good management. If we do not have the SPF, staff associations and other representative bodies helping us to shape and make the right decisions about issues around communication, they are unlikely to be the best decisions. Subject to the view that there may be some technical issues that are outwith the federation purview, what I want is for the federation, staff associations and unions to have confidence in our response. That is the position that I want to get to, and that will, of course, involve consulting them.
I recollect that the SPF took the view that the counter-corruption unit was a law unto itself—it operated out on a limb and nobody really knew what it was doing. That, putting it in blunt terms, was the SPF’s position.
I do not agree with that characterisation.
No, but it was the SPF’s position. Mr Flanagan, what is the role of the SPA in all this? What is your remit when the report comes out? Do you have one?
Yes. The SPA commissioned HMICS to do the review, and the report will come to us. We will be in a position to work on the recommendations, with an action plan on Police Scotland to address them within an appropriate timescale. We have a central role regarding the outcome of the review.
10:45
Does someone else want to come in? John, you are down on my list on this subject.
I was hoping so.
Off you go—the floor is yours.
Thank you, convener. Good morning, gentlemen. First, well done on the review, chief constable. It is welcome that systems are being looked at.
I have a question that is first and foremost for the Police Authority. We know that the systems changed on 2 March 2015. Your report was published in June 2015. Presumably that report was about the previous system.
I will leave Mr Foley to answer that, as I was not there at the time.
No—that was actually a report on the current system. The processes had changed on 2 March, and the review was carried out after that. It was on the new system.
There cannot have been much time to gain an understanding of the experience of the new system with that turnaround.
Some of it was in relation to the operation of the new system, and some of it was a review of the documentation that had been produced. The new documentation also came into effect on 2 March 2015. A review was carried out in relation to that.
The report concluded that the increased effectiveness of the Police Scotland and SPA whistleblowing process within the wider CCU role should be significant for increasing awareness among officers and staff. So, the role of the CCU is key to the progress of whistleblowing, or officers having confidence, as far as the authority is concerned.
Yes.
Chief constable, I know that you are inheriting a situation, but people might be surprised that, while the gentleman acting prior to your appointment, who is not also the disciplinary authority, is aware of the serious accusations made by the Scottish Police Federation, you will await the outcome of a third party’s report before acting. Do you know whether Mr Richardson initiated anything on the basis of the comments that were made by the federation that the CCU had
“scant regard for the rules of fairness or proportionality”,
which, after all, the CCU is supposed to be the custodian of ensuring?
I do not specifically know the answer to that question. What I would say in response to the question that I think you are asking me—forgive me if I am getting this wrong—is that we need to review and understand whether there is anything in the allegations that are being made. “Allegation” is a strong word—I do not mean it in that sense. The question is whether there is anything in the issues that the federation is raising with us.
The way to address that is to get an independent review of the operation of the counter-corruption unit. That is what HMICS is doing, and that is what I need to understand as a response. That is the appropriate body to provide us with the information to understand whether we need to amend our approach, and in what way.
I am commending the role of an independent body. Do you see any line management issues connected with that, pending the publication of a report? That might mean that malpractice has continued for several months prior to the publication of the report.
I have seen no evidence or information to suggest to me that malpractice is occurring. I will take a view when I get the report on whether there are any line management issues.
Did Police Scotland have a say on the terms of reference of the inspectorate’s report?
Yes. In my first week here I was provided with a copy of the terms of reference by Mr Penman. I had no comment to make. They looked fit for purpose from my point of view.
Mr Flanagan, is it unlikely that the authority will revisit the situation? My colleague Elaine Murray spoke about a high-profile instance when a senior officer expressed concerns. That was known to chief officers in Police Scotland. The Scottish Police Authority would not be visiting that matter again prior to the publication of the report, would it?
If a specific complaint was raised with us, yes we would. However, at this stage, I am not aware of such a complaint.
The challenge for elected representatives is that we have regular contact with police officers who are constituents. They know—quite appropriately in many instances—that action is taken on fairly flimsy evidence.
When any report, allegation or complaint is made—if those may reasonably be inferred as the terms—a report must go to the fiscal. Here, however, we have a very high-profile public hearing, where serious accusations are made, yet we are to understand that we must wait several months before the people to whom the public might look, namely the Police Authority and the chief officer, will act on them.
If there is a specific allegation that the federation wants to make to me on behalf of a member, I will act on it—of course I will. I will take a view, depending on the nature of the complaint and who is being complained about, as to whether it is to be appropriately investigated by our professional standards department, the CCU, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner or an external third party. There are a range of responses.
As I sit here, I have not had that formal complaint from the federation regarding a specific set of allegations. If it has those concerns, I ask it to come to me and raise them with me.
On the more general issue, as described by committee members, of an organisation within an organisation setting its own rules, I have seen nothing to support that broad characterisation. HMICS will take a view on that issue regarding the operating context and the way in which the CCU discharges its duty.
If the federation or members of the federation have specific complaints to make against officers of any rank in any part of the organisation, they need to make them to me, and I will deal with them.
In the long term, is the CCU the appropriate recipient of complaints from officers? What is the role connected with? Is it HR or your professional standards department, for instance?
There are a range of issues in organisational life, including cases of people who are unhappy or who do not understand what they are being asked to do and issues of grievance, with tensions between line managers and staff that do not fall under conduct or disciplinary matters. It depends where things are on that spectrum of organisational issues.
There is good line management, and there are grievance issues. There is then whistleblowing, which is more about concerns relating not to an individual’s treatment but to a practice, custom or response that is regarded by the person raising it not to be in the public interest. There is then conduct in terms of professional standards, through to high-end corruption. Let us be clear: there is not a police service in the UK that does not need to have a very robust response to corruption. It is a live issue in every law enforcement agency.
We need a proportionate response. We should not be launching CCU investigations against inappropriate pieces of behaviour any more than we should be attempting to deal with serious corruption through an informal line management conversation. It is about understanding the nature of the complaint, the position of the complainant regarding their potential vulnerability within the organisation and what they need to be supportively wrapped round them as they go through a process, be it a grievance, a conduct matter or a corruption allegation.
I am sorry if I have answered your question in a slightly rambling way, but it is absolutely determined by the nature of the allegation.
People will understand that clear procedures would apply in criminal matters and in misconduct matters. The issue is to do with matters outwith those circumstances. Would you confirm that a police officer who is the subject of the attention of the CCU can only be a witness, a suspect or an accused, and that they cannot have any other status?
Instinctively, I would say that that sounds right. A witness, a suspect, an accused or a complainant, actually. Sorry—I am just trying to think it through.
Yes, indeed. Thank you very much.
I want to follow up on the business of cases that are referred to the Crown. This may be anecdotal, but passing through my inbox are cases where officers have been reported to the Crown and have waited a considerable period of time to find out whether they are going to be prosecuted. Those officers are suspended in no-man’s-land: there is a cloud hanging over them, and they are just given paper jobs and so on to do at work. I would like to know the figures on that, the length of time involved and how many instances proceed to a criminal prosecution. I am simply recounting what I have been told—I know no more than this—but there is sometimes a whiff of procedures being used in a vengeful way by somebody whose face does not fit. Matters might be referred to the Crown and then lives fall apart, yet nothing happens at the end.
I put that to you because you are probably aware of it already. Let us take the 29 cases that were mentioned earlier. I would like to know the statistics on how long it took the Crown to decide whether to prosecute in those cases and how many prosecutions followed.
I do not have those figures with me, but I am very happy to provide them to the committee. I share your concern about the impact—on officers, on the public purse and on the service that we should provide to the public—of a number of officers being on restricted duties or suspended for long periods. Throughout my career, I have seen how damaging that can be for officers, some of whom have not been found to have committed the offences that they were accused of. There is a range of issues here, and I will happily get those figures for you.
There is also the underlying issue, which is that—not always, but sometimes—it is a form of revenge.
I would be very concerned about that. That is a serious matter—
It is indeed.
I will take it seriously.
There is a broad issue about public confidence in how effectively the police deal with their own when complaints are made. I have seen it from that perspective, which is where there is a complete absence—well, not a complete absence, but there can be a lack of confidence on the part of the public that allegations of misbehaviour by police officers, either internally or externally, are dealt with robustly and appropriately. There is a balance to be struck between public confidence and treating staff fairly.
I appreciate those points about balance and perception.
My question is on the general issue of communication within the police service.
The report on the staff survey came out in September last year. In the survey, issues were raised about internal engagement, including the heavy reliance on cascading information by email and through the intranet, when personal methods, such as through line management or team and shift briefings, were preferred. What has been done to address that? Have things changed since September?
Things are in the process of changing, and I recognise the issues that came out of the staff survey. Since the survey was delivered to us—and I take no responsibility for this, as it is the responsibility of those who went before me—there have been 43 chief officer-led staff engagement exercises to try to understand the issues that sit beneath the survey. That represents a significant effort, on behalf of the organisation, to follow up on and really understand what sits behind the high-level headlines.
As I embed myself in Police Scotland, as part of my personal learning, I have carried out seven staff engagement exercises to understand how it feels from the point of view of staff and what we need to do. I have found that the staff are hugely motivated and passionate, and that they are delivering a brilliant service for the people of Scotland, both day and night. It is enormously humbling to see the quality of the staff in the organisation and those that are joining the organisation. They are doing fantastic work.
Four broad themes have come out of those workshops. The first theme is improving leadership across the whole organisation. When you bring that number of organisations together at that speed, and with that level of grit, an overreliance on email is probably understandable to a degree. I think that we are now in the position where we need to understand what good leadership is. That is about listening to and talking to people, and recognising when information is best provided through email. Transactionally, that will have to be the way in a national organisation in which the visibility of senior leaders will always be a challenge.
We need to support leadership at every level of the organisation, so that our leaders are confident and are provided with the sort of information that they need in order to brief their staff. We also need to have a conduit back, so that we can hear and understand what staff are saying.
The second issue is about engaging with and valuing one another. For me, that touches on our approach to performance. How do we spot people who are doing things right? What are our reward and recognition processes? How do we celebrate great work? What are the sorts of things that we say are important for staff to enable them to deliver on their sense of vocation and professional judgment?
The third piece concerns our voice. It is about the staff being heard, and it probably goes back to where we started. At its most serious, it is about staff being able to escalate—with confidence—issues around conscience or conduct that are causing them concern. More importantly, it is about how we make sure that they are involved in designing the service. What I have seen are staff who are massively committed.
We are now at the next stage of the evolution of Police Scotland. It has landed and now we need to transform it. We need to understand, within the limits of what can be done in a 23,000-person organisation, how staff can contribute, because they know the answers to the problems, particularly in local communities. From Stirling, I will not know the answers.
11:00The fourth element is what the staff have described as exciting experience: this is a brilliant job to be in and it provides enormous opportunities to make a difference to people’s lives in the community when it really matters. It is about enabling staff to deliver on that set of excitements.
We are now at the stage of the process where we have gone through 43 workshops, I have done some triangulation personally since I have been in post and we have four broad areas of work. We keep coming back to action plans, but are going to develop approaches around all those areas, which will move Police Scotland on from the staff survey.
It is actually about being a bit humane, having a degree of humility, being prepared to listen and recognising that we may not have got it completely right. It is also about enabling staff to be prepared to make mistakes, within parameters, and encouraging them to innovate and deliver locally in a way that makes best sense to them and their people.
We need to move on from being an organisation that is heavily reliant on compliance through to being one in which the ambition is around discretionary effort, in which people know the values of the organisation and are able to respond and deliver.
Would you say that there has been a reduction in the number of emails that are sent to officers since the survey was done?
After all that! [Laughter.] Do not bamboozle us—she wants to know about emails.
The short answer is that I do not know. I would not dream of trying to bamboozle you. I am too old and hoary to do that.
The simple answer is that I do not know about the number of emails.
That was wonderful!
There is a preference for the one-to-one briefings.
I do not have a preference for email.
The preference is for briefings.
Yes—absolutely. One of the things that we are doing is strengthening our internal communications department. We need to provide staff supervisors and leaders with good briefing material. There should be a set of core messages or issues that we are able to distil out each month so we can say, in accessible, plain English, “These are the issues that your individual guys and girls need to know about, and actually we need to hear back from you what the issues are.”
It is very easy for me to come in and do this, but the visibility of the chief officer team is important, as is how we develop an on-going programme of staff engagement, so that, instead of responding on the back of an unhelpful or difficult survey, this becomes something that is to do with how we lead the organisation through our own visibility.
We are a relatively small chief officer team in a 23,000-person organisation. Everybody has a responsibility to step forward into a leadership role from sergeants up, and the higher up someone is, the bigger the responsibility. We need to move away from a transactional email-driven organisation, if that is where we are, to one where what I have just described—in an attempt to bamboozle you, convener—is where I wish us to be.
It was just delicious. It was a delicious moment—admit it. After all that, you get asked how many emails are sent.
I admired the way the ball was crossed, and how you headed it home, convener.
I will never forget that one, Margaret. That is going down in history.
I am afraid that I can take only one more question—I am sorry—and I have another committee member waiting. I did say that this is the one and only chance for members to ask questions and we have a stage 2 straight after this. The cabinet secretary is waiting.
I wanted to follow through briefly on—
It has to be brief.
It is brief, convener. My question follows on from some of the questions that Margaret McDougall has asked about the staff survey. We have heard a lot about the steps that you have been taking to improve internal communication. In the staff survey, under the heading of commitment, 33 per cent of all respondents indicated an intention to leave for a whole variety of reasons. To be fair, when they were asked about the factors that were adversely affecting their commitment to the organisation, 49 per cent said that it was about changes to pensions.
Can you remind me when the next staff survey will be undertaken? Is it your view at the present time, after two months in the job, that morale is much better now than it was in September?
Right. That was a long question, but please give a short answer.
It would be a very brave chief constable who sat here two months into the job and said that everything is fixed and morale is great. All I can give you is some anecdotes, just as you have provided anecdotes to me. As I go out and speak to staff, I do not see the workforce that is reflected in that survey—I see passionate and committed individuals who want to make a difference.
On the repetition of the survey—
Can I deal with that specific part of the question? When we sent out the first survey we said that we would repeat it in two years’ time, but that we would take a temperature check within 12 months. The temperature check is a more focused, narrow testing of opinions around the key issues that came out of the first survey. That will take place through the late summer of this year. The intention is that we will have completed some of the actions early enough so that when the results of the temperature check come back we are beginning to see some reaction to the things that have been done to address the issues.
I am sorry—I have to stop you. We have overrun. I thank you for attending.
Can I ask a question?
I apologise, Mr Findlay, but I did warn that the session was very—
On a point of order—
There are no points of order in committee. I suspend the meeting for three minutes.
11:05 Meeting suspended.Air ais
Attendance