FOISA Response No. 855 - Implementation of Dame Elish Angiolini recommendations
Where relevant, we publish our responses to Freedom of Information requests under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).
This response addressed the following query:
- “Per FOISA 2002 Please supply me with information contained in your records as follows:
Please provide information detailing whether all or some of the recommendations made per Dame Elish Angiolini's Policing - complaints handling, investigations and misconduct issues: independent review have been implemented.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/independent-review-complaints-handling-investigations-misconduct-issues-relation-policing/pages/34/
Please advise if these recommendations have now formed statutory law and legislation or are they merely non statutory guidelines/regulations?”
To date, all but one of the recommendations related to the PIRC that do not require legislative change have been implemented. This one outstanding recommendation is:
7. Recommendation: The next follow‑up audit of the six‑stage complaint handling process or audit of frontline resolution should be carried out by the PIRC as an independent third party.
Thematic progress reports on the implementation of the recommendations can be found at https://www.gov.scot/policies/police/complaints-investigations-and-misconduct/. These progress reports include the status of each recommendation and also includes if the implementation requires legislation. If you have any difficult accessing this page please let me know and we will supply the information to you.
The recommendations that require legislative change are due to be introduced through the Police Complaints and Misconduct Handling Bill. This was included in the Programme for Government announced on 6 September 2022 and is due to be introduced in 2023.