Complaint Handling Reviews

The Complaints

The complaints in this case arose after the applicant reported an alleged theft to the police. We have reviewed the handling of four complaints, namely that:

1. Officers failed to attend at the applicant’s home address to carry out enquiries
2. Officers failed to note a statement from the applicant within an appropriate timescale
3. The enquiry officer failed to carry out sufficient enquiry into a reported incident; and
4. Police Scotland’s Professional Standards Department failed to carry out enquiry into the applicant’s complaint within an appropriate timescale. 

Police Scotland’s Decision

Police Scotland did not uphold any of the applicant’s complaints.

Our Findings

We have found that Police Scotland handled complaints 1, 2 and 3 to a reasonable standard but not so complaint 4.

Consequently, we have made one recommendation to address an administrative shortcoming in Police Scotland’s handling of complaints 1 and 2. In summary, we recommend that these are recorded as separate complaints.

Our recommendation should be completed by Police Scotland within two months of the date of this report.

Outcome

Police Scotland implemented our recommendation that Complaint 1 should be recorded as 2 separate complaints.

Police Bodies : Police Scotland