Sexual misconduct complaints towards officers and codes of conduct used in the force

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.033090

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please disclose the details of official complaints made against serving police officers under your remit in the past 5 years in regards to sexual assault, harassment and other forms of sexual misconduct.

Specifically:
1. How many accusations were made against serving police officers
2. and when
3. How many allegations were upheld
4. How many of the upheld charges resulted in disciplinary action
5. What disciplinary actions were enforced
6. and when
7. Any information on the reasons for retaining or dismissing officers who faced disciplinary actions
8. Any information on police codes of conduct/learning resources surrounding abuse of power, sexual misconduct.

Please send the above separated by year.

The MPS was in receipt of your request clarification on 16/10/23 which was as follows:
I'm also referring to internal conduct matters, separated from public complaints.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

In respect of Question Eight (8), this question is very broad as any number of resources could technically be created by many hundreds of different supervisors or staff members and be considered as ‘information’ on codes of conduct or learning resources.

However, in regards to police Codes of Conduct, to ensure the MPS did not refuse this request by considering it too broad in scope, the MPS is pleased to provide the following relevant recorded information held in answer to this request;

• IOPC Statutory Guidance
• Home Office Statutory Guidance
• College of Policing (CoP) Code of Ethics
• NPCC/ CoP Appropriate personal relationships and behaviours guidance

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

Whilst your request is generic and broad in scope as requesting ‘any information’ on codes of conduct and learning resources to maintain professional standards is done in more than one distinct way, this makes it difficult to define your request to simple recorded information to which we can simply refer. We direct you to further reading above and below regarding code of ethics and this may help frame a future request to help you seek more focused recorded information.

Learning material which may be of interest to you are as follows;

Maintaining Professional Standards Part 1 PU0168

Session aims
This session will develop the student police officers overall professional standards in their role.
• Professional standards and you
• Legislation, Governance, Roles.
• Reasonable and proportionate
• Recording complaints and misconduct
• Referrals

Learning outcomes
1. Identify the need to maintain professional standards. Including the roles, responsibilities and governance within professional standards.
2. Discuss the process for a complaint or conduct matter and describe the impact on the individual officer / staff member.
3. Demonstrate internal processes for challenging and reporting unprofessional conduct and in particular describe how to deal with discrimination within the workplace.

Maintaining Professional Standards Part 2 PU0142

Session aims
This session will develop the student police officers overall professional standards in their role.
• Investigations
• Concluding investigations
• Outcomes
• Challenging Unprofessional conduct
• Final thoughts

Learning outcomes
1. Identify the need to maintain professional standards. Including the roles, responsibilities and governance within professional standards.
2. Discuss the process for a complaint or conduct matter and describe the impact on the individual officer / staff member.
3. Demonstrate internal processes for challenging and reporting unprofessional conduct and in particular describe how to deal with discrimination within the workplace

Should you wish to request the actual recorded information of the above training materials, we can log and acknowledge that request. Please note there is the possibility exemptions may need to be considered, albeit it every request is treated on its own merits on a case by case basis.

Both sessions provide officers with links to available resources and further reading (some of which has been attached and provided to you today or can be found by administering a Google search online:

• College of Policing - Professional Standards
• Code of Ethics
• Sec 39A Police Act 1996
• The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020
• The Police (Performance) Regulations 2020
• The Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020
• Police Federation Quick Reference to Police Regs July 2020
• The Police Appeals Tribunals Rules 2020
• Police Act 1996 Part VI Complaints and Disciplinary Proceedings
• Policing and Crime Act 2017 Prt 2 Police Complaints, Discipline and Inspection
• Police Reform Act 2002 Part 2 Complaints and Misconduct
• IOPC Statutory Guidance on the complaints system
• IOPC Information for police officers and staff
• The Police Regulations 2003

The information provided to you today for Question Eight (8) hopefully will hopefully satisfactorily cover your request for ‘any information’, where any further granular level searches across the MPS may incur the Section 12 cost exemption. However, you are always free to make any new FOIA request and it will be treated on its own merits on a case by case basis.