The head of PSD for the Met and MOPACs Director of Strategy and Policing Oversight have called for statutory regulations to be reviewed to prevent officers remaining with the force when they should not be serving.

The Met’s Head of Professionalism Standards and Recognition, Commander Jon Savell, has today expressed frustration that at times the statutory regulations mean they cannot remove officers from the force as quickly as they would like to following misconduct proceedings. 

Speaking to the London Assembly Police and Crime panel, he said: “The statutory regulations are very complex. 

“Some of the regulations are set timescales to do things, not [time] to do things in [...] but actually they stretch things out, so a prime example is myself, the Commissioner, and anybody who works in the Met that sees an officer convicited of a criminal offence wants to see them removed from the organisation as quickly as possible. 

“The regulations set out that notices have to be served, have to be responded to and roughly 3-4 weeks is the quickest you can remove an officer from the force when they’ve been convicted of a rape for example. 

“I’m sure Police Federation and elsewhere would want to make sure there is fairness in the process, but there are bits of it which quite frankly I think need to be reviewed. 

“Another example is new officers within their probation [...] They are subject to different regulations around performance, there are things that new recruits do which sadly breach the standards. We would much rather be in a position where we could use that very early unsatisfactory performance regime to exit an officer from the organisation quickly. 

“There are bits of the system which work very well, but there is room for looking at how the regulations work in terms of some of those slightly perverse outcomes when there are officers that shouldn’t be serving and very often remain in the force and remain on full pay and that’s the bit that sticks in everybody’s throats.” 

Commander Savell told the panel that he was not aware of this being brought up with Policing Minister Kit Malthouse, and said that was for the police to make a representation to the Home Office about that. 

In addition to the speed with which forces can remove officers who shouldn’t be serving, the panel also touched upon the length of some IOPC investigations. 

At the moment, there are 53 Met officers who are suspended and over 400 who are subject to restrictions, mostly with regards to public facing duties. 

When asked how this affects the Met operationally, Commander Savell responded “reasonably significantly”, saying it “will impact on every area”. 

While there were no figures on how much this cost the force, Commander Savell said the average cost of a PC, including areas such as training and pension costs, works out at around £60,000 per year. 

Criminal cases can cause delays with internal and IOPC investigations, and Commander Savell acknowledge the varying complexities of different cases. 

MOPACs Director of Strategy and Policing Oversight, Kenny Bowie, also acknowledged the issue of capacity within the IOPC, particularly in light of the police uplift recruitment programme. 

“With it being a demand-led organisation, you would expect to see increase in demand, increase in referrals and workload. 

“It has vastly improved from the IPCC days and most investigations are completed within 12 months now but I still think [...] if that could be quicker, if there could be an uplift to recognise there are more officers, there will be more complaints, I do think that would be a good thing.” 

The IOPC had initially agreed to attend the panel meeting held today, but withdrew not long before. No reason was given for this decision during the meeting, and the IOPC have reportedly agreed to attend a future meeting.