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Independent Scrutiny Panel Meeting Notes 26/04/16
Welcome and Introductions
Supt Wratten welcomed all and introductions of Panel members were made
Notes and Actions from previous Panel
The Panel werein agreement with the notes and conclusions circulated from the previous meeting held on 26/01/16.
Supt Wratten stated that despite clear guidance being published in relation to how sexual offences should be dealt with by the force, as a result of discussions at the previous scrutiny panel, certain offences were still being disposed of inappropriately by way of caution where remorse was being considered as a form of mitigation in the offender’s case. He explained that BTP charged in 93% of sexual offence cases, cautioned in 5%, issued conditional cautions in 1% of cases and offered community resolutions for the remaining 0.5%. However, there were still certain cases where the rationale of the disposal decision caused concern and as a result the original directive, which states that ‘to charge’ should be the opening position in relation to sexual offences, would be re-iterated at departmental level.
He explained that since the last meeting he had assumed responsibility for the Evidence Review Gateway (ERG); the team who are responsible for providing charging decisions and quality assuring all charge and out of court disposal case file submissions prior to their disposal. He stated that where issues were identified or improvements were required he would address these ahead of panel meetings as it would be counter productive to wait for the panel’s approval before enhancing operational effectiveness but would report anything of relevance back to the panel as required; the panel agreed that this was an acceptable approach. He added that he had discussed his suitability to remain the chair of this panel with his superiors, in light of his new responsibilities in relation to the ERG, and they had not felt that this new role compromised his impartiality; the panel agreed with this assessment.
Turning to how the decisions made at this panel should be fed back to the force, he stated that, in future, any directives would be disseminated directly to his fellow Superintendents to be cascaded down to all officers; this approach would ensure the correct level of gravitas and that the message got through to all officers.
Supt Wratten also provided an update with regards to the VRR case that was reviewed by the Panel at the last session. It was explained that the case had been passed for a complete re-review by the Justice Department’s Justice Team Manager. They had applied the full code test and concluded that the case did not satisfy evidential requirements and upon re-review a reasonable person would not have construed the offenders conduct as sexual. Moving forward Supt Wratten stated he would be liaising with the Justice Team Managers to ensure that the way BTP deals with such requests was thorough and fit for purpose.
Nicola Vallins reported that she had made some changes to the scrutiny panel conclusion template. She had changed the conclusion categories to make them clearer and had introduced some extra headings to cover victims and crime recording requirements; the panel agreed that the changes were suitable.
She stated that the community resolution project had now been formally closed and that CR had now been adopted as business as usual. Following feedback from the last panel meeting, certain educational documents had been created and had been circulated to all BTP officers. This included a quick reference guide covering the pros and cons of the CR process and three specific case examples which explained good practice in this area.
She then reported on a previous case which had been discussed at the last panel meeting which concerned a drunk and disorderly caution. She stated that as a result of the evidential inaccuracies that had been identified by the panel, this disposal had now been expunged. The Outraging Public Decency Guidance has also been re-circulated all Senior Officers to ensure consistency of decisions in this regard.
Nicola also assured that links between the Justice Department and the BTP Safeguarding Team had been made to ensure appropriate use of Safeguarding and Youth Referrals. The Safeguarding Team will be providing training inputs to both ERG Officers and Witness and Case Officers to ensure any confusion is dispelled.
Julie Mann, the force’s crime registrar, reported that a recent audit of out of court disposals had found that BTP was only achieving conformance in 45% of community resolution cases, 55% in relation to cautions, 45% in Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) cases and 30% in relation to Cannabis warnings. The majority of concern surrounded the lack of paperwork in the associated case files and the lack of rationale in justifying the outcome decisions. She stated that the main areas where improvement was needed related to the lack of PNC checks being carried out, PNDs being issued where previous PNDs had already been issued for similar offences within the previous year and where out of court disposals were being given to offenders who had a significant previous offending history. Julie was keen to assure that had paperwork also been reviewed the rate for non-compliance would be lower.
It was raised whether any feedback to officers had occurred as a result of these findings; Julie confirmed that this was ongoing. Supt Wratten also stipulated that this is also on the horizon for Justice Project Team who will be implementing a quality assurance ‘hub’ within the ERG for Out of Court Disposals to further instil practices and uphold standards.
Legal Updates and Justice Project Updates
Nicola Vallins reported that the outcomes of the MOJ Pilot to streamline the adult Out of Court Disposal framework are still awaited. There were no other legal updates.
Case File Reviews
Conclusions templates were completed for all cases, including a summary of the surrounding discussion and additional actions and feedback where appropriate. The templates have been included within the minute circulation.
Feedback
There was nothing to report.
AOB / Next Meeting
The next meeting would be at 10am on Tuesday 26th July 2016 in room G3 at Force Headquarters.
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