Seòmar agus comataidhean

There were suggestions that the police were reluctant to give information, but, based on what you said earlier, it seems that the relationship has improved. The bill intends to give the PIRC access to the police’s electronic database relating to complaints. Will that help to speed things up?

If you do not have any evidence, how do you know what to do?

Is the communication with the police officer who has been accused more to do with police procedure?

Okay. How do you decide who should investigate between the PSD, the PIRC or another police force, and why would it be necessary for a case to go to another police force and not just stay with the PIRC?

That is fine. Why would it go to another police force?

One of the biggest complaints that we have heard is about the time it takes to do many of those things. HM chief inspector of constabulary said that it

“takes far too long for the Criminal Justice organisations to investigate criminal complaints”

and that

“There is a general lack of pace applied to the investigation.”

He also said that there was a

“Lack of communication between the three parties involved (Police Scotland, PIRC and COPFS)”.

Do you think that the bill will reduce those timescales?

So you have not come across anything like that when you have done investigations.

In an earlier session, we heard evidence that Police Scotland’s professional standards department should not carry out preliminary assessments of complaints against officers, because it is not independent. Would the PIRC, if it was given sufficient resources, be in a better place to carry out those assessments to avoid any perceived or actual bias?

A previous witness told the committee that Police Scotland took one year to investigate a complaint and that the PIRC then took the best part of a year to review it. Is there a target that the PIRC aims to meet when reviewing complaints made against officers from members of the public?

Ms Macleod has just answered one of my questions. I was going to ask whether having body-worn camera footage would make a big difference to investigations.

I have two further questions, though. First, in your submission you say that

“there needs to be a lawful gateway for information sharing”,

which you mentioned in the context of the proposal to establish the police barred and advisory lists. Will you expand on the point?

My second question is for Phillip Chapman. Police Scotland has an obligation to notify COPFS of allegations against police officers where

“it can be reasonably inferred that a criminal offence has been committed by a police officer.”

That differs from the test for allegations against members of the public, where there must also be a sufficiency of evidence. Last week, we heard from the Scottish Police Federation that investigations about police officers start high up, rather than at the lowest level. Will you explain what “reasonably inferred” means?

Is it right that less than 10 per of complaints are prosecuted?