Examination of Witness (Questions 63-101)
MR NICK
HARDWICK
23 FEBRUARY 2010
Q63 Chairman: Mr Hardwick, thank
you very much for coming to give evidence to us. It is, of course,
your second appearance in recent months. You were appointed in
December 2002 to your post and you have been there for eight years,
which is quite a considerable time so you must have a lot of expertise
in this area. According to a survey that was recently conducted
80% of the people who had contact with the IPCC were actually
dissatisfied with the operation of the IPCC, not the nitty-gritty
but presumably some aspect of the way in which it impacted on
their lives. How do you explain this?
Mr Hardwick: Can I just say first
of all, Chairman, that I am grateful for the opportunity to be
here. As you know, last time I appeared I asked for an opportunity
to come back and answer precisely these questions, so I am pleased
to have the opportunity to deal with that. I think the survey
you report to was a survey that was done for the National Audit
Office. It was a self-selecting response and I do not think that
the National Audit Office included that in their findings. Let
me deal with the point this made, which relates to what we have
heard very movingly today from the family of Mr Rigg. About that
I would say to you that I speak to every new member of staff who
joins the IPCC and what I try to explain to them is this: what
we deal with in these cases is the worst thing that has ever happened
to somebody. They have had a loved one die, often in very violent,
horrific circumstances, often after contact with an agency they
trusted where personal details about their loved one that are
distressing have come out into the public domain, and all of that
is resolved in a highly adversarial and public forum. I do not
think that there are some easy things that we can say and do that
will reassure families in those situations. What I say to our
staff is this: "The critical thing you have to do is not
be swayed; you are not on anybody's side."—it is quite
right, we are not on anybody's side—"Do not be swayed
by the pressure groups; do not be swayed by what the headlines
might say tomorrow. The critical thing for you to do is to find
out the truth and put that truth in front of the appropriate authorities,
be that an inquest, be that a court, be that the disciplinary
authorities." When we have done that, on each occasion we
have done that, when the evidence has been tested in legal forums
the conclusions of our investigations have been supported and
the consequence of that, what that then achieves may not help
things for those particular families but what it does do is make
it less likely that those things will happen again. When I started
at the IPCC—
Q64 Chairman: Can you—
Mr Hardwick: We have heard from—
Q65 Chairman: With the greatest of
respect, we will hear your case. You should not take this personally;
this is a Parliamentary Committee; you have appeared before it
before and many colleagues will have questions for you, so do
not worry as we will cover everything. Can I ask a specific question
about the Public Accounts Committee recommendation to you in March
2009, when it said that your organisation did not possess the
mechanisms to monitor how its recommendations were implemented
and to measure its wider impact in police work. Can you assure
this Committee that those mechanisms are now in place?
Mr Hardwick: That is a very difficult
thing to do, Chairman. I can certainly assure the Committee that
we have made considerable progress in that. Of course, part of
what John was saying is that it is a complex business working
out the effectiveness of the complaints system and you have to
be very careful you do not have unintended consequences in what
you do; so it is a complex business to do that. What we have tried
to do is identify, both at an independent force level for the
IPCC and nationally, a consistent, rounded set of measures that
give us a complete picture of how things are working. That includes
the views of complainants, that includes the views of police officers
and it also looks at the hard evidence of the outcomes of complaints.
Q66 Chairman: Irrespective of the
detail of the particular issues, which we will explore now, when
you came to the job in 2002 you came with a very high reputation,
having led the Refugee Council. It must be a bit of a concern
to you that the very people who were praising the appointment
of Nick Hardwick to this post are now possibly not lamenting it
but disappointed that maybe it did not meet the expectations that
were required. Does that concern you?
Mr Hardwick: As I recall, some
of those people were not overjoyed by what I did at the Refugee
Council, so you get used to it. What I would say is that I have
done what Parliament asked me to do. People are more confident
in the complaints system than they have ever been before. There
is greater access to the system than ever before. It is more transparent.
We have cut the numbers of deaths in custody. Of course there
is more to do, but I am very proud of what we have achieved; I
am very proud of the people who work for it. I am not complacent,
there is more to do but I am happy to come here and defend that.
Q67 Gwyn Prosser: Mr Hardwick, it
must have been very hard, I would think—even though, as
the Chairman said, these are not personal remarks—to sit
through the evidence from Ms Rigg and from Mr Crawley. You have
given a defence that the structure was what Parliament wanted
and you were doing the best that could be done with it, but surely
amongst the almost catalogue, I would say, of criticisms coming
from John Crawley, there must be some of those which chime. Do
you have any view of going back to ministers and saying, "Look,
there is a better way to do this"?
Mr Hardwick: Of course. I feel
the same now about John as I did when he worked for us. I agree—and
I think he said that I enjoyed discussing these issues with him
and I never tried to stop him—with some of what he said;
I disagree with other bits of what he said. On the whole his broad
conclusions were not supported by his colleagues and he left two
years ago and things have moved on a lot since then.
Q68 Chairman: For the better?
Mr Hardwick: Absolutely. Let me
give you a couple of examples where things have changed, and these
are areas where I agree with John. One of the problems—and
this is what you were saying, Chairman, and I agree with this—with
the police complaints system is that a complaint is defined in
terms of the conduct of an individual officer. Unlike any other
complaint system the question that Parliament asks us to answer
is not, "Has this member of the public received a proper
service and, if not, how can we put things right?" the question
you ask me to answer is, "Has this officer committed misconduct
and, if so, how should they be punished?" The system is all
about the officer, it is not about the complainant. One of the
things that we are doing that we persuaded—it has not been
an easy thing to do—the police service to accept, we persuaded
the Home Office to accept, is that now what this will do is to
say, first of all, not is the allegation against the individual
officer substantiated but is the complaint upheld? Is this a justified
complaint? Does this member of the public have cause for concern?
Then go on to look at whether there is an individual officer at
fault. At the moment, as John said, if you are substantiating
only 10% of allegations against individuals people will interpret
that as, "We do not believe you, we do not accept it is a
problem." What we want to do is acknowledge better, apologise—particularly
on these low level things—when something has gone wrong
and then say, as you said, "Is there a case to answer against
an individual officer and how should that be dealt with?"
I think that would be a big improvement. We have introduced a
system now of doing detailed hands-on assessments before we decide
to take a case. Of course deaths are important but we try to be
more sophisticated about how we use our resources. The numbers
of appeals we uphold is 33% now. I went back to look at some of
John's figures, I have not seen his submission, I have to say;
we were not given an opportunity to do that so I am at a bit of
a disadvantage here. If you look at John's cases and his substantiation
rates and his appeal rates, they were no different from his colleagues,
and he is not, as you have heard, easily put upon. It is a problem
that we all have to address over time: shifting a system, shifting
a culture is not a straightforward thing to do. It needs determined
effort over a period of time and I think we have made improvements.
Q69 Mr Streeter: We were talking
earlier about one of the roles of the IPCC possibly is to persuade
and encourage police forces to be better at handling their own
complaints so that there are fewer complaints rising to your august
level. What are you doing about that?
Mr Hardwick: Absolutely that is
right. Half of all complaints are about what is called in the
jargon incivility or other neglect of duty—in plain language,
rude, late and poor service. We know a lot about who makes complaints;
the biggest categories of complainants are white men over 35 in
non-manual occupations who have a good opinion of the police.
So I say to police audiences—I have been this week—"Look,
these are your friends telling you that the service they are getting
is not good enough." The way to deal with that—and
this is where I may disagree with John—is not some outside
body from London coming in and sorting it out. The most effective
way to deal with a PC or PCO who has provided a poor service is
their supervisor, their sergeant or their inspector saying to
them, "This is not an acceptable performance or standard
of conduct for people who work for me." That is not some
great boss sitting outside here—"You work for me; what
you have done is not acceptable, I expect that to improve."
If you can get that happening; if you could hold the supervisors
and inspectors accountable for delivering that, accountable for
the performance of the people they are responsible for managing
then that is the way to get the kind of cultural changes we have
talked about. John said we spend a lot of time talking to the
police; I do spend a lot of time talking to the police, trying
to persuade them exactly that. A critical responsibility of supervisors
and managers, inspectors and sergeants, should be precisely to
get that conduct correct. Not to go into defence mode but to say,
"Yes, there is a problem here; how do we put it right?"
Q70 Mr Streeter: You are talking
as though you have just taken over the job but you have been at
it for eight years and it has been in existence for six years—I
do not quite understand that, but never mind. Why has this not
improved? Who are you saying these things to? Are you speaking
to the Home Secretary? Are you speaking to ACPO?
Mr Hardwick: Yes, yes, yes.
Q71 Mr Streeter: Why is it not changing?
Mr Hardwick: It has changed. I
do think that the increase in complaints is a sign of people's
greater confidence on the ground about the system; you can see
that in the MORI opinion polls about people's view of us. I do
think that has changed.
Q72 Chairman: Mr Hardwick, do you
think it would be better if, for example, the NPIA was to be involved
in this process—the police improvement organisation? Do
you meet with Peter Neyroud?
Mr Hardwick: Yes, I do.
Q73 Chairman: Is this something that
he could be involved in because you cannot spend your time telling
the police how to get their complaints system working.
Mr Hardwick: Part of our duty,
the duty that Parliament gave us, is to increase public confidence
as a whole in the complaints system; not just those bits we deal
with directly but the system as a whole.
Q74 Chairman: But the trouble is
the survey says—to quote the game show—80% who deal
with you are dissatisfied.
Mr Hardwick: That is of the most
serious cases that were dealt with by us. Those are not typical.
John is right, I think, to make a distinction between the most
serious cases that involve death and all the emotion and awfulness
that we heard about.
Q75 Chairman: And all the others.
Mr Hardwick: We know, for instance,
one of the things that people say to us—we have done a lot
of work on this—that for the lower level complaints what
people want is an apology, an explanation or a reassurance the
same thing will not happen again; only a minority are looking
for an officer to be sanctioned. The problem is that the only
legislative tool in the box is a decision about whether an officer
should be sanctioned. Partly what we try to do is to force the
system a bit in a different direction so that the system focuses
on saying, "Look, if you are not happy what can we do to
put this right?"
Chairman: I know you are very keen to
get your arguments across but all my colleagues have these points
in mind. Martin Salter.
Q76 Martin Salter: Mr Hardwick, I
am looking at—I do not know if you have seen it—the
spread of regional variation in complaints and it really is quite
marked. It goes from Staffordshire where there was a percentage
change of complainants by force between 2007-08 and 2008-09 at
minus 24% to a plus 46% in Lincolnshire. This is quite a staggering
range. Can you give us an idea as to what factors might be in
play here, as to why we are looking at those figures?
Mr Hardwick: As I have said, I
am at a disadvantage in that I have not seen this paper and was
not told about its existence and so have not seen the figures
in it.
Q77 Martin Salter: Hang on, this
is not John Crawley's paper; this is a briefing to the Committee.
For goodness sake, you must know the ratio.
Mr Hardwick: Obviously I do not
know the precise figures to which you refer—that is what
I am saying. I can answer your point about variation.
Q78 Martin Salter: These are your
figures.
Mr Hardwick: If I could just have
a copy then I would know what you are looking at and would be
able to answer you.
Martin Salter: Here you are; they are
your figures.
Chairman: They are your figures.
Q79 Martin Salter: You are not at
a disadvantage.
Mr Hardwick: I was not quite sure
to what you were referring, but now I have it. Of course, yes,
I can explain, if you are talking about the numbers of complaints
that will reflect changes we are trying to get them to make to
a recording system. So part of the reasons for the numbers of
complaints will be that forces are responsible for recording complaints.
One of the things that we have tried to get them to do is to improve
their recording systems so that complaints are recorded on a consistent
basis, and as forces do that and comply with our request on that
and the system becomes more accessible you will get variations
in figures like that. I think that is one of the reasons; that
is partly what accounts for the difference. Also, you will get
differences because there will be differences between the big
urban forces and between the rural forces; there will be differences
between how proactive forces are about trying to nip things in
the bud and sort them out before they become a formal complaint.
Some of these things would be about the system settling down as
we shift it, to try and make it more accessible and that is that
process going on.
Q80 Mrs Cryer: Mr Hardwick, according
to your Annual Report, you have capacity for around 70 independent
investigations per year, yet for the last two years you have been
50% over capacity. What impact has this had on the quality of
investigations? How large an increase in funding would you require
to increase capacity to around 100 independent investigations
per year?
Mr Hardwick: Since we have been
operational our income has gone up by 20% and our outputs on investigations
and appeals have gone up by 100%. We are able to do some of that
as the system settles down and becomes more efficient. We will
not relent on the quality issue. The primary problem, if we get
more and more work coming in, will be that it will take longer
to do and that is the big problem we have to deal with now. What
I would say is this—again I would agree with what John Crawley
says—we have made the system more efficient within the legislative
frameworks we have. If I had a shopping list the start of my shopping
list would be to the legislative changes necessary to take some
of the bureaucracy out of the system so that I could use the resources
I have more efficiently than simply giving me more resources.
I am not going to say that more resources would not be useful
but I could provide a good if not better service to families,
complainants and police officers with the resources I have if
there was a change in some of the bureaucratic rules that were
put in place that I think time has shown we do not now need until
we can prove it. So that would be the top of my list.
Q81 Mrs Cryer: Can you take us through
the independent investigation process and why does it take between
167 and 195 days to complete an investigation? You have just mentioned
bureaucracy; is that one of the reasons?
Mr Hardwick: No, that would be
more on the appeal side. Let me be clear. An investigation will
normally begin when the matter is referred to us by the force
concerned, so they have to do that immediately and that will normally
take place within hours of the incident occurring. There are statutory
requirements that forces have to abide by in terms of what they
require. This is a simplified version. Normally what we will then
do—now, which has changed since John Crawley's days—is
we will send a small number of investigators to assess the situation,
decide whether it is something we need to take, what resources
we need and bring those in, and control the initial police handling
of the scene and those sorts of issues. Then normally if we decide
to investigate it the investigation process will take place. Often
for us with critical issues, one of the reasons for delay is that
you are waiting for critical expert advice on cause of death,
medical issues or expert forensic analysis where we have to wait
on other people to provide information to us before we can come
to a conclusion. A point that has previously been well made is
that we will then conclude our investigation and there is then
a sequential process, that is not the end of it. Our investigation
is only part of a process. What will then take place will be a
trial, if there is going to be a trial or a disciplinary hearing
but, critically, as you said, the inquest. The inquest is a crucial—I
understand this more now than when I started—bit of the
process where we will disclose all the information we have collected
and our report to all the parties involved, and that then can
be cross-examined in open court with everybody represented in
an inquest, and that is where the family do that. So people who
have concerns at this point of the investigation will say, "There
are concerns." I would say to them, "You will have your
opportunity in court, represented to cross-examine the way we
conducted our investigation and all the evidence that we have
collected," and my experience has been up to now that when
we have done that that people have got the answers and when they
have seen it that is the answer they want.
Q82 Mrs Cryer: Can I just mention
that the first witnesses did say that their coroner's inquest
has still not been concluded.
Mr Hardwick: Obviously there are
two things I could just say, just to be absolutely clear so that
there is no misunderstanding. The issue in the early stages of
the Rigg case, about their access to their loved one, that was
a matter for the coroner's officers, and we actually spent that
weekend trying to get the coroner to take a more reasonable approach
to that and I sympathised with them in that particular matter.
Let us be clear that that was not our decision at all. On the
point about the inquest, the delays in inquest are a real problem—obviously
they are outside their control—and that does mean that the
whole thing drags on and then of course we are the visible face
of the system so people have seen the process going on for years
but we have often wrapped up our bit—Rigg was particularly
complex—in a short time, and then there is a long tail while
you wait for the other bits of the legal process to kick in, and
I think if you could fix that then that is very important.
Chairman: Mr Hardwick, it would help
us enormously if you would make your answers briefer because we
are going to cover all these points and you do have the opportunity,
if you wish to submit written evidence to do so. I want you to
feel that you have had your say, but also it is very important
that we get through the business.
Q83 Mr Streeter: Mr Hardwick, you
have just mentioned the Rigg case; why did your staff not interview
police officers in that case for seven months?
Mr Hardwick: There are a number
of reasons. This is complex. There are a number of reasons.
Q84 Chairman: Just give us the reasons.
Mr Hardwick: I will give you the
reasons. There is a limit to what I can say about the Rigg case,
precisely because this is part of the evidence that relates to
the evidence that we heard at the inquest that we had been asked
by the coroner not to disclose. I can give you two general points.
Q85 Chairman: Give us the facts.
Mr Hardwick: I am giving you the
facts, Chairman. The first point is that we will decide when to
interview someone on whether we are going to treat them as a witness
or a suspect, and the second issue is of course sometimes we need
to interview someone very quickly to get urgent information from
them but on other occasions, like your questions of me, we will
want to do that at the end of the process when we have gathered
in all the other evidence and information from everybody that
we then want to put to the officer at the end of the process,
as happened here.
Q86 Mr Streeter: Seven months—I
cannot remember what I did last week. The sooner you get to people
to ask them what happened the better evidence you will get.
Mr Hardwick: No. Officers have
to make an initial statement but if we are questioning people
we need to know whether we are questioning them as a witness or
as a suspect and that will often depend on the medical reports
we get back, and we have to wait for those.
Q87 Mr Clappison: You say that officers
give a statement but there will not be questioning as part of
that statement; you will not ask them questions as either a witness
or a suspect until months later. Whether you are doing one or
the other is it not equally the case for both of them that people
will just turn round and say, "I cannot remember that detail
after this length of time"?
Mr Hardwick: People manage. There
will be occasions when what we need to do is put to the officers
in its entirety the evidence we have that might be about our concerns
or about what has happened, and it would not get at the truth
or provide us with the answers if we were to do that piecemeal.
Sometimes you want to do that at an early stage; on other occasions
you want to put the case and concerns to the officer at the end
of the process.
Q88 Mr Clappison: If somebody knows
what they know you can ask them to determine what they know and
if later facts contradict what they say that they know you can
put those facts to them and ask them again.
Mr Hardwick: There are problems
about going backwards and forwards to officers if new facts emerge.
Obviously I am not a professional interviewer, but I have talked
a lot to our investigators about this precisely because in relation
to this case—and precisely because this is a question that
is put to us—there will be occasions when the best way of
getting the officers' explanation of what they have done and why
is to put the evidence that we have collected in its entirety
to them at the end of the process.
Q89 Chairman: The Committee understands
that. You have mentioned sometimes that the police are in a position
where it is better for them to just say sorry and to move on and
to learn from their mistakes—people are not after scalps
particularly, they are after a change in the system. Are you in
a position to tell us how many times the IPCC may have said, "I
am sorry; we have got this wrong"?
Mr Hardwick: I cannot give you
a detailed answer but I certainly would say that.
Q90 Chairman: You have said it in
the past?
Mr Hardwick: I can certainly say
that. I was quoted the other day in the paper where I do think
we made a mistake, in the case of Shauna Bailey I think we made
a mistake in that case and I said it then.
Q91 Mr Winnick: Mr Hardwick, do you
feel that the police are very concerned about your organisation,
or do they see it as a safety valve; that if people are not satisfied
then they say "Go and see the IPCC"?
Mr Hardwick: As Mr Davies was
saying, if you look at some of the comments that are made, people
do not see us as a safety valve. Different police officers will
take a different view; some police officers and some senior staff
will see us as an important and productive part of the process
and welcome our presence, others will be hostile. It depends a
bit about how we might be dealing with them at particular times
and I think there would be different views about that.
Q92 Mr Winnick: How many recommendations
were made for instance last year that officers should be disciplined?
Mr Hardwick: I cannot give you
the figures.
Q93 Mr Winnick: If you are writing
to us—which I am sure the Chairman would like you to do—could
you give us for the last five years? Also how many of those recommendations
were accepted by the tribunal?
Mr Hardwick: On officers, we do
not make recommendations about the discipline of those precise
recommendations; what we will do is we will say that there is
a case to answer that on some occasion needs to be heard by a
tribunal. But we are not judge and jury; we do not say what we
think a sentence should be.
Chairman: If you could write to the Committee
by noon on Thursday with the figures for the last five years.
Mr Winnick: And what was the outcome
of those cases by the tribunal.
Chairman: That would be very helpful.
Q94 Mrs Dean: I presume you cannot
answer to say how many recommendations were made to suspend officers
either. Could you also let us know any details about that, please?
Mr Hardwick: We do not make recommendations
to suspend officers; that is a job for the management of the force.
We have to be consulted about the suspension of an officer but
we do not make recommendations as such.
Q95 Mrs Dean: Would you know, following
your investigations, how many officers were suspended? Would you
have that information?
Mr Hardwick: We could probably
find some information. I do not know whether we collect that information
centrally about officers that are suspended, I would have to go
and find out.
Chairman: I am sure that would be of
great interest to the Committee if you could add to that to the
shopping list we have given you because obviously when we are
producing a report we need facts and figures and you are the organisation
that would, in principle, have those facts and figures.
Q96 David Davies: Mr Hardwick, a
lot of the questioning has been from the point of view of complainants
who feel that the IPCC has not done a good job, but you must be
aware that actually a lot of police officers are similarly critical
of the IPCC and the complaints are along the same lines as the
complainants, that it takes months and months, if not years sometimes,
to sort out what appear to be fairly straightforward allegations
about police officers whose careers are put on hold and who are
unable to transfer into other forces while they are waiting for
the IPCC to solve those problems. What would you say to the police
officers who are also equally if not more critical about the IPCC
than members of the public complaining about the police?
Mr Hardwick: Of course, most complaints
are dealt with by forces themselves, as we have heard. We would
certainly recognise that when we are investigating an officer
it is a stressful matter for them. Sometimes the delays occur
because we have taken time to get the cooperation we need from
the officers and so they have to share some responsibility for
that. What I say is that however you cook the system, whatever
you do with the system or however you organise it, this is going
to be a very difficult experience for the families; it is going
to be a very difficult experience for the officers involved. I
do not envisage a system where people are going to be hanging
out the flags saying what a great job the IPCC has done in these
situations. It is not going to be like that.
Q97 Chairman: Final question from
me. On Radio 4 on 19 January 2010 you told the BBC—and I
quote—"I would say that we have cut the numbers of
deaths in police custody by half." What is the proof that
there is a direct link between the existence of the IPCC and the
number of reductions of the deaths in police custody?
Mr Hardwick: It is certainly the
case that since the IPCC has been in existence the numbers of
deaths in police custody has reduced from 36 to 15 and it has
reduced each year. Certainly the feedback we get from the police
themselves is that our work on that has been a major contribution
to that.
Q98 Chairman: How do you know that
it is the IPCC that has cut deaths?
Mr Hardwick: Of course, that was
an edited version; I think what I said was—
Q99 Chairman: That was a direct quote,
Mr Hardwick.
Mr Hardwick: What I said in the
course of a longer discussion with the interviewer was that I
thought that we had made a significant contribution to the reduction
in deaths in police custody.
Q100 Chairman: What is the linkage?
We have had a Labour Government for eight years, the Home Secretary
has not jumped up and said that as a result of him being the Home
Secretary and having a Labour Government there has been a reduction.
Mr Hardwick: We are doing some
further research, to try and answer that precise point. The reason
for my saying that is because the feedback we have had from the
police is that it is the recommendations that we have made that
have gradually led to the small change, partly, of course not
just us; I am not saying that, that would be a silly thing to
say, of course it is the officers on the ground. We have made
a significant contribution to some of the small improvements in
the care of often very vulnerable people that in the end has reduced
the numbers of deaths.
Q101 Chairman: Have you had feedback
from the police either oral in writing to say that it is the existence
of the IPCC that has led the police to reduce the numbers of deaths
in custody?
Mr Hardwick: We have had feedback
that we have made a significant contribution to that.
Chairman: Mr Hardwick, thank you very
much for giving evidence today. We are most grateful. As you said,
it was your suggestion that we should look at this particular
subject and you have offered to come and give evidence and we
are extremely grateful to you. We would be most grateful to have
that letter by noon on Thursday.
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