Justice
Who watches the watchmen? 28 September 2009 Rory Cahill meets John McNeill, newly appointed Scottish Police Complaints Commissioner If you are working in the justice field, there are not many career experiences as impressive as the one John McNeill has: he was the prison official in charge of large sections of the notorious Maze prison in Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles. Roles do not come more demanding or stressful in the British justice system. Nineteen prison officers were murdered by the IRA or other armed Republican groups over the course of the fighting in Northern Ireland. Security for men like McNeill, who was authorised to carry a weapon, was paramount. The situation in McNeill’s new job, as Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, should involve a great deal less checking underneath the car for bombs every morning. But McNeill will still approach it with the professionalism and dedication he has displayed throughout his career. Apart from his stint in the H-Blocks, McNeill’s other experiences make him perfectly suited to the job. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Probation Board and was previously a prison governor in Scotland and Northern Ireland, chief executive of the Scottish Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders, a member of the Parole Board for England and Wales and a member of the Risk Management Authority. So what does his new role involve? Put simply, McNeill is charged with ensuring that those making complaints about their treatment by Scottish police or policing agencies – and vitally, those complaining because they feel police have omitted to carry out their duties fairly or effectively – have their complaint dealt with in an effective and just fashion. “One of the things that motivated me to come into this was the need to hold public bodies to account. I’m very conscious of the fact that we are fortunate enough to live in a democratic society where policing is by consent but we are much more likely to have confidence in how the police go about their business if we believe and we are assured that they are accountable. “And a key part of that for me, that led me into this, is how the police deal with people when they go along to make a complaint about how they’ve been treated or not treated, something that has happened or hasn’t happened. So it is all about confirming the confidence that people can have in the police. It’s also tied up with the modernisation agenda within policing because oversight, accountability and dealing with complaints is evolving,” he says. The issue of public confidence in the police is key. Once the public, or large sections of it, come to distrust the police, it can take years, even decades, for the force to regain that confidence. In this regard, the role of an independent body like the Police Complaints Commission can play a vital role. McNeill points to the work done by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Al Hutchison – and his processor Nuala O’Loan – as an example of how an office like his can help rebuild trust in a force like the Royal Ulster Constabulary, now the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) that was not policing by consent in the eyes of much of the community. “There has been an enormous contribution by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. When Sir Hugh Orde took up his position at ACPO after stepping down from the PSNI, he drew attention to the fact that he and his officers drew immense assurance from the independent scrutiny by the Ombudsman there. “The confidence that people have in police in my experience doesn’t necessarily relate to big issues. It’s more about how they deal with you on a day-to-day basis. It is about the service you receive, the way in which they interact with you and what happens when you go along to make a complaint about how you’ve been treated. It’s incremental but it is cumulative. It is crucial that within Scotland we maintain the confidence the people have in the police, especially as policing goes through enormous changes.” McNeill is keen to streamline the way in which people in Scotland make complaints about their interactions with police and importantly, speed up the time it takes for complaints to be dealt with. Which begs the question, how does one currently make a complaint against police anyway? “You go along to a police station and you post in writing your complaint and what the statute says about an act or an omission of the police or policing bodies about which you haven’t been satisfied. That presupposes that you know how to deal with that and this is where the commission has begun to up its game. We have revisited the format of our website and we are working with the police to update and make the information that is in the public domain, the booklets that are provided, to make those much more userfriendly,” he says. That sounds all well and good in the stately confines of the Balmoral Hotel where the interview is taking place, but is a 16 year old in Easterhouse, or Craigmillar or Airdrie really going to walk into his or her local police station and submit a complaint against officers they have to see on a daily basis? “It is not easy for many people to make a complaint about public service. It is particularly difficult when it is about how you believe the police have treated you and how they should have treated you. This is where we are working with the police to ensure that information that is in the public domain about how you go about making a complaint is more accessible and more user friendly. “It is an area of work that has been recognised by other oversight bodies. The powers that we have at the moment do not allow us to initiate action short of a written complaint. For example, in Northern Ireland, they can do that, even where a complaint has not been made, if they decide there is a concern, they will do it. Now I don’t know if we need those powers or not at this point in time. What I am clear about is that we need to make the whole process of bringing a complaint, we need to make that more accessible,” McNeill says. McNeill is also keen to reassure police that he is not going to conduct a series of witch hunts. Instead, he sees his role as primarily being one of working with police to improve procedures and practices following complaints to ensure that similar complaints do not arise again. He says: “What we want is to move away from a culture of blaming individuals toward a learning culture where together we identify what we can do to drive up standards and again, as we do that, we confirm the confidence the public has in the police. I think it is always uncomfortable to be held to account but it doesn’t have to be acrimonious and it shouldn’t be, it is about working together to identify best professional practice. But that doesn’t mean as commission, we won’t hold them to account where we should. We most definitely will.” Holyrood Magazine - issue 219 | Previous article | Next article Related articles: Sealing the gaps 25 June 2010 New boy on the block 25 June 2010 More with less 11 June 2010 Seeking justice 11 June 2010 New man 11 June 2010 See all articles in this category Submit a comment |
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