Police Vetting Changes

The Government recently announced plans to tighten up police vetting to allow forces to sack officers who don’t pass their vetting.

Police vetting is carried out both during the initial recruitment process, and on a regular basis on existing officers. It is a process designed to identify those officers and staff who have either a criminal background, clearly undesirable traits such as racism, sexism or misogyny, or are liable to blackmail or other coercion due to their associations with criminals, their financial instability, or other undue incidences. Basically, weeding out those whose honesty, integrity or reliability doesn’t meet the high standards that the public should rightfully expect from the police.

When I was in the police I had an enhanced level of vetting, due to the job I did and the information I sometimes received. This level of vetting was quite intrusive - I had to provide bank statements, social media logins, and full details of friends and family. There are even higher levels of vetting where officers are interviewed by specially trained assessors who delve into all aspects of their private life - what do they do for relaxation, their hobbies, where they spend their money, even what sort of porn they watch. It is incredibly intrusive and designed to identify areas where these officers, who are in receipt of the most secret and sensitive information, could be unduly influenced by bad actors.

The Government’s intention is to change the law to allow officers who fail their vetting to be sacked. Seems reasonable, right? The current situation, where an officer who fails their vetting can remain on full pay, not doing the job they’re paid to do, with no apparent way of remedying the situation, is patently nonsensical.

To be clear - someone who is a criminal, or who harbours prejudicial views against sections of society, or who actively seeks to undermine the police or other related institutions from within, shouldn’t be a cop. Good riddance to them.

As with every such change however, the devil is in the detail. Police officers are by the nature of their work often in conflict with others, and a small but significant proportion of the people they deal with are quite happy to use the complaints process to try and get back at an officer who they don’t agree with. Are false allegations and complaints going to be considered sufficient for an officer to fail their vetting? What about an officer who is in an abusive domestic situation - unfortunately it isn’t unheard of for one partner to make false allegations against the other. This could lead to a police officer being arrested, interviewed and bailed — this would obviously appear on vetting searches. Could this lead to dismissal, even if the allegations turn out to be unfounded or false?

It surprises many to learn that police officers aren’t employees. They are Crown Servants, and as a result don’t have contracts of employment nor many of the safeguards and protections that such contracts bestow. Police officers can have their rest days cancelled, be posted to different force areas with just 28 days notice, and be forced to work overtime (some of it unpaid!) even if they have other plans. To erode their limited protections without taking a fair and measured view of their overall employment conditions isn’t fair.

The Police Federation, a sort of union who represent rank and file officers, have already spoken out against these changes. The rules need to change, but it must be done carefully to avoid unintended consequences.