Police complaints ought be dealt with in a much more public manner. The substance of the complaint and details of how it was resolved need to be made public where this can be done without revealing personal information.
For serious complaints I think a Police and Crime Commissioner should consider holding public hearings, where what went wrong can be investigated in detail.
A commissioner will need to develop a process for handling complaints about police policy and strategy – the current police complaints system is not well suited to complaints which are not about an individual officer’s interaction with an individual member of the public.
Keeping track of complaints is one way the Police and Crime Commissioner could use the Police and Crime Panel, getting them to do what members of the Police Authority currently do and review complaint files, this would inform them about the activity and performance of the force helping them perform their role and provide the commissioner with assistance.
See Also
Further Views on Specific Topics:
Overview
I have published a summary of my views on what Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner ought do.