The Act – Section by Section Functions of the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner Section 14: Complaint handling reviews
108.Section 35 of the 2006 Act makes provision about complaints handling reviews (“CHRs”) carried out by the PIRC. A CHR can be carried out by the PIRC only on the request of the complainer or the appropriate authority in relation to the complaint (which is either the SPA or the chief constable – see section 41 of the 2006 Act). Section 35 currently requires the PIRC to prepare a report following such a review and to set out the PIRC’s proposed actions following the review, but it does not provide for the PIRC to make any recommendations to the authority about action the authority should take in relation to the complaint following the review.
109.Section 14 of the Act amends section 35. In paragraph (a), it inserts provision, at subsection (1A), to enable the PIRC to carry out a complaint handling review in the absence of a request made by the complainer or the appropriate authority, if it is in the public interest to do so, and, at subsection (1B), to require the Commissioner to notify the complainer of a decision to carry out a complaint handling review as soon as that can reasonably be done after the decision to carry out a review has been made.
110.It also, in paragraph (b), enables the PIRC to make recommendations in relation to the complaint in its report of the review. Where the PIRC makes such recommendations, new section 35(4A) and (4B) (inserted by paragraph (c)) requires the authority to respond to the PIRC, within the timescales set out in the report, setting out what the authority has done, or proposes to do, in response to the recommendations, or explaining why nothing is being done in response. The PIRC must, as soon as reasonably practicable, publish the response to its recommendations, subject to certain qualifications set out in subsection (4C).