Statutory Code of Practice for Ethical Policing and the new Duty of Candour

8 December 2023

The College of Policing has issued a statutory Code of Practice for Ethical Policing (“the COP”). It came into force on 6 December 2024. The COP will be supplemented in January by a non-statutory Code of Ethics. Meanwhile, the College of Policing states that the current 2014 version of the Code of Ethics will remain on its website to aid decision-making and expectations around behaviour.

Status and purpose of the Code of Practice

The COP is issued under section 39A of the Police Act 1996 which provides a power for the College of Policing to issue codes of practice relating to the discharge of their functions by chief officers of police.  Under subsection 39(7), a chief officer is required to have regard to the code in discharging any function to which the code of practice relates.  The stated purpose of the Code of Practice is to set out the actions that chief officers should carry out to ensure that they lead an ethical culture, where staff are supported and directed to use the ethical policing principles in decision making and to demonstrate professional behaviour. It also describes what needs to be done to proactively and positively identify – and respond to – misconduct and corruption when it occurs.

Duty of Candour

The COP includes a new Duty of Candour that goes well beyond application to inquests.  It includes a general duty for Chief Officers to ensure openness and candour within their force and goes on to set out what that includes.

The duty of candour incorporates compliance with the Charter for Families Bereaved through Public Tragedy.  The NPCC’s adoption of the Charter is available here.  As the COP is statutory code of practice, chief officers must have regard to the Charter when discharging functions relevant to it.

Other aspects of the duty of candour include:

  • Ensuring that the organisation and all colleagues within the organisation approach public scrutiny (including public inquiries and inquests) with candour, in an open, honest and transparent way, making full disclosure of relevant documents, material and facts in order to assist the search for the truth.
  • Ensuring that the organisation seeks learning from the findings of external scrutiny and from past mistakes.
  • Always supporting and encouraging colleagues to be open and candid, and to raise concerns appropriately.
  • Ensuring that institutional barriers to candour, such as policies, practices and culture, are recognised and addressed.
  • Encouraging behaviour that puts public interest ahead of personal and organisational concerns, where conflicts of interest occur.
  • Promoting proactive, open communication with the public when a policing service to which they are entitled falls below the level of reasonable expectations:
    • explaining the short- and long-term effects of what has happened
    • without undue delay, offering an apology expressing regret and appropriate remedy to put the matter right
    • explaining to those affected their entitlement to access the police complaints system, recognising that whether or not an apology and remedy has been provided, complaints need to be managed in line with the IOPC statutory guidance on the police complaints system

The duty will no doubt raise thorny legal issues for police forces particularly when the duty of candour affects information about particular investigations or policing methods generally, disciplinary proceedings, or information rights of third parties. Chief officers will undoubtedly need to develop internal policies and procedures around implementing the duty addressing those issues, supported by appropriate training.

Other new provisions

Compared to the 2014 Code of Ethics, the COP includes new provisions relating to staff welfare and CPD. It also includes more granular requirements for Chief Officers in relation to:

  • Ensuring ethical and professional behaviour;
  • Challenging unprofessional behaviour; and
  • Recognising and responding misconduct including analysing a wide variety of data.

We will publish more detail for our clients in our publications The Beat (our publication on police law) and Insight (our publication on inquests and inquiries).  To sign up click here.


Authors

Jonathan Landau

Call 2004

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