Priority areas of work

Through our Corporate Planning process, and to ensure that we focus our attention on the issues that matter most to the public, the IPCC has used evidence from our investigations, casework, and guardianship to select six priority areas that will guide our work.

Our Corporate Plan outlines our strategic direction for the next three years, and our strategic theme of Accountability looks at reforming the complaints system, making it more responsive to complainants, and ensuring that learning can be demonstrated. Priority areas sit underneath this theme and are areas that we feel are important in our role of working towards improving confidence in the police through the complaints system.

The six priority areas are:

• Deaths and serious injury in police custody

• Deaths and serious injury as a result of police use of firearms and less lethal weapons

• Deaths and serious injury as a result of gender abuse and domestic violence, where it is alleged that the police have failed to protect the victim

• Deaths and serious injury following road traffic incidents, which it is alleged that the police have caused or failed to prevent

• Police use of stop and search powers, and other issues affecting young people’s confidence in the police

• Policing of protests and public order incidents.

We’ll focus on these areas to ensure that police forces learn and improve, such incidents reduce in number and public confidence improves.

Our work will include a programme of engagement with groups who represent communities that may come into contact with the police. This will help us to promote access to the complaints system, listen to and learn from the experience of these groups, and ensure that their feedback about the police, the IPCC, and the complaints system informs our future planning.

The priority areas will be reviewed each year as part of our planning process.