Force pledges commitment to robust vetting following historical data wash results

Devon and Cornwall Police has pledged its ongoing commitment to ensure that all police officers, staff, and volunteers undergo ongoing stringent and robust vetting procedures.

This follows the publication of the historical data wash where over 300,000 officers, staff and volunteers working across UK police forces have been checked against the Police National Database (PND). The Force submitted the HR data of 7210 employees.

In the data submitted by the Force it was found that there were no cases that needed criminal or disciplinary investigation. There were also no cases that needed further management intervention or re-vetting. The Force did uncover a small number of people working in the organisation requiring welfare support because they may have been a victim or witness to a crime.

In January 2023 forces were asked to prepare HR data on officers, staff, special constables, and volunteers so it could be processed through PND. The results of the checks were then returned to forces by the Home Office so that each case could be assessed and if the level of concern was such, it was referred to the Force’s professional standards department.

Deputy Chief Constable Dave Thorne said: “The historical data wash is a key step to identifying information and intelligence and take appropriate and necessary action to remove individuals who should not work in policing. The Force has been committed to taking an open and transparent approach right from the start of the project.

“Although it is positive that the data wash did not uncover any individuals who should undergo criminal or disciplinary procedures, I do acknowledge that there have been an increased and unacceptable amount of misconduct cases within Devon and Cornwall Police in recent years.

“The vast majority of our officers, staff and volunteers act with the highest levels of honesty and integrity and any issue of misconduct is always very disappointing not only to the communities we serve but to those in our Force who always strive to act with the utmost professionalism while carrying out their duties.

“I hope this data wash provides some level of reassurance to our communities that we are committed to ensuring the highest standards of integrity that the public rightly expect of us and that we will continue to robustly remove any individuals in our Force that do not uphold those standards.

“We look forward to working with the Home Office, National Police Chiefs’ Council and other forces to consider a longer-term integrity solution for policing which aims to alert forces to any new information about staff member in a timely manner.”