Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary

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Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) is the shared name of two separate bodies in the United Kingdom with statutory responsibility for the inspection of police forces in Great Britain.

The two bodies are:

In England and Wales, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, responsible to the Home Office [1]. The first inspectors were appointed under the County and Borough Police Act 1856; current statutory duties are defined in the Police Act 1996. The Inspectorate reports on the activities of the territorial forces of England and Wales and other bodies involved in law enforcement such as the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary HM Revenue and Customs and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Reporting has also been performed on a voluntary basis for the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police.

In Scotland, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, answerable to the Scottish Executive [2]. HMIC is responsible for inspections of the eight Scottish territorial Police Forces, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, the Scottish Criminal Record Office, the Scottish Police College and the Scottish Police Information Strategy. Until 1 April 2007 HMIC is also responsible for dealing with complaints against the police; after this date non-criminal complaints will be dealt with by the Police Complaints Commissioner (consequential to Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act). HMIC has no authority to deal with complaints against Chief Police Officers. The Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 provides a statutory duty of inspection of British Transport Police operations in Scotland.

[edit] Northern Ireland

Inspections of police in Northern Ireland have been made in recent years by invitation on a non-statutory basis by HMIC for England and Wales. The Police (NI) Act also allows HMIC (England and Wales) to perform inspection and assessment of services or projects by direction of the Secretary of State.

[edit] Criticism

The commission is weaker than one might suppose if, judged by its grand title, one assumed it to be the source of objective judgements about the police. Unfortunately, this is not the case: HMIC's reports on the police depend largely on assessment and records provided by the police themselves. Quotations are from the HMIC (England and Wales) website.

"Since March 2004, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has conducted a . . . review of each Home Office police force . . . . The process is known as baseline assessment (BA)."

"The assessments are undertaken by regional HM Inspectors, supported by experienced police officers and police staff on secondment. BA is designed primarily as a self-assessment . . . It is important to recognise that BA is not a traditional inspection."

Qualitative assessments are supplemented by "key quantitative indicators": the Home Secretary decides what statistics are required on such matters as "crime incidence and detection rates", and the police provide the statistics. The police of course also decide what is recorded as a statistic, and sometimes do so in ways with which honest police officers are not happy.

There is a relevant web page at www.ggm11.plus.com/hmic.htm