POLICE officers who fail to pass vetting procedures will be automatically sacked under new rules to be introduced by the government, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has said.
She told GB News: “They all have to go through vetting every few years and if they move between particular police forces or change jobs, there’s usually re-vetting. But what the procedure is at the moment, is if they don’t fulfil the vetting procedure, there’s no way of then dismissing them or getting rid of them.
“And that seems to me, and I think the public would agree, to be wrong. So this is about providing a way for chief constables to make sure if someone cannot hold vetting as a police officer, they can be dismissed.
“Of course, there is a right of appeal, because that has to be put in place, but it does provide that way of removing people who should not be within the police and vetting is looking at the background of an individual and building a picture to see if they are a risk to the public or to colleagues, and if they can’t hold vetting, then removing them from the police service.”
She added: “This should have been done far sooner. When Labour came in last July…the Home Secretary, in October, set out a whole series of steps to improve standards within policing.
“This is one measure. There are other measures that we will be bringing in in the next few months, including strengthening the requirements around suspending officers where there are issues around domestic abuse or sexual offending, treating those officers who are found guilty of certain offences as treating that as gross misconduct and a presumption that they would be dismissed from policing.
“There is a whole range of things that we want to do to improve standards, but you’re absolutely right. This should have been done a long time ago.”
On the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman, she said: “Well, I think the Supreme Court decision was really welcomed by so many people and provides that clarity that’s been missing for far too long.
“I’m pleased that the Prime Minister has said that that is the law of the land, and that now has to be used in terms of the procedures we have in place in terms of public service provision.
“I think that’s really important. And as the policing minister, I’m very keen now to work with policing as they set out their guidance about how this will work in terms of things like strip searching.”
