Five year legislative review

What is the current position?

When an investigation ends, the Police Ombudsman can make recommendations either to the PPS (where the alleged offence may be criminal) or to the PSNI’s Professional Standards Department (PSD) in respect of disciplinary proceedings.

PPS makes a decision about whether a police officer will be prosecuted, and the PSD decides whether there is a case to answer for misconduct and the nature of the proceedings in relation to that conduct.

The court has also provided judgments on the Police Ombudsman’s powers in this respect.

In 2020 a court ruled that the Police Ombudsman under current legislation has no power to determine or substantiate a complaint where criminal or disciplinary proceedings are involved.

The Court confirmed the role for the Ombudsman is limited in those circumstances to communicating the outcome of those proceedings to the complainant.

This position was affirmed by a ruling of the High Court in February 2025.

With regard to the determination of matters by the Ombudsman, Mr Justice Scoffield held that ‘the substance of the complaint – where it is a complaint of misconduct or criminal conduct – is not for the Ombudsman to determine herself.’

The Police Ombudsman and Chief Executive decided to appeal this decision.

What we propose

We believe that legislation should be introduced to provide for a power to ‘determine’ a complaint in circumstances where no criminality or misconduct has occurred, but where the complainant has a legitimate grievance and PSNI have failed to provide an adequate service to the member of the public.

Why is it important?

Other bodies have the power to determine, including NIPSO and the Financial Services Ombudsman.

From 2020, following an amendment to the Police Reform Act 2002, the IOPC in England and Wales was given the statutory power to reach a ‘determination’ at the conclusion of a complaint investigation.

The IOPC can determine that the member of the public has been failed in respect of the service provided by the relevant police force.

However, the IOPC, like the Police Ombudsman, does not have the power to determine criminality or whether misconduct has occurred.