This is a blog by the CJA’s Policy and Communications Officer, Finola Scott.
A longstanding fight for fairer policing
Stop and search has been at the heart of the CJA’s policy work for years. In 2021, we submitted a super-complaint on Section 60 – the suspicionless stop and search power – arguing it is ineffective, harmful and discriminatory, and that community scrutiny of stop and search is often weak and fragmented. The super-complaint triggered a formal investigation by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), whose 2023 report confirmed what communities had long been telling us: forces were often non-compliant with guidance and legislation around stop and search, child safeguarding was insufficient, and no force could fully explain its racial disproportionality data.
The College of Policing consultation
In May, the College of Policing launched a consultation on updated Authorised Professional Practice (APP) for stop and search – the national guidance setting out how officers, supervisors and senior leaders should conduct, oversee and scrutinise the use of these powers. The CJA’s work directly influenced this – the updated APP responds to the findings of the HMICFRS investigation into our super-complaint, as well as the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation into child Q (2022) and the HMICFRS spotlight report on disproportionate use of police powers (2021).
There are some improvements in the revised guidance. The APP is now organised by rank, with distinct obligations for officers, supervisors and senior leaders. It highlights that routine handcuffing should not take place, and sets out important principles around safeguarding, proportionality and de-escalation. These are steps forward, and we recognise them as such.
But the HMICFRS investigation found something important that the College of Policing must consider: a central problem was non-compliance with the guidance that already existed. As such, our response focused on ensuring that forces are held accountable for improving standards of practice through the APP.
We are grateful to all members who contributed their expertise to our response, including colleagues from Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ), Leaders Unlocked, Just for Kids Law, Race Equality First and CJA academic member Dr Clare Torrible.
What we called for
The CJA’s response, informed by member consultation, focused on ensuring that the updated APP is accompanied by the accountability and enforcement mechanisms it needs to be effective. Our key recommendations include;
- A named oversight body – Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), supported by Community Scrutiny Panels – to monitor and publicly report on forces’ compliance with the APP. No single body currently holds this responsibility, and without one, accountability will remain inconsistent. As the policing landscape evolves, newly created Policing and Crime Boards may also play an important role in taking this responsibility forward.
- An updated national policing curriculum to be published alongside the APP, with explicit alignment between the two. Guidance is only meaningful if officers have received adequate, robust training – and the CJA remains concerned that training for stop and search, particularly for s.60, is insufficient and inconsistently delivered across forces. Training completion should be a requirement, with compliance data published annually by each force.
- Explicit duties for senior leaders to identify, understand and act on racial disproportionality, building on the commitments set out in the Police Race Action Plan. HMICFRS found that no force could fully explain its disproportionality data and that forces were not taking the issue seriously enough. This must change.
- More explicit, directive language around the recording of both self-defined and officer-perceived ethnicity, to close the persistent “unknown” data gap. Home Office data from 2024 shows that ethnicity was recorded as “not stated” or “unknown” in 20.5% of all stop and search records – making it difficult to accurately measure the full extent of racial disproportionality.
- Forces to publish all community scrutiny panel recommendations and their responses, including where recommendations have not been accepted, with reasons given. Effective community scrutiny is essential for enhancing police transparency, legitimacy and trust – but it can only be meaningful if forces are publicly accountable for how they respond to it. We also recommend that panels meet in community spaces rather than police environments, and that they routinely review randomly selected body-worn video footage of searches to ensure differing perspectives on police interactions are properly considered.
- Stronger, more directive language around the independent selection of community scrutiny panel chairs, rather than this merely being described as “ideal.” The Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner should play no role in the recruitment process.
- Lived experience case studies to be embedded in the guidance, to help officers understand the real and lasting impact that stop and search can have on individuals and communities. This was raised clearly by our members during consultation as a significant gap in how officers are currently prepared for these encounters.
- The government to publish its response to the 2023 community scrutiny consultation, which has now gone unanswered for nearly three years, as a matter of urgency.
Guidance is not enough
Public confidence in policing is at historically low levels – only 49% of people rate their local police as doing a good or excellent job. In this context, improved guidance that cannot be enforced is unlikely to rebuild the community trust that effective and legitimate policing depends upon. Our members were clear during consultation that the prevailing police culture does not yet actively foster the trust and compliance necessary to ensure guidance is successfully implemented. That challenge sits alongside, and cannot be resolved by, changes to the APP alone.
Read our full consultation response
