KEY POINTS:
One of the more disconcerting aspects of the police conduct canvassed by Dame Margaret Bazley was the failure of members of the force to blow the whistle on wrongdoing colleagues.
Approaches to the commission of inquiry and a trawl through police records produced as many as 313 complaints of sexual assault against 222 officers between 1979 and 2005.
Regrettably, there were far fewer instances of officers doing anything other than turn a blind eye to inappropriate activity. Members of the police clearly felt either there was no necessity to report such behaviour to their superiors or that they would not be supported if they did.
That must change if the improved police culture identified by Dame Margaret is to continue and public confidence is to recover. Whistle-blowers are an important safeguard in an open society and must be free to voice any concern. Obviously, that was not the case in a culture which, albeit with good reason, promoted bonding among officers. This inhibited not only disclosure but also any inquiry into misconduct. Blowing the whistle on colleagues became, as Dame Margaret's report suggests, extremely inadvisable.
It was also problematic in other ways. Police policies on whistle-blowing are governed largely by general instructions and the 2000 Protected Disclosures Act. In neither case were they well understood, actively promoted or used.
The act, which applies throughout the public sector, does not translate readily to police operations. In any event, its shortcomings have already become apparent.
Its promise of protection from victimisation applies only if the whistle-blower first uses an internal complaints channel. Inevitably, that passage is occupied by people with their own agendas and sensitivities and so can be a catalyst for suppression.
Police general instructions are hardly more helpful. Dame Margaret concludes that officers did not interpret them as making the reporting of suspected misconduct mandatory. They merely encouraged disclosure. As a further deterrent, officers did not have a clear idea of what steps might be taken once they had reported wrongdoing, including the support they would receive and the degree of confidentiality they could expect.
Throughout the public sector more must be done to protect and encourage whistle-blowers.
In terms of the police, Dame Margaret lists this - with positive leadership, the recruitment and advancement of more women staff, and a periodic external audit - as the key to embedding an improved culture. Only when that is in place will officers be willing to stand up and challenge misconduct, and be supported for doing so.
The police say work has started on creating a protected disclosure regime that will accomplish this. Experience suggests this will not be a straightforward matter, no matter how well intentioned the approach.
There is the question, for example, of whether it should be a disciplinary offence if officers who are in a position to know of misconduct choose not to report it. Northern Ireland has gone some way down that path, imposing a positive obligation on supervisors to report wrongdoing.
Dame Margaret makes no recommendations on such detail. But she concludes the police should "design and actively promote a single stand-alone policy of 'report and be protected' for all disclosures of wrongdoing, designed to ensure that staff feel safe coming forward to report any issue of concern".
As with much of her report, that should not have had to be said. Nor should it need to be stated that the Government should be equally active in ironing out flaws in whistle-blowing legislation.
