Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) is a public body of the Scottish Government and reports to the Scottish Parliament. It has statutory responsibility for the inspection of the effectiveness and efficiency of the police service in Scotland.
Contents
HMICS is part of a tripartite distribution of powers for accountability for the Scottish police service. The Scottish Government has powers to make regulations for the governance and administration of the police force and the promotion of efficiency. The Scottish Police Authority is responsible for setting the budget and ensuring that best value is attained for the public purse. The Chief Constable is responsible for operational policing.
The head of the service is HM Inspector of Constabulary, held by Derek Penman since 31 January 2014.
The HMICS is based at St Andrew's House in Edinburgh and had £886,000 of funding allocated by the Scottish Government in 2013-14.
History
HMICS was established by the Police (Scotland) Act 1857.
Until 1 April 2013 HMICS was 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 was also responsible for dealing with complaints against the police; since then non-criminal complaints have been dealt with by the Police Complaints Commissioner, following the passing of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006. HMIC has no authority to deal with complaints against Chief Police Officers.