The Panel has a legal role to consider (non-criminal) complaints regarding the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner. Below are further details of the Panel's complaints handling process. The Panel cannot consider complaints regarding operational policing matters or regarding officers of North Yorkshire Police, nor can it consider complaints regarding the fire and rescue service. For further details of how to complain about these services see "What we can't do", below.
Where the Panel publishes reports of its deliberations on a complaint matter, these can be found here.
Making a Complaint
When to complain
If you have a concern about something the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has said or done, the first step is to raise it with them directly. Contact details for the Office of the PFCC can be found here.
If you are still not satisfied, you can make a complaint to us, the police, fire and crime panel. Someone can act on your behalf (perhaps a friend or relative) if you give your written permission for them to do so.
What we can do
Complaints about the behaviour of the Commissioner are dealt with either by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) or by us, the panel.
We have to record any complaints alleging criminal conduct (or which indicate criminal conduct may have occurred) by the Commissioner. We then have to refer these complaints to the IOPC for investigation.
Any other complaints are handled by us, sometimes leading to a process known as informal resolution.
Informal resolution means encouraging, helping and bringing about the resolution of a complaint without going through legal or formal proceedings.
We can consider complaints about the way a decision has been made or the behaviour of the Commissioner, if this has caused problems for you.
What we can't do
We can't just question what the Commissioner has done simply because you don't agree with it. There must be some alleged fault by the Commissioner. For example, you may think that they have not followed the proper process for taking a decision.
There are some things we can't look into because there is a more appropriate body to deal with your complaint, or because we don't have the legal power to do so. If we can't help, we will tell you about other organisations that may be able to help.
In particular, we are not able to consider complaints about the performance of North Yorkshire Police or North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service or any of their officers. Further information regarding making a complaint about the police or fire service can be found here.
Additionally, if you have asked the Commissioner to review the outcome of a complaint that you have made against North Yorkshire Police, please note that we don't have the legal powers to examine the outcome of that review.
The Panel also cannot process reports of incidents, for example if you think you have witnessed a crime. These must be reported directly to North Yorkshire Police by calling 101 (for non-emergency reporting) or 999 in an emergency.
More Information?
You will be able to find out more information about making a complaint in the documents below:
Making a complaint about the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner or Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire
Complaints handling flowchart for the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel
If the panel believes it is in the public interest, it can publish a report of its decision on a complaint. For published reports click here
