The extent to which police powers impact on the lives, liberties and livelihoods of the communities in which policing takes place makes police accountability more fundamental than some performance measures or governance processes used for other public bodies.
The principles for accountable policing evolved from a series of workshops held in Glasgow in 2016. Supported by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute, these workshops brought together leading policing experts from the police, police accountability bodies and academia. Participants from the police and accountability bodies were selected from across Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and a range of oversight bodies.
The principles for accountable policing are intended to provide a framework for assessing the degree to which police forces and oversight bodies in different jurisdictions meet accountability standards. The principles have been drafted primarily with public bodies in mind but apply to all forms of policing.
