Strategic Independent Advisory Group Policy

Summary from the Policy on the Role of the Strategic Independent Advisory Group (SIAG) / Independent Advisory Group (IAG) and Group Members.

The IAGs came out of the Lawrence enquiry in 1998 when they were first suggested, which recommended the use of local people in policing. IAG is one of the recommended ways of doing so and is designed to help us understand needs, wants and assets of communities, particularly those that are underrepresented in policing. They quote "a genuine partnership with our communities". Thames Valley Police has this at Local and Strategic level, and if we have a critical incident, we will have extraordinary IAGs to deal with that specific incident.

We the Police need to:

• Understand the insights and importance of your involvement,
• Listen to and act on advice, if we can, and if we cant, at least understand and explain why not. A good example being Spit Guards which we brought to a SIAG Meeting explaining what we wanted to do, and the SIAG were in agreement and we therefore delivered Spit Guards to our front line officers,
• Provide advice, information and training.

You need to:

• Be present at meetings and read any material sent in advance,
• Contribute by challenging - if we are unable to answer any questions, we will take them away,
• Take part in training,
• Act in accordance with the Code of Ethics - as a member of an IAG you should all have a copy and signed and agreed to follow that.
• Be polite and respectful,
• Express independent views in a safe environment, but if you want those views expressed as a collective and not as an individual, Thames Valley Police will do that for you,
• You need to understand the communities you represent,
• Attempt to better understand our business,
• We need to be receptive but not necessarily follow your advice, and if we do not follow your advice, we should tell you why,
• Agree levels of confidentiality on a case by case basis,
• IAG advice is given collectively and not identifying single individuals.

You should not use the IAG to:

• Report a crime or incident to Police,
• Complain about a level of service,
• Use it to gain access to senior managers on business not relating to the IAG,
• Make complaints about Police,
• Appeal complaints against Police,
• Discuss employment issues personal to you or someone you know,
• Not a forum for personal issues to be aired, this is about your communities across Thames Valley.

Basic training required:

• Awareness of Police ranks,
• Awareness of the geography of Thames Valley Police areas,
• Awareness of Chief Constable Management Team,
• Awareness and compliance of the Code of Practice,
• This can be covered in an Induction pack,
• Needs and wants from you as members were sent out but there was not much response. If you a capable of a ride-a-long, this should be considered or sitting in one of our Control Rooms to experience policing,
• Stop and Search Independent Advisory Group (S&SIAG) should get a Stop and Search input,
• What specific training needs do you have,
• Cover information off on a month to month basis - we have opened up Custody / Control room visits in the past, but with a small take up.

Conduct reviews:

• We conducted our own internal review and we with Chairs of the SIAG and S&SIAG - all local IAGs should also be doing that,
• One of the key questions is training and the local IAGs do need to do this.