On completion of the investigation, CAPO must then pass the results to the IPCC for endorsement. The IPCC will review each case received from CAPO by examining the investigation files and other relevant documents. It may raise any comments or queries with CAPO. For very serious and complicated cases, the monitoring process may involve the setting up of special review panels, the interviewing of witnesses by IPCC Members and the seeking of expert medical and/or legal advice where necessary. This may necessitate the lodging of numerous rounds of queries with CAPO or even re-investigation by CAPO. The IPCC will only endorse CAPO's decision concerning your complaint if it is completely satisfied that CAPO has looked into your case thoroughly, correctly and impartially.

Once the IPCC has endorsed your case, you will be informed of the outcome of your complaint by CAPO. The actual time required for the above process will depend on the complexity of your case and the outcome of re-investigation, if any.

The IPCC does not investigate complaints against the Police — that is the work of CAPO. If you wish to lodge a complaint against the Police, you should contact a police station or the CAPO office, following the procedures set out in the 'Channels for Making Complaints Against the Police' section of this homepage. The IPCC will refer any complaints it receives to CAPO for follow-up investigation.

The IPCC is not an appeal body. It reviews each case reported to CAPO and ensures that it is investigated fairly and thoroughly before it is concluded. If you lodge an appeal against the result of investigation of your complaint, the IPCC will refer it to CAPO for a review, the outcome of which will be reported to the IPCC for monitoring. The IPCC will endorse CAPO's recommendation regarding your appeal only when it is completely satisfied that CAPO has handled it correctly and impartially.

All complaints of maladminstration or malmanagement against the Police, unless they are lodged by complainants who are regarded as 'aggrieved parties', will not be handled by CAPO and are non-reportable to the IPCC.

Complaints against CAPO officers are made through the same channels to CAPO as with all other complaints. Under the established practice, if a complaint is lodged against a CAPO officer of a particular rank, the complainant will be contacted by an officer senior in rank to the complainee and the complaint will be investigated by an officer from CAPO of another regional office. Complaints against the head of CAPO, on the other hand, should be addressed to the Commissioner of Police. Such complaints will be dealt with by the Service Quality Wing of the Police and the investigation findings will as usual be monitored by the IPCC.

Substantiation rates should not be used as a yardstick to assess the effectiveness of a complaints system. While substantiating a complaint requires evidence or clear convincing justifications, the IPCC is fully aware that each complaint case has to be examined independently and impartially to uphold fairness to both the complainants and complainees.

The substantiation rates of complaints only appear to be low when viewed against the total number of complaints. However, as a considerable amount of complaints each year are not fully investigated (e.g. being informally resolved, withdrawn or not pursuable), the substantiation rates should be measured against fully-investigated complaints. In 2007, the substantiation rate of fully-investigated complaints was 8.9%, broken down as follows -

Yes. IPCC has raised a number of suggestions to improve police procedures. These included :

The three suggestions made by the Council as detailed above had been adopted by the Police Force.

The IPCC annual report will tell you more about the work of the IPCC. It also contains accounts of some actual cases that the Council has handled. To obtain a copy, you may visit the 'Annual Report' section of this homepage, or contact the IPCC Secretariat in person or simply by telephone, fax or e-mail. The contact information of the IPCC Secretariat is at the 'Contact Us' section of this homepage.

To enhance transparency of the IPCC, part of the IPCC meetings is open to members of the public and the media. Notice of the meetings are posted in the 'Press Releases' section of this homepage. If you are interested in observing the meetings, please contact the IPCC Secretariat in advance by telephone, fax or e-mail to reserve a seat.