[A] new director in charge of investigating the North West’s police forces started work for the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) this week.
Amanda Rowe, who worked for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) for more than 13 years, started in the newly created role of Regional Director for the North West when the IPCC became the IOPC on Monday 8 January. Amanda’s main responsibility is to oversee all investigations relating to the region’s five police forces: Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside.
Amanda, from Liverpool, joined the IPCC in 2004 as an investigator and has progressed through the ranks, working as a senior investigator, Head of Training for Operations, Deputy Director for Operations and Acting Director of Major Investigations – before taking on her current role.
Prior to the IPCC, Amanda spent 18 years with HM Customs and Excise (now HMRC), in a variety of roles including as a specialist investigator on large scale drug importation investigations and in the intelligence function.
Amanda said: “As someone who has worked in the police complaints system for a long time, I am passionate about ensuring that people have confidence in the police and the system itself. I believe that coming from the area gives me a better understanding of the issues that are important to local people. As well as overseeing around 100 independent investigations across the North West each year, I’m looking forward to meeting organisations and individuals from the region about how we can work together.
“Although we are a new organisation, like the IPCC, we will continue to oversee the police complaints system in England and Wales and set the standards by which complaints should be handled by the police. We will also continue to investigate the most serious and sensitive matters involving the police, including deaths following police contact. One of our main objectives, and something I’ll be particularly focused on, is to use learning from our work to influence positive changes to policing.”
The IPCC became the IOPC this week, after the IPCC asked for changes to the organisation’s structure following a major expansion of its work. The new name, established in the Policing and Crime Act in January 2017, reflects the new structure of the organisation which is no longer a commission.
Director General, Michael Lockwood, heads up an operational team led by the Deputy Director General, five regional directors and a Director for Wales. We make our decisions entirely independently of the police and government and neither the Director General nor the directors have worked for the police.
To find out more about how we work and what we do visit www.policeconduct.gov.uk
