The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) could do a better job if it had more staff, according to one of its members.

Will Francis, a former Magistrate, said complaints could be pursued more vigorously if it had a high-calibre executive officer rather than simply an administrative assistant.

The authority is currently without any assistant as the last one left earlier this month although chairperson Michelle St. Jane says the position will be filled by the new year and a new management system will come online.

The PCA's mandate is to advocate for the resolution of civilian complaints against the Police. Mr. Francis made his comments as the authority issued a statement defending its decision to drop the case of a lawyer wrongly accused of indecent exposure even though he never got the apology he deserved from the Police (see separate story).

Asked why the PCA could not do more to resolve Mr. Farmer's complaint, Mr. Francis replied: "Our powers are limited as to what we can actually force the Police to do. We do not have the powers of the court to make an order that the Police could obey."

Quizzed over whether the PCA ought to have more power, he replied that the real issue is getting more staff to carry out the investigations it already has power to do.

"We're limited to the members of the board and one secretary and even the secretary we have is not always of the highest calibre in terms of real executive ability, in terms of the pay scale that the Government assigns to such a person," he said.

The PCA is entirely funded by Government but it is independent of it and appointed by the Governor.

"Sometimes if you're not a body that's strictly the creature of the Minister you don't always get considered as much by Cabinet," said Mr. Francis.

He explained that the PCA sometimes has to share its administrative assistant with the Parole Board, of which he's also a member, and there is a backlog of cases due to the difficulty it sometimes experiences getting responses from the Police.

"I'm not the chairperson and this might be disagreed with by the other members of the board, but I think I would not be speaking out too much if I said we would certainly like to have at least an executive officer and maybe two of them who could help us carry out some of the investigations that need doing. It's a lot for one person and we've been having quite a bit of trouble getting the right kind of person," he said.

Quizzed over the current funding arrangements and if more is needed, Mr. Francis said he did not want to "stick his neck out" on that topic.

Former chair of the PCA Arlene Brock, who is now the Ombudsman, said: "The most important thing about the PCA is that it should be functionally independent, have full administrative assistance and technical assistance and a proper and permanent office space. The authority comprises volunteers who work very hard, but a lot of work is in the hands of the volunteer chair and deputy chair who do the triage and ensure correspondence etc. is done. A full-time administrator is critical."

However, current chair Michelle St. Jane said the PCA has a new electronic complaints management system coming online soon which would cut down "hugely" on the amount of administration needing to be done. It will also send out alerts if the Police have not responded to things and archive the last decade of complaints.

She added: "We've reduced the number of open complaints tremendously in the last 18 months. Our administrative position is not filled as they finished on October 2 but we will re-staff that by January and I don't think we need another person because we will have the new complaints management system."

Governor Sir Richard Gozney said: "The effectiveness of the Police Complaints Authority depends partly on staffing and partly on the approaches and receptivity to their work shown by other entities.

"I am well aware from the chair and other members of the Authority of their concern that established posts should be filled promptly. I share those concerns. I am of course aware of constraints on staffing across Government-funded posts at present, but I hope that ways will be found to maintain for the Police Complaints Authority the small staff assigned to it."

Acting Minister of Public Safety Walter Roban did not return calls for comment.