Transparency of Toronto Police Service Procedures

Background

The Toronto Police Services Board (the Board) routinely approves new policies and amends existing ones, which, consequently, requires the Chief to develop new Toronto Police Service (Service) procedures or amend existing ones. In addition, the Chief develops various additional procedures that direct the manner in which Service Members conduct their business across the organization.

Purpose of Policy

In order to ensure that Service procedures are consistent with Board Policies and to facilitate the exercise of the Board’s monitoring and oversight responsibilities more generally, the Board must be able to access and review all Service procedures. Furthermore, to maintain public accountability of both the Board and the Service, procedures of public interest that govern the interaction of police with the public must, to the greatest degree possible, be transparent and accessible by the public.

Policy of the Board

It is, therefore, the policy of the Toronto Police Services Board that:

1. The Chief of Police will post a list of all Service procedures on the Service’s public website, identifying for each procedure the date of its most recent update;
2. The Chief of Police will post on the Service’s public website copies of those procedures that govern the interaction of police with the public, in a form that will not endanger the efficacy of investigative techniques and operations, and keep these copies up-to-date at least once a year;
3. The Chief of Police will ensure that the Office of the Police Services Board has full access to all current Service procedures, through the Service’s secure Intranet;
4. Any Board Member may, at any time, request the Executive Director and Chief of Staff to provide them with a confidential, full copy of any Service procedure, and the procedure shall be made available;
5. Board Members will take all reasonable steps to maintain the confidentiality of any Service procedure, or sections thereof, that are not posted on the Service’s public-facing website; and,
6. The Board, through the Office of the Police Services Board and as part of its periodical review of its policies, will examine the Service procedures associated with each Policy to determine their consistency with the Board’s direction, and may request the Chief to review procedures to effect amendments where necessary to ensure consistency.