Police misconduct, England and Wales: year ending 31 March 2024
Source: gov.uk (2025-01-30)

Statistics on the number of police complaints, conduct matters and recordable conduct matters finalised in the year ending 31 March 2024.

This release contains information on the number of police complaints, conduct matters and recordable conduct matters recorded by the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales in the year ending 31 March 2024.

The publication primarily focuses on those which were referred to misconduct proceedings. Data for all cases referred to misconduct proceedings is presented by:
- breach type
- the type of proceeding
- the outcome at such proceedings, including the level of misconduct found proven and disciplinary actions imposed
- where applicable, the result of appeals made to the Police Appeal Tribunal
Not all allegations will be handled at misconduct proceedings; in some allegations there may not have been a case to answer for misconduct, or the allegation was resolved via others means. Information is provided on the total number of police complaint, conduct matter and recordable conduct matter allegations finalised, including those not referred to misconduct proceedings.

For all allegations, information is provided on:
- allegation and breach types
- whether there was a case to answer
- the action and result taken
In addition, the publication includes timeliness measures (for how long it took to finalise such cases) and information on the number of cases which involved criminal proceedings.

Open data tables complementing this statistical release (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-misconduct-open-data-tables) are also published and include information on the outcome of proceedings and allegations by protected characteristics (age, ethnicity and gender).

Tables labelled ‘misconduct proceedings’ include information on the misconduct finding level and outcome of meetings, hearings and accelerated hearings.

Tables labelled ‘misconduct allegations’ include information on the case to answer decision and action taken for conduct, recordable conduct and complaint (investigated subject to Special Procedures) allegations.

The data includes cases handled under the current regulations only which came into effect on 1 February 2020. Data is provided for police officers (which includes special constables) and police staff (which includes civilian staff, designated officers and Police Community Support Officers).

The data is Official Statistics in Development (formerly known as Experimental Statistics) to acknowledge that they should be interpreted with caution. These statistics are going through development, with a potentially wider degree of uncertainty in the figures whilst processes are established and verified.

See the ‘User guide to Police misconduct statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/user-guide-to-police-misconduct-statistics/user-guide-to-police-misconduct-statistics)’ for further information, including a glossary, conventions used, information regarding data quality and other background information.

To support the future development of these statistics and expand our user reach, we encourage users to complete our user engagement user engagement survey (https://www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/HOPoliceMisconductPublicationSurvey/).

If you have any queries about this release, please email xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx) or write to:

Policing and Fire Analysis Unit2nd floor Peel Building2 Marsham StreetLondonSW1P 4DF

The Home Office responsible statistician is Jodie Hargreaves.