Independence
This site is not run by the police. It has no affiliation with any police force, the National Police Chiefs' Council, the College of Policing, the Home Office, the Police Federation or any other staff association. Nothing published here is official guidance, and nothing here has been approved by any of those organisations.
That matters in two directions. It means the site can summarise things plainly, without a policy line to defend. It also means the site has no authority. Where a decision affects your service, your pay or your health, the organisation that holds the power to decide is the one to ask.
Why it exists
The information officers need is public, but it is scattered. Pay sits in determinations, pensions in three sets of regulations and a remedy that changed all of them, conduct in a 2020 statutory instrument, welfare across half a dozen independent charities. Finding the right document is often harder than reading it.
The guides here are written to answer the question first and then show you where the answer comes from, so you can check it or take it to someone who can act on it.
How the guides are compiled
- Each guide is built from primary sources: legislation on legislation.gov.uk, published guidance from the College of Policing and the IOPC, review body reports, and the published material of the welfare charities.
- Figures that change annually, such as pay scales and contribution rates, are deliberately left out rather than published and allowed to go stale. The page points to where the current number lives instead.
- Every guide carries a review date. If a page has not been reviewed recently, treat it with more caution.
- Where the position differs in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the guide says so rather than implying that England and Wales rules apply across the UK.
What this site will not do
It does not give legal, financial or medical advice, and it cannot advise on an individual case. It does not take complaints about the police, and it has no way to pass one on. It is not a route to contact a force, and it holds no information about any individual officer.
For a live conduct or performance matter, contact your staff association. For a complaint about the police, contact the force concerned or the Independent Office for Police Conduct. For a pension calculation, contact your force's pension administrator.
Corrections
Regulations change, services close and websites move. If something here is wrong or out of date, send us the detail and, where possible, the source. Corrections are made to the page and the review date is updated.
Funding and links
The site is small and inexpensive to run. Links to outside organisations are included because they are useful, and the official sources listed on the home page are included on the same basis. Where a link points to a commercial service, such as a job board, it is identified as one so you can judge it accordingly.
Questions about the site, its sources or its independence can go to hello@poilice.uk.