Police complaints statistics

Police force professional standards departments deal with the majority of complaints about the police. However, we investigate the most serious complaints and incidents and set the standards by which the police should handle complaints. 

We collect information from all police forces in England and Wales about the types of complaints they are receiving and how long they take to deal with them.

Collecting this data is important. It develops our understanding of how different forces and local policing bodies are running the local police complaints system. It also allows us to identify good practice, trends and differences that we need to look into. 

Each year, we publish statistics about the complaints that forces have logged. We also produce quarterly bulletins for all police forces.