IOPC figures show more police referrals than ever before

Figures released by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) reveal a record number of referrals from police forces – and a big increase in the number of independent investigations taken on by the police watchdog.

End-of-year data shows the IOPC received 7,088 referrals in 2025-26 – the most over a 12-month period since IOPC’s inception – and completed more than 7,000 referrals for the first time in our history.

During the same period, we took 316 independent investigations which is an increase of 31 per cent on the number (241) we started in 2024-25.

That includes 134 investigations into allegations of police misconduct, 81 in cases where someone has died or been seriously injured (DSI) following police contact, and 101 triggered by complaints.

We completed 245 independent investigations in 2025-26 which is in line with the number we finalised the previous year.

IOPC Deputy Director General, Steve Noonan said: “We’re seeing increased demand, with more referrals than ever before being submitted to our Assessment Unit. We’ve responded well to the challenge and are now making more timely decisions.

“It takes an average of 4.3 days to assess and complete a referral, down from more than eight days previously. That’s a major improvement and is due to efficiency gains in our case management system, plus more intrusive triage of referrals to quickly identify issues and prioritise cases. 

“We’re pleased to have taken on 316 independent investigations in the last 12 months. It’s important for public confidence that there is independent scrutiny into serious cases involving police contact and the most serious allegations of misconduct.

“However, we’d like to take on even more independent investigations but of course that needs to be weighed up against our resource.

“We handle some of the most complex investigations and it is credit to our teams that almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of independent investigations are completed inside 12 months, while 32 per cent are finalised within six months.

“We’ve slightly improved our completion rates compared to the previous year (73 and 31% respectively). We’ve done that during a period of structural reorganisation, and while setting ourselves more challenging targets. Previously, we considered investigations completed when a report was approved, but now it’s only once that report has been further reviewed, the decision making process finalized, and evidence sent to the appropriate authority.

“We know we have more to do around the timeliness of our investigations. But we’re seeing improvements on the back of our Transformation Programme which has seen us adopt a national delivery model to ensure we direct resources according to demand and priorities.”

The figures also show that the IOPC received more than 3,000 requests to independently review the outcome of complaints made to police forces.

Anyone who complains to a police force about the service they receive can ask for a review into how their complaint was handled if they are not satisfied with the outcome. Last year our Casework team received 3,051 review requests, up 24.3 per cent on 2024-25 when we received 2,455.

The team completed 3,500 reviews in 2025-26, up 61 per cent on the 2,169 the previous year thanks to an overhaul of how reviews are handled.

Mr Noonan, added: “Casework has been a standout success in the last year. A significant backlog had developed, due largely to a change in legislation from an appeals to a review process. That required staff retraining and for us to handle cases under both new and old legislation at the same time.

“We’ve made guidance for complainants clearer, improved our website, and adopted greater thematic and proportionate working within our casework teams to improve productivity and encourage specialist knowledge. These changes help us identify themes, trends and areas of good and poor practice, and to make evidence-based learning recommendations to improve police complaints handling.

“The backlog is clearing, with more reviews completed than opened every month in the last year, thanks to the hard work of our staff and procedural improvements we’ve made.

“Ultimately it means people who’ve asked for a review are getting an improved service from us and answers to their questions in a much quicker time. 

“We’re also engaging with police forces on our Right First Time initiative which helps forces improve their complaints handling, with the aim of increasing complainant satisfaction levels and in turn, reduce the number of reviews that are made.”