IOPC policy on amended use of force standard in current misconduct cases

The IOPC has confirmed its position on applying the amended law change to the use of force standard of professional behaviour for current misconduct cases.

In October 2025, the Home Secretary announced the government accepted a recommendation to change the test for use of force in police misconduct cases from the civil law test to the criminal law test, which would require amendments to legislation.

On 9 June, we received the wording of the legislation change, which was clear that the test for use of force in police misconduct cases will change from the date the law change came into effect – which occurred on 30 June. The law change is not applied retrospectively to case to answer decisions that were previously made using the civil law test. 

Under the police complaints legislation, there is a two-stage process for determining whether misconduct proceedings should go ahead: we must first consider whether there is a case to answer and then determine whether disciplinary action and proceedings are justified. 

We have carefully considered the legislation change and, in order to apply the law in the most fair and proportionate way, we have decided that in these cases, disciplinary action is no longer justified and any proceedings should be withdrawn. This prevents any unfairness that would occur if officers faced potential dismissal for misconduct, which if it occurred now, would not amount to misconduct under the new law.

This will be applied to all relevant cases unless there are exceptional circumstances, where clear rationale will be needed. 

It is important that a fair and consistent approach is taken across both IOPC cases and forces across England and Wales for relevant misconduct cases, which are yet to take place, that fall into this ‘transitional period’. For this reason, we have shared our position with the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

IOPC Director of Strategy and Policy Andrew Johnson said: “We carefully considered the law change and its stated intent to address the perceived unfairness and lack of proportionality of the civil law test.

“We believe this position provides consistency across impacted cases and is fair to officers who are facing potential dismissal for misconduct, which if it occurred now, would not amount to misconduct under the new law. We expect the number of relevant cases that are affected by this law change to be relatively small.”

We have written to the parties involved in the investigation into the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba to inform them of our policy position and invited them to make representations about whether there are exceptional factors for not following our policy in this case. We will consider their response before making a decision about whether misconduct proceedings remain justified.