Is the police workplace safe?

In April 2026, the National Police Chiefs’ Council confirmed a reduction in the hours allocated to unarmed defensive tactics (UDT) and officer safety training (OST).

The decision was framed as a pragmatic response to competing demands on officer development time. It may also represent a measurable failure of the employer’s duty of care under health and safety law. One with consequences that are only beginning to be tested in court.

The Police (Health and Safety) Act 1997 formally brought the police workplace within the scope of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA). Although officers technically hold the office of constable in contract law terms, for health and safety purposes they are treated as employees of the Office of the Chief Constable or Commissioner.

The Section 2 duty under HSWA demands that employers ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of officers while at work. The law recognises that policing inevitably involves danger and does not require police work to be completely safe.

What it does require is reasonable risk assessment, planning and control of foreseeable risks, appropriate equipment, training and support, and the avoidance of unnecessary or preventable harm.

HSE guidance explicitly confirms that officers will not be prosecuted for putting themselves at risk to protect the public, provided their decisions are sensible and proportionate. That principle applies not only to the actions of the employee but to the planning of the employer.

Testing health and safety in context

There is no serious challenge to the presumption that policing cannot be totally safe at all times. However, the recognition that risk is inevitable does not remove it from the employer’s managed responsibility. Understanding what policing actually requires — in terms of real-world duties and functions — should inform the reasonable measures a proportionate employer takes to mitigate risk.

Under HSWA 1974 as amended, the police employer retains a contextual relationship with government via the Home Office. The creation of a National Police Service would reinforce that relationship further, with the Home Office assuming ultimate responsibility. The practical implication is that shortfalls in any particular force could carry ramifications nationally, given the unique structure of policing as a state provision.

The job of the police

The role is generally accepted as the prevention and detection of crime. It entails unique warranted powers, including the power to arrest and, where necessary, to use reasonable force — governed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Criminal Law Act 1967, and the Human Rights Act 1998.

At force level, standing orders give practical expression to these powers. Many require, for example, that an arrested person be accompanied by two officers and seated in a specific position within a police vehicle, with a second officer present.

If the role as defined by the employer requires two officers, two officers should be there. The parallel with single-crewed ambulances or fire engines is instructive: the question of whether a single-crewed police vehicle is either practical or lawful has never been satisfactorily resolved.

The legality of safe force

The power to use reasonable force derives from the Criminal Law Act 1967. The principle is minimum force, proportionate to the circumstances. In practice, use of force is operationalised through public order manuals and unarmed defensive tactics (UDT) or officer safety training (OST), underpinned by the principles of Taiho-Jutsu.

Critics have long argued that eight hours of training is insufficient to equip officers with the skills required for arrest, detention and self-protection. Given rising violence against officers, the rationale for that decision warrants scrutiny — not least because training decisions are squarely within the scope of the employer’s HSWA duty.

Expert testimony

Peter King offers useful perspective. A retired police officer with postgraduate qualifications in sports science and biomechanics from Middlesex and Greenwich Universities, he has taught public order and officer safety and holds senior qualifications in Taiho-Jutsu. He is now chief instructor for UK Taiho-Jutsu — Defensive Tactics and Restraint.

“The public cannot have confidence in the police to protect them if the police cannot protect themselves,” King says. “As a society we need to provide officers with better physical and tactical skills that will allow them to go home unharmed at the end of their shifts.”

Home Office data recorded 47,522 assaults on police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2025, with at least a quarter resulting in injury — approximately 12,000 officers harmed in a single year, from a total establishment of around 145,550. A BBC Freedom of Information request found 37,786 physical assaults in 2023, an average of 103 every day and an 11 per cent rise on 2021 figures.

“There is no other occupation or industry that would consider that number being anywhere near acceptable — and neither should the police,” King argues. He draws a direct comparison with driver training: sustained investment over decades has demonstrably reduced collision rates. Were 12,000 officers injured annually in vehicle incidents, driver training would be fundamentally revised.

His concern centres on how physical skills are acquired. Evidence-based skills acquisition depends on motor learning — structured, repeated practice that embeds technique at a level that holds under operational pressure.

Scenario training is a useful tool for testing the application of force legislation and introducing controlled stress, but it is not the primary route to acquiring the physical competence officers need. “Without a training focus that allows for skills acquisition, both in terms of quality and length of training, any organisation will be failing to satisfy its legal obligations in relation to the safety of its staff.”

Competing demands

The counter-argument is familiar. Training time is finite. There are legitimate claims from first aid, driver training, conflict management, mental health awareness and a range of other statutory obligations. Views change over time — swimming was once mandated for officers; it no longer is.

But there is a logical limit to that argument. If the employer decides that a particular function is no longer part of the role — and removes the training for it — that is a coherent position. If the employer continues to require officers to perform that function while reducing the training that equips them to do so safely, the position becomes harder to sustain. The employer cannot reasonably have it both ways.

The duty under HSWA as amended rests with the police employer. It is not for a claimant to prove the workplace is unsafe; the burden falls on the employer to demonstrate that it is. Operational necessity may form part of the rationale, but it is not in itself sufficient to discharge that obligation.

The direction of travel

In HSE v Derbyshire Constabulary (2026), the force entered a guilty plea under Section 2(1) HSWA following an incident during public order training. The court found the workplace — in that specific training context — to be unsafe. The fine was £60,000 with costs, echoing an earlier conviction of Greater Manchester Police following a training exercise prosecuted by the HSE at Liverpool Crown Court in 2008.

These cases have so far concerned discrete training incidents rather than systemic policy. But the legal architecture for a broader challenge is in place. The Employment Rights Act as amended in 2021 extends to all workers the right to refuse work they reasonably consider unsafe.

Employment tribunals can examine unsafe working conditions through available legislation, as demonstrated in L Darby v Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary (2024). The IOPC has investigated multiple cases involving detention techniques — some found lawful, some not — and the proliferation of digital capture means scrutiny of physical confrontations will only increase.

No tribunal has yet declared the police workplace systemically unsafe.

Yet.