Police vetting reforms to boost officer standards

The new measures laid in Parliament today (April 23) mean that passing background checks will become a legal requirement for all serving officers.

It will also create a new process to enable forces to remove officers who are unable to meet the vetting requirement, strengthening the ability of police chiefs to boost standards in their force and ensuring their officers can have confidence in the colleagues they work alongside.

The Home Office says this will help ensure that the police have the confidence of the communities they serve.

The strengthened police dismissal system will be in force from May 14.

Later in the year, further measures will be brought in to strengthen vetting national standards and ensure every force follows them, introduce stronger requirements to suspend officers under investigation for violence against women and girls and ensure officers convicted of certain criminal offences are automatically found to have committed gross misconduct.

Officers can fail vetting for a number of reasons, including crimes such as domestic and sexual abuse. While there are processes already in place for forces to deal with allegations of misconduct, failing vetting alone might not currently be enough to dismiss them.

Recent legal challenges have brought to light the difficulty forces can have in removing officers who cannot hold vetting and are not fit to protect the public.

“It can even mean they stay in the force on full pay, despite not being fit to be in a public-facing role,” the Home Office said. “The Government will not stand for this injustice, which erodes confidence in policing. That is why we are taking action to ensure officers face the full accountability the public expects.”

It comes after the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) warned policing had been “left in a hopeless position” after a High Court judgment found it was unlawful to dismiss officers by removing their vetting clearance.

Sir Mark Rowley said it was “absurd” that the force cannot lawfully sack officers who are “not fit to hold vetting”.

The MPS has now been granted leave to appeal the High Court judgment made in February in relation to Operation Assure.

The judgment followed a judicial review which challenged Assure – the MPS’s process, based on national guidance, to consider dismissing officers who can no longer pass vetting. The MPS lost the judicial review but leave to appeal was granted by the Court of Appeal on Thursday, (April 17), based upon this being a matter of public importance.

Sir Mark said the reforms will close a “glaring gap in the law”.

He said: “The ability to hold a vetting clearance is the most basic indication of whether someone can be trusted to hold the extensive and often intrusive powers that police officers are given.

“It was never right that an officer could lose their vetting, but not lose their job.

“These reforms close that glaring gap in the law and will allow us to move swiftly to remove those who have no place in policing.

“This matters not just for the public we serve but for the vast majority of hardworking officers who should be able to feel safe, have full trust in those they work alongside and have the confidence of the public.”

National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vetting, Chief Constable Alex Franklin-Smith, said: “Police officers and staff should always be held to the highest standards and we must ensure that only those who are suitable to wear the uniform enter, and remain in policing.

“Alongside delivering vetting reform, we are working hard to build a culture where the public and colleagues feel empowered to report concerns and know that those concerns will be addressed and dealt with accordingly.

“We welcome the announcement today of statutory vetting regulations, which provide clear routes for action to remove individuals who fall below the high standards the public and our workforce rightly expect and deserve.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “In recent years, serious cases which have badly failed all proper policing standards have damaged public trust in the officers who are supposed to protect them, and undermined the majority of brave, committed officers who work tirelessly to keep us safe.

“It is simply not acceptable that officers who are clearly unfit to serve or pose a risk to their colleagues cannot be removed. That’s why these new rules are essential and it is why this government has been working closely with forces to overcome these barriers to restore confidence in policing.”

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners joint lead for transparency and accountability and deputy mayor for West Yorkshire, Alison Lowe, welcomed the new measures, which she says will help to ensure that “only those officers who meet the highest policing standards are able to serve the public in the way that we all expect and deserve”.

“As the directly elected voice of the public in policing, police and crime commissioners (PCCs) will provide the necessary checks and balances and hold chief constables to account for rooting out those who are not fit to serve and improving force cultures,” said Ms Lowe.

“I would also draw attention to the fact that many of these new measures carry a significant administrative cost which PCCs will struggle to meet from their existing budgets and would want to see this accounted for in future police funding settlements.”

Gary Rubin, partner and head of Regulatory at Blackfords LLP, said: “As lawyers who regularly represent police officers facing allegations of either criminal or misconduct behaviour, and in circumstances where attempts have been made to dismiss them following decisions to remove their vetting clearance, these new regulations are of significance.

“The fact that these regulations are now being implemented in such a way that permit the dismissal of police officers in instances where vetting clearance has been removed should ring alarm bells for any officer.

“Clearly, much will depend on precisely how the vetting regulations are implemented in practice, and of course the extent to which procedural and Article 6 safeguards – the latter providing the all-important right to a fair trial or hearing – are complied with to ensure that dismissal does not occur in circumstances where unfounded allegations or vetting related concerns have been raised – a situation we see all too often.

Any new or further alleged misconduct found during the vetting process which fall under the existing conduct regime, should always be dealt with as a conduct case rather than vetting. As always, we wait to see how these new regulations are implemented.”

Campaigner for SecureLife and the advocate for Raneem’s Law, Nour Norris, said: “SecureLife has campaigned for years to bring about a new law that safeguards victims, reforms the police, and evolves a system that, for too long protected the wrong people.

“The new police vetting reform to boost officer standards is a vital action, one we’ve called for time and again.”

Isabelle Younane, head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid, said: “It is crucial for women to feel safe when reporting abuse of any kind to the police, but with poor vetting practices allowing dangerous perpetrators into ranks, it is impossible for survivors to trust that they will be. Women’s Aid welcome the reforms announced by the Home Office today, which will boost vetting standards and allow forces to dismiss officers whose behaviours makes them unsuitable for duty.

“However, we continue to urge for more action to be taken to transform policing into a safe institution for all.

“Rigorous vetting processes need to be established so that individuals with the misogynistic attitudes and beliefs that underpin violence against women and girls aren’t able to pass in the first place, blocking them from ever being in police ranks. We support the recommendations made by HMICFRS and the Angiolini Inquiry relating to vetting, recruitment, misconduct and misogyny in policing, and call for the urgent implementation of all proposals.

“On top of this, we encourage the implementation of the 12-point plan for responding to the epidemic that is police perpetrated domestic abuse proposed by Centre for Women’s Justice, which includes criminal investigations into police perpetrators being carried out by external forces, and not in house.

“As it stands only one in five survivors report domestic abuse to the police, and far less receive justice. This is totally unacceptable and needs to change. Until we see full reform, with proper monitoring from the Home Office to ensure accountability, survivors cannot be confident in reporting abuse to the police, and justice will continue to go unserved.

“It must also be acknowledged that the achievement of the Government’s commitment to halve VAWG in a decade will require a whole-system, cross-departmental approach that goes beyond criminal justice outcomes. This is not least because many survivors – despite positive reforms to policing and the courts – may never choose to pursue legal avenues.”

The Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) welcomed the creation new powers enabling chief constables to sack officers if they fail vetting standards.

CWJ said it has repeatedly raised concerns about the number of serving police officers who have been accused, in some cases by multiple women, of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

It said: “In our report on police perpetrated domestic abuse (PPDA) published in September 2024, we highlighted this as a key problem that needed addressing.

“Many of the two hundred plus women who spoke with us told us that the officers they accused had had previous allegations against them, which had not been properly addressed. Some told us that despite multiple allegations, their abusers were even promoted into senior positions.”

Harriet Wistrich, Director of CWJ, stated: “Over the last five years since we launched our police super-complaint on police perpetrated domestic abuse, there have been repeated scandals and evidence of police officers still serving despite serious and often repeated allegations against them of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

“Officers are given significant powers and status to enforce the law, which is why it is crucial that the highest standards of integrity apply to such people. In our work we have seen that power and status be misused by many bad actors. We are pleased to see the government taking forward some of the reforms that we have recommended, aimed at preventing some of the worst scandals in the history of policing being repeated.”