UK Police Complaints by Force
Complaint cases logged against every England & Wales force in 2024/25 (IOPC), ranked with complaints per 1,000 officers.
Reviewed by the BlueLineHub Editorial Team
Last reviewed: 29 May 2026 · Next review due: 29 November 2026
Police forces logged 94,940 complaint cases in 2024/25 across the 44 forces below (IOPC). The table is ranked by complaints per 1,000 officers — a fairer comparison than raw totals, which track force size. A complaint being logged says nothing about whether it was upheld; high numbers can reflect an accessible complaints process as much as anything else.
Download CSV| # | Force | Complaints 2024/25 | Per 1,000 officers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cleveland | 2,109 | 1562 |
| 2 | Surrey | 2,648 | 1204 |
| 3 | Gloucestershire | 1,474 | 1179 |
| 4 | Wiltshire | 1,331 | 1157 |
| 5 | Hampshire | 3,752 | 1072 |
| 6 | Lincolnshire | 1,263 | 1010 |
| 7 | Dorset | 1,325 | 981 |
| 8 | Staffordshire | 1,811 | 953 |
| 9 | South Wales | 2,934 | 946 |
| 10 | Cumbria | 1,117 | 931 |
| 11 | Kent | 3,480 | 892 |
| 12 | Northumbria | 3,300 | 892 |
| 13 | Avon & Somerset | 2,835 | 886 |
| 14 | Derbyshire | 1,801 | 879 |
| 15 | Warwickshire | 942 | 856 |
| 16 | Thames Valley | 4,017 | 855 |
| 17 | Essex | 3,163 | 843 |
| 18 | Greater Manchester | 6,664 | 813 |
| 19 | Humberside | 1,682 | 801 |
| 20 | Bedfordshire | 1,111 | 794 |
| 21 | West Mercia | 1,922 | 784 |
| 22 | Northamptonshire | 1,158 | 772 |
| 23 | Cheshire | 1,691 | 769 |
| 24 | Durham | 960 | 768 |
| 25 | Nottinghamshire | 1,708 | 727 |
| 26 | Sussex | 2,258 | 717 |
| 27 | Dyfed-Powys | 893 | 714 |
| 28 | North Yorkshire | 1,174 | 712 |
| 29 | Leicestershire | 1,537 | 699 |
| 30 | Cambridgeshire | 1,141 | 652 |
| 31 | City of London | 570 | 633 |
| 32 | Hertfordshire | 1,474 | 627 |
| 33 | West Yorkshire | 3,772 | 618 |
| 34 | Lancashire | 1,998 | 579 |
| 35 | Merseyside | 2,293 | 566 |
| 36 | West Midlands | 4,130 | 519 |
| 37 | South Yorkshire | 1,406 | 461 |
| 38 | Gwent | 624 | 430 |
| 39 | Devon & Cornwall | 1,354 | 398 |
| 40 | North Wales | 568 | 366 |
| 41 | Metropolitan | 12,039 | 349 |
| 42 | British Transport | 811 | 253 |
| 43 | Suffolk | 320 | 237 |
| 44 | Norfolk | 380 | 217 |
“Complaints per 1,000 officers” is a BlueLineHub calculation from Home Office officer numbers, so it differs from the IOPC’s own “per 1,000 employees” figure (which also counts police staff). Logging practices vary between forces, so cross-force comparisons should be read with care. A logged complaint is not a finding of wrongdoing.
Source: Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) — Police complaints statistics for England & Wales 2024/25, Table 1 (complaint cases logged) (Open Government Licence v3.0). Officer numbers: Home Office police workforce statistics.