National decision model
Decision Making — Authorised Professional Practice
Summary
The National Decision Model (NDM) provides a framework for police decision-making, recognizing the complexity of situations and the potential for incomplete or misleading information. It emphasizes the importance of the Code of Ethics as a guiding principle in the decision-making process. The NDM encourages officers to exercise discretion while managing risks and balancing resources against demands. Support will be provided to decision-makers whose choices are deemed reasonable in context, even if adverse outcomes occur. The NDM is distinct to policing, whereas the Joint Decision Model (JDM) is designed for collaborative decision-making with partner agencies, rooted in the NDM framework.
Key principles
- 1Complexity of police decision-making is acknowledged.
- 2The Code of Ethics underpins all decisions.
- 3Encourages the use of discretion and reduces risk aversion.
- 4Supports decision-makers if their choices are reasonable given the circumstances.
- 5Distinction between the NDM for policing and JDM for joint agency collaboration.
Full guidance
This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.
Police decision making is often complex. Decisions are required in difficult circumstances and are often made based on incomplete or contradictory information. In addition, police officers and police staff are sometimes required to make decisions in circumstances where those involved deliberately mislead or try to mislead them. It is, therefore, not surprising that sometimes the decision does not achieve the best outcome.
To help everyone in policing make decisions and to provide a framework in which decisions can be examined and challenged, both at the time and afterwards, the police service has adopted a single, national decision model (NDM).
The model has at its centre the Code of Ethics as the touchstone for all decision making. Using the model encourages officers and staff to act in accordance with the Code and use their discretion where appropriate. It also reduces risk aversion and weighs the balance of resourcing against demand, threat and risk.
Decision makers will receive the support of their organisation in instances where it can be shown that their decisions were assessed and managed reasonably in the circumstances existing at the time. This support applies even where harm results from those decisions and actions.
The NDM is specific to policing. The joint decision model (JDM) has been developed for use when officers and staff are making decisions jointly with other partner agencies. It is based on the NDM and is included within the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme(opens an external website in the same tab) (JESIP).
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Read the full APP guidanceSource: College of Policing — Authorised Professional Practice · Crown copyright, licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0. Summary fetched 2026-06-27.