Police service is not "employment" for the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Accordingly the police do not have the normal statutory protections against unfair dismissal and/or redundancy and/or unlawful deduction from wages. However, special rules extend the sex, race and disability discrimination legislation and whistleblowing and Health and Safety rules to police officers.

So far as the public are concerned, complaints about police activities should be directed to the Independent Police Complaints Commission which replaced the former Police Complaints Authority from 1st April 2004 (the detailed rules concerning complaints are in the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2004 SI 2004/643).

With effect from 2nd April 2001 and as a direct consequence of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry, rules were introduced by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 to ensure that Chief Constables are vicariously liable for acts of racial discrimination committed by police officers. In July 2003 a similar change was made to to sex discrimination law (by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (Amendment) Regulations 2003 SI 2003/1657 which came into effect on 19th July 2003 - see Sex discrimination/2003 regulations ). See generally notes on Vicarious liability .

Details of terms of service for police officers are set out in the Police Regulations 2003 SI 2003/527 (as amended by Police (Amendment) Regulations 2005, SI 2005/2834 and by the Police (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/3449) , which revoked the previous Police Regulations 1995, SI 1995/215 as well as various previous amending and related orders).

It is a criminal offence for anyone to do "any act calculated to induce any member of a police force to withhold his services". This effectively prevents the Police from going on strike.

The Association of Chief Police Officers in England and Wales is reported (2007) as saying that current lawful "positive action", is not working in connection with the aim of achieving Home Office targets for employment set at seven per cent for minority ethnic officers and 35 per cent for women in the service by 2009 - lawful positive action means encouragement of more minority group applicants to come forward and to work to qualify for the minimum standards for the police ( Daily Telegraph 20th April 2007 - Police race targets 'will take decades' and see notes at Racial discrimination/positive discrimination ).

In 2001 the government issued a Home Office report on "Flexible Working Practices in the Police Service", 2001 (for a brief outline see 2001/12/18 - Home Office Press Release 047/2001 re fexible work and for general notes see Flexible Working ).

This was followed by a Police Reform Act 2002 (enacted on 24th July 2002) which includes new arrangements for removal, suspension and disciplining of police officers and for giving them the protection of the whistleblowing legislation. Details of the dates on which various sections have so far come into force (as at July 2007) are in the Police Reform Act 2002 (Commencement No. 10) Order 2004 SI 2004/3338.

In August 2008 the Government announced a Review of Police Injury Benefits consultation, 26.08.08.

go to next updated reference in this note.